Laptop Help

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Ronsoak

202 posts

Master Geek

#173436 23-May-2015 10:52

My Mums visiting for the w/e and she bought her laptop and asked me to look at it because its slowing down and says it freezes every now and again.

The main symptom she could think of is when she is using MS word and she is typing and the typing on the screen has some real lag, like a letter is popping up every second or so.

Its a Sony S series laptop, quite expensive 2 years old, rocking an intel i5 2430m 2.4ghz 4GB of ram and a 1TB HDD.

The only things I could think to start looking at is the RAM and HDD. I regularly look at this laptop when i visit her and its nothing windows based, she has all the correct drivers etc etc

Any other thoughts? Things to check, would upgrading the RAM help?

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#1310339 23-May-2015 10:57

That seems like a decent laptop for word processing! It shouldn't be a problem with Word, but have you tried doing a virus check? 4GB of RAM is plenty for Word Processing. Then try having a look at Programs and Features and getting rid of all necessary programs.

When you say "nothing Windows based", what do you mean?

Sony

MackinNZ

450 posts

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#1310340 23-May-2015 10:57

What does the task manager tell you? Are there any processes hogging all the RAM and/or CPU?

Ronsoak

202 posts

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#1310342 23-May-2015 11:00

sonyxperiageek: That seems like a decent laptop for word processing! It shouldn't be a problem with Word, but have you tried doing a virus check? 4GB of RAM is plenty for Word Processing. Then try having a look at Programs and Features and getting rid of all necessary programs.

When you say "nothing Windows based", what do you mean?

Like regulary I have done virus cheking, disk cleanup etc but now im looking closer

Dynamic

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#1310344 23-May-2015 11:02

Perhaps run a malware check. I suggest MBAM

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Wade

2225 posts

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#1310354 23-May-2015 11:34

I would look at soft ware before hardware, my parents have a 2 or 3yr old dell i7 laptop that was crazy slow, I ended up uninstalling McAfee and all its bundled bloat and it fixed pretty much all problems, installed mse and it's played nice ever since

Mind you with w10 fast approaching I'm going to do a clean w7 install with out all the dell bloat so they end up with a clean w10 install and laptop should be good for another few years

timmmay

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#1310368 23-May-2015 11:56

Check Task Manager, post a screenshot of CPU/disk activity. Run Malware Bytes Free.

cyberhub

224 posts

Master Geek

#1310434 23-May-2015 15:23

Step 1
Run a malware scanner just like is suggested above

Step 2
Once you ran a malware scanner then run an online virus scanner I like eset http://www.eset.com/us/online-scanner-popup/ or you can select another one from a antivirus company that you trust.

If you don't have a good antivirus you may want to consider eset paid version, it is well priced and does a good job or install another paid antivirus program that you trust. I really don't like the antivirus programs that come preloaded with PC's or the free ones. There are some free options also you may want to try.

Step3
Once you have done that download ccleaner the big green button on the top right of the screen, make sure you don't accidently install any of the other programs they offer you during the install process unless you actually want them.

Run the general Cleaner once installed. (this is remove temp files and empty your trash bin plus a bunch of other stuff, check the list before proceeding as data will be deleted)

Click on Tools in the left hand dashboard of ccleaner and select Uninstall - Uninstall any unused programs, mosts laptops come preloaded with software that use up ram and hard drive space. But don't uninstall something that you don't know what it is, as you may uninstall something you actually need. Google it to make sure before you uninstall it, if unsure leave it.

Then click on the Registry on the left hand dashboard and scan for issues, save a back up of your registry key just in case there is an issue and then choose Fix selected issues.

Then finally click on Startup in the dashboard, this is a list of programs which are loaded into memory when the computer starts up slowing your PC down. There are normally a few programs in here that don't need to be loaded at start up. Select things which don't need to be loaded into memory at start up, again Google it before Disabling them from starting up. Don't delete any just in-case you actually need to re-enable it for something.

Step 4
Restart your PC and it should run a whole lot better.

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jim69

42 posts

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#1310465 23-May-2015 16:53

Two other things to look for
1) virtual memory (aka page file, swap file). Out of the box windows is set to dynamically size this, sometimes it can get in a tizz "right sizing", you can fix that by manually setting the file to (in your case) 4000 MB min and max both, it stops it wasting its time on nothing. With a 1TB drive don't be afraid to make this stupidly big either, like 8000 MB or something, just make min & max the same. Although 4GB used to be a lot, these days its not always, particularly if you have 32bit windows installed because then it can only see 3 of the 4 anyway. The recent Chrome update went stupid on me and used up about 6 GB (!) before I rebooted on it and now its playing ball. You never know these days.
2) anti virus - out of the box Win7 (which you didn't say but I'm assuming here) ships with Windows Defender turned on, and if you've subsequently installed another (anything is better) antivirus it may not have disabled Defender, yet two antivirus apps together can fight over file access. Some antivirus apps know this and disable it for you (eg Microsoft Security Essentials [which has been abandoned so no one should have it any more], or eg Nortons) but some others (ag Avast Free Antivirus) do not and you have to use the control panel applet to disable Defender yourself.

Ronsoak

202 posts

Master Geek

#1311400 25-May-2015 16:12

Update - Well the Weekend is over and the most progress I got on her Laptop was to delete all the pre-installed software that my mum doesnt use. And skype just sat on the background Ram taking up 65mb of ram. stripped all the VIAO software that was useless.

Dynamic

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#1311404 25-May-2015 16:18

Ronsoak: stripped all the VIAO software that was useless.

I've only seen 3 or 4 Vaios in the last 5 years but sheesh they do load a lot of crap onto them.

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cyberhub

224 posts

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#1311591 25-May-2015 20:41

Dynamic:
Ronsoak: stripped all the VIAO software that was useless.

I've only seen 3 or 4 Vaios in the last 5 years but sheesh they do load a lot of crap onto them.

Agreed

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Ronsoak

202 posts

Master Geek

#1313321 28-May-2015 10:43

UPDATE - I FAILED.....kinda

So Mum rang me last night and she was like, its still slow. And so I asked her to open up task manager and filter by memory and tell me what the biggest numbers where.

Of her 4GB of Ram Outlook+Chrome were using 92% of it. So I told her to use IE or Mozilla in the mean time.

How on earth is Chrome so heavy? Like I dont notice it on my Home PC (16GB) but my work PC is a POS and that suffers under chrome. Is 4GB of RAM just too small these days? When I next visit Ill look into whether a RAM upgrade is viable but kinda disappointed in Chrome.

lxsw20

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#1313329 28-May-2015 10:52

Chrome eats ram. How much of the 1TB disk is she using? You would be better off doing a fresh build with out all the bundled software on an SSD.

Krishant007

1403 posts

Uber Geek

#1313338 28-May-2015 11:07

Chrome has become a Ram hog since its release. Firefox is probably the better browser in terms of resources (I am typing this from a Chrome :\)

Ronsoak

202 posts

Master Geek

#1313350 28-May-2015 11:26

I'm pretty disappointed with Chrome. I run Chrome personally but a certain build where the bookmarks are not f***Ked.

But what annoyed me more is that when they changed the Bookmark system on the main build and it annoyed me beyond all hell, I tried to leave chrome and I just could not. Nearly all the competent web browsers ATM run off of Chromium code to which half the things that annoy me were in that browser.

So I can either Run IE (ew) Firefox (not a fan) or Chrome/based web browser. I cant leave because IF I DO GO OFF THE CHARTS to something like midori half my websites dont work with it.

I feel like im in a abd relationship where I cant dump my BF because hes infiltrated my entire life :(

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