Slow/Not responding PC

Rockman60

Hi
My Dell Pc is about 8 years old and it has started to take a long time to get started when I turn it on. When I do a search it takes a long time to get to the page I am looking for. When I open Word to create a new document, or look/amend an existing document, I often get a message 'not responding' and I have to wait a while until it opens to allow me to work on the document.

What I am wondering is the computer just old and has had it day or is there anything I can do to make it go better.

Thanks

Cloth_of_Gold

Rockman60 said:

Hi
My Dell Pc is about 8 years old and it has started to take a long time to get started when I turn it on. When I do a search it takes a long time to get to the page I am looking for. When I open Word to create a new document, or look/amend an existing document, I often get a message 'not responding' and I have to wait a while until it opens to allow me to work on the document.

What I am wondering is the computer just old and has had it day or is there anything I can do to make it go better.

Thanks

I have a 10 year old Macbook and have the same problem and it drives me mad. I'm thinking of replacing it with a new one but in the meantime I should be pleased to hear of any tips to speed it up. I think on a PC you have an option to 'defragment' the hard drive (it tidies it up basically) - have you tried that? Also emptying the cache/clearing out cookies can help. I'm sure others will more more/better advice though.

x_raphael_xx

First steps would be to do a virus check, to see if anything is running in the background.
Also, look at your start up programs. These are the things that have been set to auto switch on when you start up the machine. The more things set to open on start up...the longer it takes the computer to load.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

maybe Dell SupportAssist will help clean things up.

Does it still have an HDD if so then a switch to SSD will speed things up.

Olinda99

if you have backed up your data off the PC2 to an external source and if you have access to the install files for all of your applications then one thing you could consider is a complete reset of your Windows system

you will find this under settings it will erase everything apart from windows and put your PC back to a brand new Windows system

it will then be as fast as it was when you first bought it. you will then of course have to reinstall your apps and copy back your data

Neil49

How much memory does it have and how much free space is left on the hard drive? 

A reinstall of Windows would certainly help but if you install an ssd then you could combine the installation with a fresh copy of Windows. See comment from Olinda99 above. 

cerebus

"Not responding" normally appears when you're low on memory or have too much crap open on your pc , full hard drive or any combination of the above

Simple to fix, increase memory if your system allows it, change to a ssd if you haven't already and fresh install of Windows 

What system do you have?

LightFlare

Clean install fixes most slow running problems.

Look In task manager and check the levels of usage for CPU,HDD and Ram

Something might be hogging all the resources 

DigSunPap

Make sure you have done all of your system updates, scans etc. Clear out and junk that you don't need and that should hopefully speed things up for you.

facade

LightFlare said:

Clean install fixes most slow running problems.

Look In task manager and check the levels of usage for CPU,HDD and Ram

Something might be hogging all the resources 

Check the Disk usage too. in task manager (shift + Ctrl +Esc then click on the performance tab)

My pc is sweating a bit as it is rendering a video and processing some audio files, so I have the CPU maxed out, and the GPU is only half used (So I could do with more CPU cores and a faster clock, as you really want everything to go at a smidge below 100% under load)

The fairly old systems that I have had go very very slowly have done so because the disc drive has worn out and gone slow, the Disk usage goes to 100% and nothing gets transferred.

A new disc drive, or better an SSD fixes them for a few more years. This one is about 10 years old, and has been though several disc drives!

Am-I-Paranoid

Mostly seems like sound advice thus far.

Useful next steps: what is the current PC spec? I have 10 year old laptops that will run rings around some modern PCs if they're badly spec'd.

Sorry that I'm doubling up on some of the above comments, but I started typing before I notice @facade 's comments (good advice!).

My preferred order of attack would be:

• What is running already? Check Task Manager (press Ctrl+Shift+Esc, then select "More Details"). The "performance" tab gives you a high level view and the "processes" tab will tell you exactly which apps are eating resources and slowing things down. See if there is something that jumps a up in CPU/memory load whenever you do things. e.g. A lot of "free" software bundles in Norton / McAfee / other antivirus and you can end up with several installed which KILLS performance - they will fight with each other for scanning everything that you are doing - I've seen things like opening a "Save As" window in Excel take 20 seconds even on a very high spec PC. You can click on the column headers (e.g. CPU/Memory) so it shows you what is using the most resources at any point in time.
• Memory - only normally an issue if you have changed the type of software you're running or have too much running in the background - check what is in your startup apps (Press the Win key, then type "startup" - select "Startup Apps" and toggle off things you don't need every startup - espcially if they are showing high CPU/RAM usage in the previous Task Manager step).
• Harddrive speed - M.2 drive vs SSD vs spindle (spinning) magnetic SATA drive will each make a HUGE difference. Defrag is good avice from 15+ years ago, but only relevant to the very old SATA spindle drives - modern OS (even from 8 years ago) should have be M.2/SSD drives and it will make zero positive difference and eventually can harm write speeds if you do it too often. IF your PC has an older spindle drive, then consider an upgrade to an SSD at least, it will transform the PC and it will also necessitate a Windows re-install, which will clean out all the unused junk. You can identify if you have a SSD / HDD in the performance tab - the one your're interested in for main PC performance is C: and see if it says "HDD" (older SATA spindle) or "SSD" (M.2 or SATA SSD).