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Slow laptop

Hi all. My daughter is using a laptop which has been getting slower and slower.  I figured I'd reformat it and completely did a reset back to factory settings so that Windows was reinstalled and nothing else.  It still seems pretty slow to be honest and I'm wondering if there might be a component (motherboard/processor - I'm a bit clueless) that could be replaced and if there's any way of finding out what's going on?  It's a Windows 10, i3 dual core 200GHz machine and she's just running office and not much else.  Any advice would be very welcome. Thanks for reading. 
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Comments

  • pbartlett
    pbartlett Posts: 1,397 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 15 February 2021 at 12:56PM
    One thing that comes to mind - could the innards be heating up - that would slow the processor down. ie are there bits of fluff etc blocking the grill where the fan pulls its air from?

    Another possibility is a failing hard drive
  • Advice is the usual. Laptops have a brand name and model number for a reason.
  • pbartlett
    pbartlett Posts: 1,397 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    What is the laptop make and model please.
  • pbartlett said:
    What is the laptop make and model please.
    Hi there.  It's a Lenovo Ideapad 305-15IB.
  • pbartlett
    pbartlett Posts: 1,397 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    1. ask yourself is it really slowing down or do you just think it is slower - memory is a funny thing
    2. is it overheating does it feel hot underneath - clean the vents etc. You may even need to take the back off and clean it inside
    3. is your hard drive getting full. Doe it need defragmenting? a full hdd can slow things down.
    4. you can speed up a laptop with a SSD - this involves swapping the HDD for a faster SSD but does require some technical experience.
  • pbartlett said:
    1. ask yourself is it really slowing down or do you just think it is slower - memory is a funny thing
    2. is it overheating does it feel hot underneath - clean the vents etc. You may even need to take the back off and clean it inside
    3. is your hard drive getting full. Doe it need defragmenting? a full hdd can slow things down.
    4. you can speed up a laptop with a SSD - this involves swapping the HDD for a faster SSD but does require some technical experience.
    Thanks for this.  It's not feeling hot underneath and the HD has been completely wiped.  Maybe I am just remembering it being more efficient than it was.  Or maybe Windows updates have slowed it down.  I'll look into the SSD swap.
  • 200GHz is very fast...especially since the fastest machines on the market are lucky to get to 4!
  • It's a bit like Twitter on here.  Some really helpful people and...
  • Hebrews12 said:
    pbartlett said:
    What is the laptop make and model please.
    Hi there.  It's a Lenovo Ideapad 305-15IB.
    If it's just a slow or faulty HDD storage, you are in luck. Very easy to swap the HDD for an SSD. You can do it yourself with some gentle guidance.

    https://danielcheah.blogspot.com/2019/06/notebook-lenovo-ideapad-305-15ibd-mt.html You would not need to go beyond step 2. So even a novice could be done and dusted within ten minutes. 

    SSD cost from £20 for a 120 GB model.
  • Hebrews12 said:
    It's a bit like Twitter on here.  Some really helpful people and...
    ...so what is the real CPU speed?
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