Speeding up Laptop performance...

[bon3yard]

I give up. I've tried binning old programs, using C-Cleaner, using premium cleaning software, defragging, rejigging and friigin in the rigging but my laptops seems to be getting increasingly doddery. Does anyone have any foolproof suggestions on getting the little bugger back up to speed? It wouldnt be so bad but pretty much all I do is browse on it and its barely 15 months old.

[StraferJack]

Rebuild from os disk and reinstall any software you need

[DulwichFox]

Hi bon3yard.

What operating system do you have ? at 15 months old I would assume it will be Vista unless you

have upgraded to Windows 7.

Also, what Anti-Virus do you run ???

Kaspersky is notorious for slowing down the system when it does it's start-up scans.

You need to know what is 'Eating' up your CPU time..

Task Manager is not ideal for this..

Download Process Explorer from Microsoft. It is Free and will show you everything that is running in great detail

A brilliant tool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_Explorer

[bon3yard]

God no! its not Vista, its Windows 7. As for antivirus i'm just using AVG basic at the moment. I'll download process explorer and give that a whirl, the trouble is it takes so long to download and install anything these days that a chore in itself. I have a feeling W7 came as a preinstall so I dont think I have a disc to reinstall from? Very frustrating indeed but thanks for the advice.

[DulwichFox]

Process Explorer should not take long to download. It is a small programme.

Foxy.

[nashoi]

You could be stuck in PIO mode which really slows things down, try the following.

a. Click on start.

b. Right-click on ?Computer? and click on ?Manage?

c. Click on ?Device Manager?

d. Expand IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers

e. Right-click on any label where ?Channel? is part of the name ? Click on Properties

f. Go to the Advanced Settings tab, under Device Properties check ?Enable DMA?

[bon3yard]

Thanks for that Nashoi but there were no instances of "channel" after expanding IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

[right-clicking]

If as you say you are only browsing the net with it, then it might pay you to investigate your browser settings!

Try using Google chrome, dig into the settings and enable clear history and cache when you close the browser,

Keep as few tabs open as needed, disable any extentions, Do not use the default DNS sever, reconfigure it with this easy to use and free tool.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Other-Internet-Related/Dns-Jumper.shtml

Maybe buy some more ram

Right-Clicking

[nashoi]

Ah, that'd be done to ahci controllers rather than older ide, messing around with that is beyond my strictly amateur tinkering. If what the others have suggested doesn't work try going to pcpitstop. com, registering then running their comprehensive free tests.

[bon3yard]

Thanks for all the suggestions. M.

[right-clicking]

Last word! Another thing you can do is to type in msconfig into the search bar and click on the utility, go to the start up section and uncheck all unnecessary items/programs, this will not only enable faster boot times but stop the processes running in the background.

Right-clicking

[pearsonville]

Last, last word,

Check that there aren't 2 (or more) Anti-Virus programs installed.

This causes major conflict as they both interfere with each other.

Steve

[KidKruger]

My laptop runs like a dog. Might have just file explorer open and CPU performance shows on Task Manager as 80-100%.

The busiest process shows as 'idle process'. Like its telling me that being idle is an overhead on my computer !!

FFS

Have done defrag etc.

[right-clicking]

KidKruger How familiar are you with the command prompt? Vista & 7 type CMD in the search bar. right click on the utility run as admin, type in chkdsk /r this will run a disk check and repair on reboot. also in command prompt type in sfc /scannow this runs a system file check and replaces missing or corrupt files. Note the space between the 1st group of letters and the forward slash.

This might resolve the issue

Pearsonville It's ok to have as many a/v scanners installed but only one should be active.

Right-Clicking

[Loz]

Speeding up laptop performance? I always slip an extra tenner into her garter belt.

Oh, hang on...

[muffins78]

hello and sorry to rejig this, before I even defrag my laptop - but do I need to copy everything on the laptop first to an external hard-drive before I defrag the laptop? Unfortunately the last time I heard of defragging was when IT support at work had to do my work laptop, no longer working in that company, so going it alone with the personal laptop :(

Is there anyone who could be recommended to do all these checks? I think I'd prefer someone who knows what they are doing to do the checks, rather than I ponder before I press each button/command, worried that I'll mess it up.

Thank you :)

[DulwichFox]

Hi muffins78

You should not need to Back up to do a Defrag.

If your Hard Disk has lots of space it is unlikely you need to Defrag.

Part of the Defrag sequence is to first do Analysis. This will tell you if you need to Defrag.

A badly Defragmented Disk may take several hours to complete Defrag.

A Disk Clean may also be required. Also may take several hours.

Which Operating System are you using..?

I would be able to do these checks for you or show you how you can do them yourself.

I have PM'd you with my details

DulwichFox

[woodrot]

all of the above- but if you have Vista, kill it in the face and upgrade to W7- its pretty painless and can be done without removing anything. If you have the skillz, check out RAM upgrades and see what you can cram inside ( crucial.com have a nifty little downblaod that will check out your puter and tell you what will work ).