Laptop Is Slow.. Help

[phleb]

Does anyone know how to speed up my laptop without paying to have it done please. It's so slow. It's a lenova Ideapad 110. Thank u x

[Kidas]

Aside from routine maintenance, like clearing bloatware, clearing cache and so on, there are some hardware-based ways to speed up a lappy.
In order of ease and cost:

1. add more memory
2. disassemble the machine and blow all the dust out
3. upgrade the disk to an SSD
4. upgrade the processor.

It's possible to do all of these in the home, but you will need to pay for the hardware and then upgrade it yourself (except item 2).

Adding RAM is usually easy but the laptop needs to be suitable. Some laptops cannot be upgraded in this way.

If you give us the exact specification, we can probably guide you to the right resources.

Blowing all the dust away will permit better internal cooling and may improve speed, as many laptops are speed restricted if they get too hot.

Swapping the hard drive for an SSD will definitely speed up the machine, but is a bit more advanced than adding memory.

Upgrading the processor is only for those confident enough to strip the lappy down to its bare essentials and then put it back together.

If you don't want to pay for hardware, or are not confident about gettin into the innards of the computer, then you'll need to clean the machine's software out. Take backups of all the files you want to keep and do a full factory re-install of the (Windows?) operating system. Once that is done, add as few extra programs and apps as possible.

Or you could buy a new machine...

[Guilbert53]

Looks like the Ideapad 110 is at the low end of the Lenovo laptop range.

Most seem to have a Celeron CPU which is the slowest CPU in the Intel range of CPUs.

Has it always been slow, if so then it is probably just a slow machine.

Could it be your broadband is slow and not your laptop. People do get mixed up between them when web pages take an age to display and it is in fact your broadband that is slow.

Having said that it does look as though your laptop is at the "low end" of laptop models.

You can try some of the things listed above by Kidas but none of them are going to turn it in to a lightening fast machine.

They may improve the speed say 5% or so but that is about it.

Assuming it is the laptop and not your broadband I think you are going to have to get a new laptop if you want speed.

Note Dell have a website called "Dell Outlet" where they sell laptops and PCs at reduced prices.

They say some are returned by customers others have minor "scratches or dents" but I have bought a few from them and they have all been fine (they all look new to me).

I bought a Dell laptop from them just a couple of weeks or so ago and this laptop was selling for £599 from Currys and I got mine for £367. (Note it did take two weeks to get delivered to me)

Try his link below or just search for "Dell Outlet". You need the "Dell Home" section not the "Dell Business" section.

http://www.dell.com/uk/dfh/p/?~ck=mn&dgc=IR&cid=271561&lid=5090164

[Guilbert53]

I should say one more thing about Dell Outlet.

New computers are added there every day, but they do sell quickly (as there is often only a few of each model).

So if you do see one you like don't hang about, if you see it then order it straight away or it may be gone in the next few minutes.

Also make sure the price includes VAT, some prices are shown without VAT, some with VAT.

[Kidas]

I'll agree with Guilbert. It's rarely worth upgrading the hardware on a laptop. Though adding memory will usually help a bit, especially if you like to have a number of programs running at the same time, or have lots of tabs open in a browser.

I've upgraded plenty of machines, but usually the whole system is fairly well balanced when you buy it, and upgrading one aspect (such as memory or processor or disk) without doing all the others tends not to be worth the time or money.

So the best advice to speed up an old, under-powered laptop is to try and clear the system out by doing a full-reinstall after backing up your data.

If you feel confident running something other than Windows, you could wipe Windows completely and install a copy of Ubuntu, which is free and tends to run quite a lot faster than Windows, especially on under-powered machines.

However, it does require a certain amount of time spent learning something completely new.

Or finally, if none of those appeals, it may well be time to get a new lappy.

For reference, I treat laptops as consumer disposables, buying a new one every three to four years. Not ideal, I know, but very few low-end laptops remain usable (by my definition) after more than about four years.

Probably there are people on this board running 6-year-old machines out there who will tell me I am wrong, but I like to run with a lot of tabs open, and that soaks up both memory and processing power.

If you want to run such a machine, you will have to accept that it will be slow to start; slow to load pages and slow to respond to instructions.

To mitigate, you could be very disciplined about only having one program open and only opening one or two tabs at anyone time...

Good luck.

[Buenchico]

It might help to know exactly what it is that's 'slow'. People posting here often seem to refer to their computers as being 'slow' when the problem actually only relates to their internet use. So are you only experiencing problems with online functions (such as when web-browsing, video streaming, etc) or are you also having problems with other software (such as when word-processing, etc)?

[phleb]

Thank you for your help, its just the Netflix, takes ages to load, and then freezes, could be the internet, sky broadband??. I'll take all that on board, and see what i can do. thanks again.

[Buenchico]

Check your download speed here:
http://www.speedtest.net/

Assuming that there's no problem with it, clear your browser's cache and all temporary files from your laptop. (I was having loads of problems with streaming Youtube content but what I've just suggested fixed it). The simplest way to do that is to download, install and run the free version of CCleaner:
https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner

[jerfrank]

If only the netflix cause the computer freeze, you can view this support article: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/100242

[waterboatman]

Try rebooting your router. It is usually why my laptop is slow.