Laptop- slow, not responding and ticking!!

stilernin

I really do need some help with my laptop please, but have no idea about what goes on under the bonnet, so words of one syllable please..!

I use the internet for several hours a day and will have 4-6 tabs open of Firefox to read Forums. Outlook is usually open too.

The problems are:

Frequent episodes of 'not responding', sometimes resolved by waiting or I close down and reopen. Often when I start up, I am told that Firefox is already running even though it was closed when I shut down.

Frequent messages of 'unresponsive scripts'.

Frequent periods of being unable to type; the laptop then 'ticks' 3-6 times (a rhythmic sound) and I am able to type again. I am unable to scroll down a page during these times too.

Is there something I can do (very simply) myself, or do I need someone knowledgeable to check it out?

I would be grateful for any help, thanks.

penrhyn

Clicking may indicate that the hard disk is about to fail, take steps to back up all your important data immediately.

You don't give the make and model of your laptop, its operating system and memory size.

Laz123

If it's ticking do exactly what I say. Lift it up gently, carefully making sure you don't make any sudden moves and take it outside. Then place sandbags all the way round it and keep a safe distance.

Seriously, what operating system and ram have you got?

weegie.geek

Agreed, hard drive on the way out. Back up anything important ASAP and then you can think about testing the drive.

stilernin

Thanks for the replies.

This is a Compaq Presario V4000.
1.70GHz processor with 504 MB of RAM

I'll set about backing everything up PDQ and seek some advice. Is this going to cost me much do you think?

penrhyn

Easiest way of backing up it to use an external hard disk drive, get one at least twice the size of you built in one.

One of the reasons for you machine being slow is its lack of memory, increasing this to around 1Gb should speed things up a little.
When you have a lack of RAM then the machine will swop data between the hard drive and RAM, constant swopping slows the machine down.

patman99

Constant data-swapping also add to the HD wear-rate. I would suggest downloading the free version of 'HDClone', then purchasing a new external HD. Use HDClone to duplicate your drive onto it, then when you fit a new drive into your laptop you can use HDClone to clone the USB HD back onto your nice new HD. This way you will not loose any of your data as you will have an exact duplicate of your old drive.

One thing to remember though is if the new (or External drive) are over 320GB in size, then you will not be able to do a drive duplication unless your current HD is formatted in NTFS as FAT32 drives cannot see drives (or partitions) bigger than 320Gb. If your HD is formatted as FAT32, then you will need to partition both the external drive & your replacement one to less than 320Gb otherwise HDClone won't work.