Incredibly slow since updates

Alexander Gummybear

Alexander Gummybear

Alexander Gummybear

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17 Aug 2018
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Hey guys, I bought a really ****** laptop about a year ago. It's been a disapointment, and was slow from the get go. Last week I restored it to factors settings and that helped a lot, but since then it has been doing a lot of Windows 10 updates every night. Today when I loaded it up it was super slow, and kept not responding. I had Word, Acrobat Reader and Mozilla open at once and that was too much for it.

I restarted it, checked task manager, and it's running at 42% RAM just on desktop. It only has 3.8GB of RAM, but uses 1.6GB just at desktop. Right now, with Mozilla open typing this, I am up to using 2.4GB

CPU useage is fine, and HDD useage occasionally spikes to 100% (a bit odd?) and then returns to normal. It's worth noting that I have purpousfully installed the bare minimum of programmes just so that I can run this as a work laptop. It has mozilla, office 365, and acrobat reader. Nothing else.

I know 4GB of RAM is underpowered, but all I need it to do is open web pages and let me write in Word... So I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions? Like I say, it is the updates that seem to have slowed it down most, so, is there anything I can do? I already disabled Cortana and that helped slightly, but not loads.

TIA
 
SSD will make a big difference as I assume the hard disk in the laptop is mechanical and hence very slow.

"HDD usage occasionally spikes to 100% (a bit odd?)" There's your bottleneck.

Stick an SSD in it and it'll be zippy.

Samsung 860. Done.
 
I'm sure new RAM and a new HDD would both help dramatically but... the build quality is very poor. Plasticy and cheap - I've had it a year and I don't have much faith in it lasting much longer than another. Long story short, I'm reluctant to spend any more money because I feel like I am throwing good money after bad.
 
Are you runnng 32 bit? That will limit ram to 3.2 I think. Can you fit another 4?!
An SSD is almost essential these days.
Andi.
 
andicole0 said:
Are you runnng 32 bit? That will limit ram to 3.2 I think. Can you fit another 4?!
An SSD is almost essential these days.
Andi.
Click to expand...
I am not entirely sure, but I believe 32 bit. System information lists both... But I would guess at 32.

It was running perfectly fine with a fresh install. I opened the three programmes I listed above and RAM usage shot to 75%. I am certain this is the problem... but I was hoping for a solution that will not involve buying new ram, tearing the laptop apart to install it, and buying windows 10 64 bit to use it...
 
What laptop is it, and/or specs

If you buy an SSD and more RAM, it's not wasted money as they can be moved to another machine in future, or sold on. What it sounds like is the lack of ram means the system is using the pagefile, which is stored on the hard drive, and a regular HDD is horrifically slow for that kind of use, so extra RAM will be a definite help, but an SSD will help even more.
 
Does it have the 500GB hard drive? I can see you can get it with the 128GB SSD or 500GB hard drive. The CPU looks pretty reasonable, 4GB RAM is a killer these days on a laptop, phones have that and more now!

My advice would be getting an additional 4GB stick of RAM, and consider an SSD.
 
It's a mechanical HDD for sure. I'm not sure on the size but 500GB sounds about right.

The laptop I had before this was a Lenovo with 4GB RAM and it was brilliant - but that was running Windows 7 and clearly since then there have been significant increases in what a system demands.
 
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Well, Windows 10 can run on fairly little RAM, I have a Linx10 tablet next to me with Chrome open using 1.4 out of 1.9GB RAM, but Chrome is literally the only thing installed on it.

Might be worth having a look in task manager, on the processes tab, and click on the memory column to put the highest memory use at the top, and see which specific programs are using the memory.
 
With Windows just because it is showing high RAM usage doesn't mean some or a large amount of that RAM isn't available as it tries not to leave much RAM sitting there doing nothing and cache things instead that it thinks you might use next, etc. but it can free that stuff up if something actually needs the RAM.

Make sure you are showing all processes when looking at CPU usage as I've found with some recently updates with Windows 10 the malware protection engine can go crazy chugging a lot of CPU and/or disc IO and sometimes Windows 10 will start using a lot of resources in the background sometimes for hours on end prepping for the next update :(

Also use something like Hardware Monitor and make sure it isn't overheating as that is often the 2nd biggest cause of systems running really laggy.
 
Nothing that stands out as using an awful lot...

Firefox is somehow hogging 500mb (1 tab), but after that it is anti-malware service executable on 43mb (negligeable) and service host: superfetch on 41mb... then a loooooong list of various windows system applications using tiny amounts but... I guess it adds up.

If I were to buy a SSD I have 2 questions:

1) What is the expected lifespan of one? If I bought it now, would it still function in, say, 4 years? 6 years? If so, the potential of re-using it is a definite bonus.

2) Is it a tricky issue to transfer the opperating system over? I don't have a Windows disk for a fresh install, so I would be reliant on the OEM system which is on the existing HDD. Actually perhaps on a D drive, although I assume this is a partition of the HDD rather than an actual physical secondary HDD?
 
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warren_1979 said:
If all your using it for is Word, Acrobat and Firefox I would put Ubuntu on it. It comes with LibreOffice out of the box so you will be sorted for WP.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately it needs to be Word Word - I need to be able to do things like footnote and have compatability with my colleagues. LibreOffice and OpenOffice just don't cut the mustard, and actually, I am struggling with getting Linux Lite to work on another (very old) laptop currently as an experiment. I'm finding it very difficult to adjust to installing programmes through the terminal. But that is another story!
 
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