How to make my laptop run faster or time to replace

silvercar

Not sure if my Toshiba laptop is worth spending money on, or whether I should buy new.

Current spec (according to CCleaner) is:
Windows 10 64-bit
Intel core i3-2330M
CPU @220GHz
6.0 GB RAM
Intel Graphics HD 3000

Hard drive 600GB (300 on C and 300 on D, both less than 50% full)

Problem is that the machine is very slow, and has been getting worse over the last few months.

We have internet speed of over 50MB, so that isn't the issue.

Any advice gratefully received.

(First question may be why 64 bit, and the answer is that is what I bought, don't know why, probably a special offer)

greyteam1959

I presume you have done a the relevant malware etc scans ??
Sometimes it's simple things that can cause major slowdowns.
HTH

agrinnall

What speed is the hard disk? You'd probably see a big improvement by replacing it with a SSD.

onomatopoeia99

It's the 64 bit version of Windows because the 32 bit version can only address 4GB of memory.

You can use task manager to check if any part of the system is running at or close to 100%. You haven't stated what you do with it, what sort of demands you place on it. Do you have a couple of tabs open in your browser, or 30? etc etc

EdGasketTheSecond

use msconfig (Run->type in msconfig) to see what is running on the Startup tab and uncheck anything not required.

Ant555

I recently managed to speed up a colleagues really S L O W Windows 10 lap top to an acceptable/usable speed by doing the following...

I think it was downloading updates in the background so I spent almost a whole day just forcing it to search for updates, install, restart, repeat. *whole day= just left on a desk and going back to it occasionally.
Uninstall the pre-loaded McAfee AV checker that was not being updated as it had expired.
Download and run free Malware Bytes
Dowwnload and run free Glary Utilities
Download and run free Defraggler
Run Windows defrag

As it was a similar processor to yours, it didn't fly but it was usable and way better than before I started.

Hope this helps.

Stoke

SSD if you haven't got one. Start from there.

Debbie_Savard

It's never going to be a rocketship, but a 512GB SSD would make a heck of an improvement.

PLus usual advice to remove Norton, Kapersky and similar bloatware and use Windows Defender Security Centre

armchaireconomist

Spec is perfectly fine for W10. Start in the task manager and see what load is like on CPU/RAM/HDD and go from there.


If there's nothing of note on it, a full reinstall is always the best solution.


And to answer your question, it's 64-bit because 32 can only handle 4GB of RAM. You won't (and shouldn't) see many 32-bit machines nowadays. Should've been phased out years ago.

motorguy

A full reinstall will help but i'd be sticking in a 500GB SSD and a fresh Win10 install - budget for around £90 or so and keep an eye on HotUKDeals for offer.

silvercar

agrinnall wrote: »

What speed is the hard disk? You'd probably see a big improvement by replacing it with a SSD.

Hitachi HTS547564A9E384 (TurboPC EX)

google suggests that is effective speed 141%, average bench 37.9%

Rotational speed 5400RPM.

I have outlook open and run 3-4 tabs in chrome. There is also something running in the background from the HP printer (wireless) as that flashes up on the screen in a DOS window occasionally.

I have Avira as the virus checker, mcafee was removed ages ago. Also Avast icons on the desktop - is that part of avira.

Thanks for all your advice. The problem is that I am sometimes typing characters ahead in chrome waiting for it to catch up. Then wait eons for the page to refresh. I often get the "not responding" greyed out view until a page updates.

Task manager tells me that disk is at 99%.

4 apps running.

93 background processes. (I can see dropbox, icloud, turbo PC, microsoft windows...)
86 windows processes. (most are "service host...")


Thanks for your help.