Anything else to try before formatting?

NotAGolf

NotAGolf

NotAGolf

Soldato
Joined
22 Oct 2005
Posts
2,883
Location
Moving...
I have an HP Pavilion DM1-4004sa which I've had for about 18 months now. Lately I've noticed it seems to be struggling more with day to day tasks, but mostly when browsing the web. The main culprit is it jumping/skipping when streaming videos, but even silly things like scrolling a web page, especially when images are involved is a bit of a pain.

I've done the following which normally helps get things tidied up but still no luck:
- Windows update
- Tested multiple browsers (chrome, firefox and IE - all up to date)
- Disabled browser add ons
- Virus scans (MSE, malware antibytes, spybot S+D)
- Uninstalled any useless programs
- CCleaner (cleaner, registry and removed and unnecessary startup apps)
- Windows system clean up
- Cleared up hard drive (30%+ free)
- Defrag

Normally at this point I'd give up and format it, but it's my first laptop and it doesn't seem as straightforward as a good old fashioned desktop. It doesn't have an optical drive, instead it has a recovery partition which I'm assuming will allow me to do a full reset, but not only will I have to re-install loads of software, I'd also need to clear all the bloatware that came with it.

Anything else worth trying before giving up entirely?
 
It might be unlikely but is something which tripped me up before.

Try checking the power management. I once set my laptop to a low power profile to keep fan noise down when downloading overnight. The profile down clocked the CPU to a point where it was nearly unusable.
 
mpledge52 said:
IIt doesn't have an optical drive, instead it has a recovery partition which I'm assuming will allow me to do a full reset, but not only will I have to re-install loads of software, I'd also need to clear all the bloatware that came with it.
Click to expand...

You can install a clean bloatware-free version of Windows from a USB drive.
 
mpledge52 said:
Normally at this point I'd give up and format it, but it's my first laptop and it doesn't seem as straightforward as a good old fashioned desktop. It doesn't have an optical drive, instead it has a recovery partition which I'm assuming will allow me to do a full reset, but not only will I have to re-install loads of software, I'd also need to clear all the bloatware that came with it.

Anything else worth trying before giving up entirely?
Click to expand...
The thing is, you could spend endless hours fannying around trying this, that and the other, but with no guarantee (or even likelihood) that things will get significantly better, and in the end you'd probably have spent considerably less time and effort reformatting and starting from scratch.

You can download a Win7 ISO from here for use with the product key on your CoA sticker - as your laptop doesn't have an optical drive, use the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool from MS to create a bootable flash drive. While you're at it, you could repartition the HDD, blow away the silly recovery partition and put the space to more productive use.

This is all assuming it's a software rather than a hardware problem of course.
 
Thanks for all the feedback guys. In answer to your suggestions:

- I took the back off and it's completely clean. No dust here.

- Power settings could've been the issue. I setup a custom one to stop things going into standby when downloading and looking in the advanced settings some of the settings may have affectively been throttling to save power. I've set it back to default and will see how that goes.

- I thought about installing from the disk image, but was worried about having all the necessary drivers. With a desktop I have all the separate disks or at least know the components, whereas with a laptop it's all bundled together, so I'm not sure about things like the trackpad, wifi, general HP tools (coolsense, on screen controls etc) and even the combined cpu/gpu.

- I've never had problems with virus/malware on the laptop so doubt it's worth running them again in safemode.
 
Recently wiped my sisters HP laptop and put Windows 8 on it and the difference is incredible.

It was running Vista which explains most of the poor performance but after a clean Win 8 install its like having a new laptop.

I was surprised to find that pretty much everything installed fine without having to find drivers / software. A couple of sensors needed a driver but I just used the one in the SWSetup folder from the old installation.

I'd imagine that Windows 7 would be pretty pain free as well, I'd recommend keeping the recovery partition though (just in case).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom