SLOW LAPTOP

[wakanyi]

I have a Toshiba laptop that I purchased about 6 years ago and it seems to get slower and slower by the day. It takes almost 45 mins - 1 hour for it to completely start up.

Another problem it has is that it seems to heat up all the time even though I have it elevated and the fan seems to be working just fine.

I have tried to perform a disc clean up and defragmentation but it doesn't seem to help much. I am so frustrated most of the time I feel like flinging it out of the window! I am thinking of trying out an online Registry cleanup but I am not sure which way to go.

Please help! My laptop's driving me crazy!

 

[jusdroptrou]

You need a new laptop.

Most likely you don't have enough RAM and single core processor - not good enough hardware for todays software requirements! (its also quite likely you have a fair few viruses - even if you have an antivirus program!)

Don't spend a penny on this machine. Save it and when you have enough buy a decent Core i3 laptop with 3GB Ram (about £450-ish).

Sorry to give you the bad news

 

[wakanyi]

You need a new laptop.

Most likely you don't have enough RAM and single core processor - not good enough hardware for todays software requirements! (its also quite likely you have a fair few viruses - even if you have an antivirus program!)

Don't spend a penny on this machine. Save it and when you have enough buy a decent Core i3 laptop with 3GB Ram (about £450-ish).

Sorry to give you the bad news

Thank you for the bad news 🙂 Sigh ... I did suspect that maybe time had come to purchase a new one ..... well I gotta start saving I guess ..... now I have to do some research on which is the best laptop to buy???

Any ideas????

 

[jusdroptrou]

Whats your budget and what do you want to se it for?

 

[sidewinderx2]

Since your laptop is 6 years old, i suspect it is still running Windows XP? Depending on the amount of RAM you have on there, it still shouldn't take an hour to start up (unless that was just a figure of speech).

You probably have a very full hard drive, with lots of programs running on start-up, like WeatherBug or the such. What you need to do is to empty some of that stuff from your hard drive, such as photos and other non-program related files, on to a removable hard drive, and uninstall all the crap startup programs you don't need.

Then, run a malware checking program, such as Malwarebytes, or SuperAntiSpyware to clear up any potential malware.

Finally, for the heating problem you're experiencing, I think it is because your laptop hasn't been cleaned in a while. You may need to open it up and clear out some of the dust that's built up around your fan and heat sink. If you are too intimidated by the prospect of opening it up, then grab a can of compressed air, and blow into the exhaust port of your laptop... this is only a temporary solution though, as the dust is still in there, and would probably clog up your heat sink again soon.

But yeah, the best solution to all this is probably, like jusdroptrou said, to get a new laptop.

 

[gailey78545]

Make sure you're not running more than one antivirus software at once. If you are, uninstall all but one.

 

[wakanyi]

Since your laptop is 6 years old, i suspect it is still running Windows XP? Depending on the amount of RAM you have on there, it still shouldn't take an hour to start up (unless that was just a figure of speech).

You probably have a very full hard drive, with lots of programs running on start-up, like WeatherBug or the such. What you need to do is to empty some of that stuff from your hard drive, such as photos and other non-program related files, on to a removable hard drive, and uninstall all the crap startup programs you don't need.

Then, run a malware checking program, such as Malwarebytes, or SuperAntiSpyware to clear up any potential malware.

Finally, for the heating problem you're experiencing, I think it is because your laptop hasn't been cleaned in a while. You may need to open it up and clear out some of the dust that's built up around your fan and heat sink. If you are too intimidated by the prospect of opening it up, then grab a can of compressed air, and blow into the exhaust port of your laptop... this is only a temporary solution though, as the dust is still in there, and would probably clog up your heat sink again soon.

But yeah, the best solution to all this is probably, like jusdroptrou said, to get a new laptop.

Thanks for your comments. I am going to put your suggestions to work over the weekend and see what happens.

 

[buwish]

Best answer selected by buwish.