My laptop is slow

[Kitty.]

Hey,

My laptop has gotten increasingly slow, almost to the point of where I don't want to use it. However, my mom already paid for an expensive extended warranty on it, so I'm not going to ask for a new one. Is there anything I can do to make it faster. I have a Dell Inspiron. I have had it for roughly 2-3 years.

[TheCrowing]

How much do you have running on it/how much is stored on it? When you're computer gets overloaded, performance tends to decrease.

Or on the other hand, have you run virus checks/cleanups lately? Or checked for updates?

[Digilodger]

Originally Posted by Kitty.

My laptop has gotten increasingly slow, almost to the point of where I don't want to use it. However, my mom already paid for an expensive extended warranty on it, so I'm not going to ask for a new one. Is there anything I can do to make it faster. I have a Dell Inspiron. I have had it for roughly 2-3 years

Is it possible for you to provide the product model, too?

You told us that you have Dell Inspiron. Well, Dell is the name of the manufacturer; Inspiron is the name of product line. You're leaving out the product model (should be something like 1564, E1705, etc., the list continues on).

A complete description should be something like Dell Inspiron 1564.


Extended Warranty?

Since you have extended warranty, is it not possible to contact the company and have their techs help you out?


Have you rebooted recently?

If you haven't, please do it now. Who knows; it may solve the problem.


Have you checked for malware?

Run your favorite antivirus programs to see if your computer is clean. If you don't have an antivirus program installed, then you can use Microsoft Security Essential or Avast. Both are completely free.

After that, run Malwarebytes to double check. (No antimalware program can provide 100% protection.)

Please post back whether your antivirus program and Malwarebytes find anything malicious on your system.


Do you have sufficient memory and storage? Do you have too many programs and services running in the background?

If you have too many programs and services running but don't have enough memory and processing power to handle them, then it's going to be slow.

1. I'm assuming that you have Windows 7. Please click on the Start Orb and type resmon into the search box then hit Enter. Resmon stands for Resource Monitor; it should come with Windows 7 and it's similar to Task Manager.
   
2. On Resource Monitor, click on the Overview tab. Take a screenshot of it and post it back here. It should tell us whether you have enough memory or not.

Also check your storage (hard disk): Click on the Start Orb ---> choose Computer. Take a look at the your hard drives and see if they are full; if they are, then please free up some space.


Is there anything physically wrong with your hard drive?

Windows will automatically check for you. All you need is run CHKDSK (check disk).

1. Again, click on the Start Orb ---> select Computer.
2. Right click on your main partition (usually the C: drive).
3. Select Properties and choose the Tools tab.
4. Under Error-Checking, click on Check Now.

Please post back the results here.


Do you have a hardware conflict?

Checking device manager should be adequate for this.

1. Once again (lol, ), click on the Start Orb ---> type Device Manager into the search box and hit Enter.
   
2. In Device Manager, check if you see exclamation marks (like this: !) on yellow background. That's a sign of conflict hardware.
   
3. If you do see any, remove them then reboot your computer. Check again to see if they're still here. If they are, then we would have to properly install the drivers for them.

Overheating, Windows updates, driver updates, corrupted files/registry, and other micellaneous stuffs. Heck, it might be a hardware problem.

Your original question lacks so much info that it's impossible to answer in details. Please follow the steps above and post back the outcomes here.

If it's a serious software problem that fixing it would be too troublesome, we can always re-install Windows. Most modern laptops have a recovery partition for us to run system recovery so this shouldn't be a problem.

In the worst case scenario, the problem might lies with failing hard drive, CPU, RAM, motherboard, or other component. In which case, you really should call the company that sold you the extended warranty and have them fix it for you.

[Maverick.]

It could be the hard drive. It could be that you need a laptop fan, you might need a new battery. Call the laptop company.

[Kitty.]

Originally Posted by Digilodger

Is it possible for you to provide the product model, too?

You told us that you have Dell Inspiron. Well, Dell is the name of the manufacturer; Inspiron is the name of product line. You're leaving out the product model (should be something like 1564, E1705, etc., the list continues on).

A complete description should be something like Dell Inspiron 1564.

Dell Inspiron 1545

Originally Posted by Digilodger

Extended Warranty?

Since you have extended warranty, is it not possible to contact the company and have their techs help you out?

Customer service is incredibly unhelpful and extremely frustrating. My sister has had one million issues with her laptop and customer service is always unhelpful.

Originally Posted by Digilodger

Have you rebooted recently?

If you haven't, please do it now. Who knows; it may solve the problem.

I have rebooted recently.

Originally Posted by Digilodger

Have you checked for malware?

Run your favorite antivirus programs to see if your computer is clean. If you don't have an antivirus program installed, then you can use Microsoft Security Essential or Avast. Both are completely free.

After that, run Malwarebytes to double check. (No antimalware program can provide 100% protection.)

Please post back whether your antivirus program and Malwarebytes find anything malicious on your system.

A couple of harmful things were found, and the program fixed them for me, and I rebooted my computer.

Originally Posted by Digilodger

Do you have sufficient memory and storage? Do you have too many programs and services running in the background?

If you have too many programs and services running but don't have enough memory and processing power to handle them, then it's going to be slow.

I have sufficient memory; however, how can I tell how many programs I have running in the background?

Originally Posted by Digilodger

1. I'm assuming that you have Windows 7. Please click on the Start Orb and type resmon into the search box then hit Enter. Resmon stands for Resource Monitor; it should come with Windows 7 and it's similar to Task Manager.
   
2. On Resource Monitor, click on the Overview tab. Take a screenshot of it and post it back here. It should tell us whether you have enough memory or not.

I have Windows Vista.

Originally Posted by Digilodger

Also check your storage (hard disk): Click on the Start Orb ---> choose Computer. Take a look at the your hard drives and see if they are full; if they are, then please free up some space.

They are not full.

Originally Posted by Digilodger

Is there anything physically wrong with your hard drive?

Windows will automatically check for you. All you need is run CHKDSK (check disk).

1. Again, click on the Start Orb ---> select Computer.
2. Right click on your main partition (usually the C: drive).
3. Select Properties and choose the Tools tab.
4. Under Error-Checking, click on Check Now.

Please post back the results here.

I ran this and one corrupted file was removed.

Originally Posted by Digilodger

Do you have a hardware conflict?

Checking device manager should be adequate for this.

1. Once again (lol, ), click on the Start Orb ---> type Device Manager into the search box and hit Enter.
   
2. In Device Manager, check if you see exclamation marks (like this: !) on yellow background. That's a sign of conflict hardware.
   
3. If you do see any, remove them then reboot your computer. Check again to see if they're still here. If they are, then we would have to properly install the drivers for them.

There were no exclamation points.

[Digilodger]

So, basically we removed some malwares and CHKDSK found something but we have no idea what they were. Hmm . . . very informative, indeed .

You know what, rather than going through each problem and solve them one by one, let's just do a system recovery and restore your computer's settings to factory default (the condition when you first bought it):


(Note: I'm assuming that your computer comes with a recovery partition.)

1. Important: Backup your personal files (documents, pictures, musics, videos, etc.) somewhere, such as a flash drive, external drive, CD/DVD, online storage. You don't want to lose any of these files.

2. Reboot your computer and keep hitting F8 key until you enter the Advanced Boot Menu. (Note: If you see the windows logo, it's too late. Restart your computer and try again.)

3. In the Advanced Boot Menu, choose Repair Computer (or something along that line).

4. Follow the necessary instructions and eventually choose Dell Factory Image Restore (or something along that line). Follow their instructions.

5. Factory Image Restore should restore your computer settings to the same as when you first brought it home. Now, see if it's still slow.

6. If everything is okay now, then BEFORE bringing your backup files into your system again, run Windows Update first. (Start Orb ---> type Windows Upadate into the search box).

7. Install your favorite antivirus program. Once again, if you don't have one, then Microsoft Security Essentials and Avasts are two good options for free. I recommend you to install the free version of Malwarebytes and run it occasionally, too (maybe once or twice a month or every week, if you're careful). It's a good assistant to your main antivirus program.

8. Restore your backed up files to your system. Be careful: You mentioned that you have had some malware before; you do not want to bring those malwares into your computer again. Only bring in your good files.

Thanks for your cooperation!

[Kitty.]

Originally Posted by Digilodger

So, basically we removed some malwares and CHKDSK found something but we have no idea what they were. Hmm . . . very informative, indeed .

You know what, rather than going through each problem and solve them one by one, let's just do a system recovery and restore your computer's settings to factory default (the condition when you first bought it):


(Note: I'm assuming that your computer comes with a recovery partition.)

1. Important: Backup your personal files (documents, pictures, musics, videos, etc.) somewhere, such as a flash drive, external drive, CD/DVD, online storage. You don't want to lose any of these files.

2. Reboot your computer and keep hitting F8 key until you enter the Advanced Boot Menu. (Note: If you see the windows logo, it's too late. Restart your computer and try again.)

3. In the Advanced Boot Menu, choose Repair Computer (or something along that line).

4. Follow the necessary instructions and eventually choose Dell Factory Image Restore (or something along that line). Follow their instructions.

5. Factory Image Restore should restore your computer settings to the same as when you first brought it home. Now, see if it's still slow.

6. If everything is okay now, then BEFORE bringing your backup files into your system again, run Windows Update first. (Start Orb ---> type Windows Upadate into the search box).

7. Install your favorite antivirus program. Once again, if you don't have one, then Microsoft Security Essentials and Avasts are two good options for free. I recommend you to install the free version of Malwarebytes and run it occasionally, too (maybe once or twice a month or every week, if you're careful). It's a good assistant to your main antivirus program.

8. Restore your backed up files to your system. Be careful: You mentioned that you have had some malware before; you do not want to bring those malwares into your computer again. Only bring in your good files.

Thanks for your cooperation!

Two questions:
What about my favorites on Google Chrome? I don't want to lose those as I have a whole ton of them.
I currently have MacAfee for anti-virus. It got renewed a couple days ago and I don't want to lose that protection since it is paid for.

[how.we.operate.]

I agree with what Digilodger has said to do.

In addition, when does your computer get slow? Just in general, or when you do specific things or run X amount of programs at once...sometimes it is based on what you are doing.
What do you use your computer for? If you tend to be running huge programs often this may be a cause. IE intense gaming will slow a computer down.

Some computers start to go bad after a few years. Your computer may be getting there.

Try clearing up your hard drive-sometimes it gets slow due to small amounts of memory being free
Defrag your computer-you can quick search defragment disk. Over time, your computer will create and use memory for different things. Eventually, the used memory becomes spread out. Defragmenting will essentially rearrange the memory so that your computer is able to access things faster. IE like having dirt and random things all over the floor in different areas, it is like making a giant pile of all these things-it is now much faster to sweep it up into a dust pan than it was before
Bring it in to a local computer repair place or something, they tend to be much more helpful than calling the company.

[Digilodger]

Originally Posted by Kitty.

What about my favorites on Google Chrome? I don't want to lose those as I have a whole ton of them.

By "favorites," do you mean bookmarks? If yes, then you have 3 options:


Option #1: Export to HTML file.

Export your bookmarks to an HTML file then copy it to your flash drive, external drive, online storage, etc. The HTML can be import again into any web browser, including but not limited to other versions of Chrome, Firefox, IE, Opera, etc.

1. On Chrome, hold down Ctrl and Shift then hit the O key (Ctrl+Shift+O). This should open the Bookmark manager tab.
2. Click on Organize and choose Export bookmarks to HTML file; save it on your flash drive, external drive, etc. (Note that you can find the import option here, too.)

Option #2: Chrome Sync

With Chrome Sync, you will have the option to save all of your bookmarks, preferences, themes, autofil data, extensions, applications, omnibox data, and passwords of your current Chrome browser to Google's servers. When you re-install Chrome, all you need to is sign into your sync account and all those data will be automatically imported back to your new Chrome.

1. Type chrome://settings/personal into the address bar (a.k.a omnibox).
   
2. In the Sync (or "Sign-in") section, click Setup Sync (or Sign in to Chrome). And follow the instructions.

Alternatively, if you click on the wrench icon and look through the menu, you should see an option to Setup Sync (or Sign in to Chrome) in that menu.


Option #3: Xmarks Bookmark Sync

Available for Chrome, Firefox, IE, Opera, and Safari, Xmarks will save your bookmarks on Xmarks' servers. You can install it at Chrome Web Store. (And yes, it is free.)

Originally Posted by Kitty.

I currently have MacAfee for anti-virus. It got renewed a couple days ago and I don't want to lose that protection since it is paid for.

You have two options:

Option #1: Contact McAfee's sale representative

You can always contact McAfee's sale reps and ask them about this. You can find the contact info on this page.


Option #2: If you trust me . . .

I don't work for McAfee and I don't come with an extended warranty (like your computer) ; so if you lose your subscription, I won't take responsibility.


First, you need to temporary deactivate your current machine on the subscription (NOTE: We are NOT deactivating the subscription itself; we are only deactivating the machine under the subscription.)

1. Go to home.mcafee.com.
   
2. Hover your mouse over My Account and click on View Purchased Product. It will ask you to log in; so log in to your account.
   
3. (I'm writing this from memory so they might have changed it a little) Under My Protection Products section, you want to select your subscription. Then find your current computer and choose Deactivate.

Next, after you've done the system recovery to factory default, we will re-install McAfee:

• If you bought it directly from McAfee, then go to home.mcafee.com/Secure/Protected/Login.aspx to log in and download your program.
  
• If you bought it from Dell, then go to home.mcafee.com/Secure/Protected/Login.aspx?affid=105 instead.

This should reactivate your machine under that same subscription.

[California]

There's a few things you can do to speed up performance on your computer.

Have you ever ran a disk de-fragment on your computer? this should be down weekly to keep files down in size and free up space.(if you have not done this before do it while you sleep it will take a few hours!)

Look for a product online that's free called CCleaner this will check and fix any registry errors you may be having.

It is also a good idea to have more then one anti virus removal since some finds others don't. I personally use Avast! free and Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware.

Also make sure you always update your Windows when updates are available. You might also have a lot of background programs running without you knowing.
I didn't have time to read through Digi's post so I'm not sure if he already covered this.

Hope you fix, it feel free to PM I can try to help you out a little more but for now it's bed time.

[Digilodger]

Originally Posted by how.we.operate.

Some computers start to go bad after a few years. Your computer may be getting there.

Honestly speaking, I'm hoping that it's not a hard disk problem. This is a really bad time to have a HDD failure because the prices has just doubled (thanks to the flood in Thailand). According to her, the CHKDSK did something but unfortunately we have no idea what it did; so . . . what can I say?

On the brightside, maybe the drastic increase in HDD prices would encourage more people to switch to SSD

Originally Posted by California

Have you ever ran a disk de-fragment on your computer? this should be down weekly to keep files down in size and free up space.(if you have not done this before do it while you sleep it will take a few hours!)

So, since both you and Nikki recommends running disk defrag, I've a question: Doesn't Vista automatically defrag?

I have Windows 7 (and my virtual machine runs WinXP). So I'm not sure about Vista, but Win7 has disk defrag schedule to run every Wednesday (I'm on Linux Ubuntu right now so I can't check what time). Maybe someone with Windows Vista can answer? Thanks in advanced!

Originally Posted by California

Look for a product online that's free called CCleaner this will check and fix any registry errors you may be having.

I don't think we should recommend that. The registry contains hundreds of thousands of keys. Even if we remove a few hundreds, that's still only a small fraction; the performance gain would be either none or unnoticeable. The benefit is too little to outweigh potential problems.

Okay, maybe if the person still running that ancient dinosaur name Windows 98 with 1998's standard hardware, then yeah, sure, it's totally necessary. But then I think he or she has a bigger problem to solve than cleaning the registry .


Occasionally we do run into programs that integrate too deep into Windows where making changes to the reg is necessary. But in these cases, we have to be able to at least recognize which keys we are looking for. This would step into the advanced-user realm a little.

Specific changes? Sure! Random cleaning? Wouldn't recommend it.

[how.we.operate.]

Well there is an option to have your computer defrag the disk by using a schedule. I do believe you have to enable this feature. You should ensure that this is enabled and even just run it manually.

As for the computer itself, there are some programs out there as people have described. Run some scans with what your computer has preloaded on it first before downloading and doing drastic things.

I'm not sure about Vista, but there probably is some Windows Defender on Vista. Have you scanned your computer with this? My boyfriend has Vista and his computer is so much slower than his computer that runs Windows 7...

[Skatergirl]

Not sure about what all the above people have told you, but I know a really good FREE program that works excellent for my computers.
It's called Glary Utilities. Google it, and download it.
It makes even old computers run faster, and clears up space, and also does a ton of other great stuff.
I know it will work.

Also make sure you do a FULL virus scan, and not just a quick one. You computer might have a virus, because once my computer was really slow and wouldn't even load a webpage. I thought it was the internet, but after I did a full virus scan it worked fine again.
Good luck!

[how.we.operate.]

A side note-sometimes the amount of RAM can hinder performance. You didn't share specs like that. If you plan to keep the laptop, you can check how much RAM you have and if need be, you can install more RAM.

I remembered somethings that you can check-
1. Disk Cleanup: this gets rid of files that your computer declares to be safe to delete. To do this, use the start menu to search or All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Disk Cleanup. First it will scan for files to be deleted and you have the option of what you want to delete.
2. Cleaning up your desktop actually can help-having lots of files takes up memory and slows the computer down. Put things into folders and get it off the desktop
3. Start up programs-a lot of people have it set so that when you log in etc, X program will pop up. This actually slows down your computer. Check how many things are being automatically run by going to Programs->Startup. Here is a good link to help you with this: LINK. Another way to do this is MSCONFIG, but if you are not a computer person, use the link above.
4. Do a quick clean up of your computer-this includes getting rid of files in your Temp folder, clearing your Internet cache (stored information), delete cookies, install updates. This always helps a computer run faster. If you want to know more about a specific thing, such as Internet cache, go ahead and Google it; I'm not going to explain it here.
5. I know in 7, there are Aero effects. I'm not sure about in Vista, but if you have any visual effects going, I'd say turn them off. They may be pretty, but they take up time.
6. Every so often, shut your computer down when not in use-this wipes/resets the RAM for when you start up. This doesn't have to be every day, just every now and then.

[Kitty.]

I am doing the System Recovery today. I'll post back when it's done.

Edit: I did a full system recovery. I did lose everything but I'm perfectly okay with that. It was way too much trouble to back everything up since I didn't have a lot of time. My laptop is definitely faster now though!

[David14]

Hi There,

have you tried reinstalling windows on your laptop/computer as you may have a viuse on it or have to much on your computer and it will slow your pc down.