Speed up my laptop

Swampyseifer · 8 Apr 2015 at 20:49

Hey all...this may be a common kind of query but basically I've got a Lenovo G710 that I bought brand new about a year and a half ago.

The basic spec is Intel i3-400M @ 2.4ghz, 4gig of RAM and a I've only used about a third of my terabyte HDD. Windows 8.1.

Really I've just noticed that over the last few months, its just getting really really slow! When I turn the laptop on for example, even though I am into windows within maybe 20 seconds...the laptop is still loading up stuff and is practically non-responsive for a good minute or two.

When I load things like Steam or an Office package it just seems to sit there for a long time before it actually starts to do something. Games and applications themselves run fine when playing though, it does seem to be more of loading time issue.

Its the same thing with Internet Explorer - opening it up and it takes a good 40 seconds to get to the home page. Websites also can take a while to load and sometimes website will partly load and I'll think its done so I'll start scrolling and it'll freeze up while it loads more of the page.

I don't know whether its just because the system has got bogged down from usage or whether I've got some junk software that needs cleaning up. Hopefully not a hardware problem...any advice would be great!

deano-5 · 8 Apr 2015 at 20:55

Defrag and use ccleaner. Disable unneeded start up programs

MrMD · 8 Apr 2015 at 20:56

Its worth running Malwarebytes and CCleaner to check your system for malware/virus's.The main culprit will be the Hard drive tho,laptop drives are even slower than desktop ones,and as you install more things to your machine your having to acess the drive more often,and files get fragmented ect.

You need to get an SSD m8,install one those and your system will feel like brand new and be far snappier

varkanoid · 8 Apr 2015 at 21:04

My wife and son both have the G700 series and one which I have had a year and its very fast. Get rid of all the Lenovo software apart from Power Manager as this has an option to prolong your battery if its plugged into the PSU a lot. Run Lenovo update to make sure all the "drivers" are up to date.

First place you need to look is programs and features and see if there is any crap installed and get rid.

My wife's I bought about 4 weeks ago and I put her 128gb SSD from her old laptop (now my son's) and it litteraly boots up in under 10 seconds due to Windows 8. I've not looked at what kind of fastboot option is set but this thing is like lightning and its only got the i3 in it although its got 8gb ram. My son's is pretty nippy too and that has an SSD.

Swampyseifer · 8 Apr 2015 at 21:44

well I've checked the "defragment and optimize drives" widget/app/whatever and all drives are showing 0% fragmentation apart from this one entry...

//?/Volume{475b2abb-98fb-4573-912d-b87d07fc3c4a}\

Its 36% fragmented...

I'll see if I can get some free/trial versions of ccleaner and malwarebytes

new boy · 8 Apr 2015 at 22:14

after 18 months, it would be an excellent idea to get a clean install of windows on it.

It would also be a good idea to get a ssd for the laptop IF it has a 2nd hdd bay OR if your can live with a smaller hdd. You have only used aprox 333.33gb of your 1tb HDD over 18 months? I'm sure with care you could keep that to 240gb? 240-256gb SSDs are very good value for money now, and will blow your mind how quick they are if you havnt experienced one in your desktop or whatever.

I recently popped my old 256gb crucial m4 into my 1st gen i5 laptop, and it feels like I went out and spent 1k on a brand new laptop lol.

CapitalOne · 8 Apr 2015 at 22:19

480gb hyperx upgrade kit approx £200. Stick your 1tb drive in the supplied caddy for whatever purpose.
8gb ddr3 sodimm (2x4gb) £59
Fresh install of windows. Use firefox/chrome instead.

As others have said, the above will make it feel brand new.

CapitalOne · 8 Apr 2015 at 22:20

ps. 480gb ssd plus 1tb mechanical in a caddy should be plenty. I doubt you run bug games on it etc. but may be wrong.

deano-5 · 8 Apr 2015 at 22:54

Get this

YOUR BASKET
1 x Crucial BX100 120GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT120BX100SSD1) £54.98
1 x Akasa N.Stor Laptop optical to 2.5" HDD/SSD - (AK-OA2SSA-BK) £9.98
Total : £74.57 (includes shipping : £8.00).

SSD will be your Windows drive and programs. HDD will be for storage/steam ie

FloppyPoppy · 9 Apr 2015 at 11:28

The manager at my place came to me telling me his laptop was running slow and that he wanted to upgrade the ram in it ( he had 4GB ) After lots of " arguing " about it i finally made him agree to get a SSD instead he sat and watched me install it in his laptop for him and i simply cloned his old HDD on to it. Then before i turned it on he said to me " now your going to see that ram would have been best my son told me so " i asked him how long it usually took to get to a operational point IE having his outlook open and being able to send emails ect he said well i usually turn it on go make a drink and come back and wait a min for it to finish. I pressed the power button and within say 20 seconds he was in outlook and now doesn't argue with me when i tell him what would be best to upgrade on his systems

! But my point being. BUY A SSD they are the single best upgrade for any aging/slowing down systems.

Trig · 9 Apr 2015 at 12:21

Yup, SSD over RAM at this sort of level tbh, I put an SSD into an old C2D laptop, flies now.

CEUOTC · 9 Apr 2015 at 15:04

Mate came to me with his 7 year old AMD Turion powered Vista's home basic laptop. Took 30+seconds to start to load a page via IE, FF or Chrome. 120gb SSD and Linux Mint 17.1 now makes it more than usuable. SSD FTW.

Swampyseifer · 11 Apr 2015 at 17:50

Thanks all...

I have cleaned out a load of apps/games I never use. I've also run ccleaner which sorted out about 4gig of stuff and malwarebytes also cleared a few hundred files out.

I'll see how it is over the next few days and if there's no real change then I guess its SSD time.

Swampyseifer · 11 Apr 2015 at 21:58

deano-5 said:
Get this

YOUR BASKET
1 x Crucial BX100 120GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT120BX100SSD1) £54.98
1 x Akasa N.Stor Laptop optical to 2.5" HDD/SSD - (AK-OA2SSA-BK) £9.98
Total : £74.57 (includes shipping : £8.00).

SSD will be your Windows drive and programs. HDD will be for storage/steam ie

I'm liking this idea...tho I do have some things on optical so I might need to get hold of a USB DVD drive or something.

Also, my Windows didn't come on disk, its on a partition on my TB...so I would I be able to install that back onto the SSD or are we looking at a new windows as well?

radderfire · 11 Apr 2015 at 22:08

You can remove programmes starting with Windows startup, and that should cut down the overall startup time.

Semple · 11 Apr 2015 at 22:13

radderfire said:
You can remove programmes starting with Windows startup, and that should cut down the overall startup time.

Yep take a look at msconfig, pretty much every program you install will do some form of a start-up during booting - really annoys me tbh. Half the stuff only needs to launch when requested, unless obviously you use the program frequently then loading with the o/s makes it ideal.

Batterz · 12 Apr 2015 at 07:34

disable all the startup programe which have no use. cc clean and defrag hard drive

Trig · 12 Apr 2015 at 18:39

Be careful with msconfig, you can kill a machine from there if you dont know what you are doing...
Always see people saying use it but never see anyone throwing a warning up as well...

Swampyseifer · 12 Apr 2015 at 19:08

Trig said:
Be careful with msconfig, you can kill a machine from there if you dont know what you are doing...
Always see people saying use it but never see anyone throwing a warning up as well...

Indeed...I do now get an error about some Dolby thing not being loaded.

sound still works tho!

------

Edit:

Anyone have any ideas on reinstalling Windows from the backup partition on the TB without the recovery disks? I have found one forum post about it so far and the bloke couldn't do it!

Trig · 13 Apr 2015 at 09:13

I always bin the recovery partitions on my machines, if you have a proper CoE sticker on your laptop then you might be better off grabbing the LAN drivers for the laptop, grabbing an ISO and doing a completely fresh install, stick the LAN driver on and then get it onto the net and go from there, thats pretty much what I do.