Slow computers

[g7jtk]

Can anyone tell me why my laptops run so slowly as to make them almost unusable?
They are a few years old running windows 7. These days I’m using apple stuff but find it annoying that they don’t work.

[grumbledoak]

They can fill up with dust and throttle the CPU to keep temperatures down. More likely you are comparing Apple kit with an SSD against cheaper PC laptops with HDDs.

[dontfollowme]

Need more details but have you tried formatting and reinstalling Windows?

[pokethepope]

If it's got an HDD then switch this with an SSD and update to Windows 10 and it should be very usable - I have budget laptops bought almost 10 years ago that are perfectly fine for browsing, Word, Netflix etc with those upgrades.

[BigTZ4M]

If they're running Windows 7 then I'd guess they are more than just a few years old. That being the case then you'll find a combination of bloatware accumulated slows it down and also your use of more modern machinery with faster internals (particularly SSD vs HDD) resets your perception of what fast and slow are.

The answers you've been given, a fresh copy of Windows on a newly installed SSD, will address both and make it much faster and very usable I suspect.

[Derek Smith]

pokethepope said:

If it's got an HDD then switch this with an SSD and update to Windows 10 and it should be very usable - I have budget laptops bought almost 10 years ago that are perfectly fine for browsing, Word, Netflix etc with those upgrades.

I've done the same. A decent quality 12-14 year old Dell with a 75mb HDD was struggling with Win10. Changed to a 250SSD I had spare (they're dirt cheap now) and it buzzes along on Linux Mint. I take it to cafes and such, or rather did, and did my work. No danger of it getting nicked if I went for a pee - more likely to find another one with it. I use it to connect to BT hotspots. I've never had a problem with hacking, but if I did, it's no great loss.

The speed increase was remarkable. It's not quite as fast as my 'posh' laptop, but then it's worth about a 20th of the price.

[nickofh]

Hello.

Windows seven support ended recently so will have no further updates.

I am using a 10 year old i5 4gb ThinkPad daily with windows 10 and a normal (5400rpm ) hard drive. Its fine for web browsing and light office work etc.

You can download 10 legally from Windows here https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/... The update to win 10 is easy.

If you have a few £ to spare upgrade to an SSD and then install win fresh. It will make a massive difference to performance and give your old laptops a new lease of life. The apple products you are using will almost certainly use these drives and it will close the performance gap.

I still prefer win 7 , but it seems it's not an option for home users anymore if you use your system online.

[66mpg]

When Windows 10 was first made available I installed it on a netbook. It was terribly slow, so slow as to be unusable. For a while I had various Linux distros on it which worked well. Last year I tried Windows 10 again. The recent versions seem to work much better on this old netbook. I don’t use it much as I spend most time on my iPad but it’s an interesting experiment that’s not costing me anything.

If you are still on Windows 7 it’s time to upgrade. Switching the hard disk for an SSD, and expanding the RAM if you can are both worthwhile upgrades. I expanded the netbook to 2GB (maximum allowed) when I bought it secondhand in 2012 and recently changed the hard disk for SSD.

[g7jtk]

The computer is an acre aspire which I have had from new. I don’t have a windows disc to reinstall it and the sticker has worn through. I find it frustrating that all of the computers that I have had run slower in spite of doing the updates and having the antivirus stuff on.
I wasn’t comparing the speed of the Apple machines with it just that they take ages to do anything.

[pills]

Install and run CCCleaner and see how many programmes are running on start up, you might be surprised and if these are taking up memory and processing power it will slow laptop down.

[ZesPak]

g7jtk said:

Can anyone tell me why my laptops run so slowly as to make them almost unusable?
They are a few years old running windows 7. These days I’m using apple stuff but find it annoying that they don’t work.

I haven't got a problem with any machines dating badly, but there's a couple of possible explanations though:

1. As said, dust can clog up, making the machine hotter than needs to be making it throttle. A lot of fan noise and the laptop running hot are usually good indicators.
2. A lot of software running in the background that gets installed "accidentally". Most of it is tailored to Windows as it's ubiquitous, and a half decent machine can cope with most of it. But slower machines might struggle after a while. Best solution: a clean install and make the less weary user a non-admin on the machine.
3. Because you are possibly comparing a 500 quid acer aspire with a 1500 quid macbook. An SSD for example could make a lot of difference.

I've got a Lenovo s21e-20, a 5yo intel celeron laptop, that runs Win 10 just as good as the day it was installed.

[Salted_Peanut]

I have the same problem with Wondows 10, and can't fathom why my computer is tortuously slow. I've ample disc space, defragged it, run CHKDSK, limited the programs running on startup, and updated every driver. What have I missed?

I've not got an SSD. How tricky are they to install, and are they expensive?

[anonymous-user]

I had a problem with cortana running in the background etc,and had to further disable it using an online guide.

[AJB88]

Salted_Peanut said:

I've not got an SSD. How tricky are they to install, and are they expensive?

There's one of your issues right there, quite easy if you get the right type to simply copy the boot drive to SSD.

[Salted_Peanut]

Thanks, I'll have a look at SSDs. What is "the right type" of SSD?

[anonymous-user]

I swapped to a Samsung Evo and they have an app that will do it all for you, all you have to do is physically plug the drive in.

[P4ulB]

The usual bottlenecks in a system are processor, memory and disk.

Swapping to an SSD is a great upgrade to improve speed, but if you are running Windows 10 on a Celeron processor (for example) and 2GB of RAM you are still going to be disappointed.

Also, the amount of unnecessary crap people install on machines is usually a big factor.

Not sure there's enough information in the original post to determine whether just an SSD upgrade would solve the problem.

Edited by P4ulB on Saturday 25th April 12:34

[TPSA7514]

Only by installing Linux, on a new SSD 16gb of ram can you truly have upgraded your old knacker of a laptop

[g7jtk]

pills said:

Install and run CCCleaner and see how many programmes are running on start up, you might be surprised and if these are taking up memory and processing power it will slow laptop down.

Thanks for that. I have just used the cleaner which appears to have improved thing quite a bit.

[TPSA7514]

Seriously see if you can upgrade the machine to Windows 10. If its a dual core processor you probably can