Our Dumb Laptop Questions Thread: Ask your Questions Here

[Graybush]

Hey there!

Welcome to the Weekly Dumb Questions Thread!

Did you always want to ask a question but were worried you weren't going to get an answer? Or that people would judge you for asking? Never fear! Our weekly questions thread was created specifically to foster a non-judgement environment.

From the newest of newbs to the educated expert, the only dumb question is the one never asked. Me and the team are here to help you out!

 

[dudeman509]

Here's one:

I recently replaced a dead board in an i7-4510u with an i5-4210u.

I didn't think 300 MHz would make that much of a difference, but it feels WAYYYYY slower in real life than either an i7-5600u or that i7-4510u. The 5600u is used daily at work, and it seems to almost never struggle with multiple browser tabs, opening applications, etc. A 6600u I've been playing around with (new architecture, faster RAM, M.2 SSD) blows them all out of the water.

Was anything really different for the i7u processors besides clockspeed and slightly more cache that would make such a difference?

And one other one: the Sandisk X400 in the i7-5600u seems to be one of the slowest SSDs I've ever used. It is Bitlocker encrypted, and has had heavy R/W usage in the past, but it seems to struggle with simple file copies and write workloads that EVERY other SSD I have ever used excels at. It slows down to laptop spinning disk levels of slow, for heaven's sake. Is this likely because of the Bitlocker encryption, or a poorly executed TLC drive?

 

[Graybush]

Here's one:

I recently replaced a dead board in an i7-4510u with an i5-4210u.

I didn't think 300 MHz would make that much of a difference, but it feels WAYYYYY slower in real life than either an i7-5600u or that i7-4510u. The 5600u is used daily at work, and it seems to almost never struggle with multiple browser tabs, opening applications, etc. A 6600u I've been playing around with (new architecture, faster RAM, M.2 SSD) blows them all out of the water.

Was anything really different for the i7u processors besides clockspeed and slightly more cache that would make such a difference?

And one other one: the Sandisk X400 in the i7-5600u seems to be one of the slowest SSDs I've ever used. It is Bitlocker encrypted, and has had heavy R/W usage in the past, but it seems to struggle with simple file copies and write workloads that EVERY other SSD I have ever used excels at. It slows down to laptop spinning disk levels of slow, for heaven's sake. Is this likely because of the Bitlocker encryption, or a poorly executed TLC drive?

The benchmarks I've read say not really, but you may notice a slight difference between them. If you can run benchmarks yourself and get very different results, there's probably something else causing the issue. Maybe a bad memory stick or another hardware issue? If you have access to hardware testing, I would suggest running those and if no issues are found then try installing your OS.

For the SSD, have you tried reformatting it and/or reinstalling the machine's OS? Also make sure your drivers are up to date otherwise it's a bad drive or a different hardware issue. Again, if you can run hardware tests I would suggest that.

 

[James Mason]

Here's one:

I recently replaced a dead board in an i7-4510u with an i5-4210u.

I didn't think 300 MHz would make that much of a difference, but it feels WAYYYYY slower in real life than either an i7-5600u or that i7-4510u. The 5600u is used daily at work, and it seems to almost never struggle with multiple browser tabs, opening applications, etc. A 6600u I've been playing around with (new architecture, faster RAM, M.2 SSD) blows them all out of the water.

Was anything really different for the i7u processors besides clockspeed and slightly more cache that would make such a difference?

And one other one: the Sandisk X400 in the i7-5600u seems to be one of the slowest SSDs I've ever used. It is Bitlocker encrypted, and has had heavy R/W usage in the past, but it seems to struggle with simple file copies and write workloads that EVERY other SSD I have ever used excels at. It slows down to laptop spinning disk levels of slow, for heaven's sake. Is this likely because of the Bitlocker encryption, or a poorly executed TLC drive?

Based on specs, there shouldn't be that huge of a difference in performance. Only thing I can think of is you maybe messed up somewhere when you replaced it, but with a laptop it's hard to pin down where.

 

[Nariod14]

I got one! I actually have a full post about my strange issue that nobody else I've found on the internet has here http/www.tomsguide.com/answers/id-3455368/asus-laptop-start-bios.html but nobody read it. my question(s) is/ are

Would I be able to start my laptop to the bios menu and even windows if my motherboard was damaged (because the laptop shuts off completely after a few second/ minutes)

If not what other hardware could cause that issue?

Any reply is appreciated and if you could check out my post thatd really help I'm kinda getting buried.

 

[dudeman509]

Here's one:

I recently replaced a dead board in an i7-4510u with an i5-4210u.

I didn't think 300 MHz would make that much of a difference, but it feels WAYYYYY slower in real life than either an i7-5600u or that i7-4510u. The 5600u is used daily at work, and it seems to almost never struggle with multiple browser tabs, opening applications, etc. A 6600u I've been playing around with (new architecture, faster RAM, M.2 SSD) blows them all out of the water.

Was anything really different for the i7u processors besides clockspeed and slightly more cache that would make such a difference?

And one other one: the Sandisk X400 in the i7-5600u seems to be one of the slowest SSDs I've ever used. It is Bitlocker encrypted, and has had heavy R/W usage in the past, but it seems to struggle with simple file copies and write workloads that EVERY other SSD I have ever used excels at. It slows down to laptop spinning disk levels of slow, for heaven's sake. Is this likely because of the Bitlocker encryption, or a poorly executed TLC drive?

Based on specs, there shouldn't be that huge of a difference in performance. Only thing I can think of is you maybe messed up somewhere when you replaced it, but with a laptop it's hard to pin down where.

Yeah, I don't know. It's just a bit more pokey than I was expecting. The 5600u is easily a match for my older i7-2670QM in general web browsing tasks; the i5 is just quite laggy. All the same drivers, etc installed.

As for the SSD, it's been reimaged recently and seems a bit faster - all are done via a system image at work, but just seems to be a quite slow drive. The M.2 Samsung PCIE in the 6600u machines we've gotten in is quite noticeably faster.

 

[Lutfij]

There are a number of SKU's within any given company/brand when talking about laptop's or mobile computing device's in general. Which one are we looking at? The other question is, you will need to make sure your laptop's BIOS i sup to date prior to populating the unit with a new CPU.

On another note, as Viddy has stated, you would need to reinstall your OS from scratch(not with an imaging tool) and see if the issue is averted.

If your general inquiry about the processors is what's different about the chips you're looking at, well you've already stated it. The architectures in itself is different and they have higher caches which always helps in multitasking situations or for a single application.

 

[dudeman509]

There are a number of SKU's within any given company/brand when talking about laptop's or mobile computing device's in general. Which one are we looking at? The other question is, you will need to make sure your laptop's BIOS i sup to date prior to populating the unit with a new CPU.

On another note, as Viddy has stated, you would need to reinstall your OS from scratch(not with an imaging tool) and see if the issue is averted.

If your general inquiry about the processors is what's different about the chips you're looking at, well you've already stated it. The architectures in itself is different and they have higher caches which always helps in multitasking situations or for a single application.

Yeah, it was a fresh Win10 install on the i5; this is my own personal machine. HP Probook 450 G2. i7-4510u motherboard shorted out, and the whole thing was replaced since it's soldered in place. If it were easy to change, I'd gladly just pop the i7 back in. BIOS is the latest version available for it.

The HP Elitebooks at work (5600u and 6600u) are done via a system imaging tool.

I agree, looking at benchmarks, the change between the i5 and i7 shouldn't be a big difference, and neither should Broadwell chips, but it can be felt. It doesn't crawl, but it struggles at multiple-tab browsing and multitasking. Oh well.

 

[Graybush]

I got one! I actually have a full post about my strange issue that nobody else I've found on the internet has here http/www.tomsguide.com/answers/id-3455368/asus-laptop-start-bios.html but nobody read it. my question(s) is/ are

Would I be able to start my laptop to the bios menu and even windows if my motherboard was damaged (because the laptop shuts off completely after a few second/ minutes)

If not what other hardware could cause that issue?

Any reply is appreciated and if you could check out my post thatd really help I'm kinda getting buried.

It sounds like to me there's a massive hardware issue, but without opening it up I couldn't tell you what it is.

I'd chalk it up to a manufacturing defect, and start the Return Manufacturing Authorization process on it. It's a totally bizarre problem, and I'm sorry you have to deal with that.

 

[Nariod14]

I got one! I actually have a full post about my strange issue that nobody else I've found on the internet has here http/www.tomsguide.com/answers/id-3455368/asus-laptop-start-bios.html but nobody read it. my question(s) is/ are

Would I be able to start my laptop to the bios menu and even windows if my motherboard was damaged (because the laptop shuts off completely after a few second/ minutes)

If not what other hardware could cause that issue?

Any reply is appreciated and if you could check out my post thatd really help I'm kinda getting buried.

It sounds like to me there's a massive hardware issue, but without opening it up I couldn't tell you what it is.

I'd chalk it up to a manufacturing defect, and start the Return Manufacturing Authorization process on it. It's a totally bizarre problem, and I'm sorry you have to deal with that.

Thanks for the reply! Sadly though I'm not under warranty and where I am, there's no ASUS Store as I've mentioned in my post. I have given it to a local repair shop though and they already had the model before (rare given how recent the laptop is) so they know how to diagnose some of the more obvious issues. I'm expecting it back by Wednesday but I doubt they'll be able to find the issue.

If they fail I'll have to use my mother's crappy laptop till I graduate (in around 3 years).

Pentium p6100. Nuff said.


Thanks again for they reply though...