Help To Speed Up Laptop

[Prudie]

Please can anyone suggest any ways to speed up my laptop performance. It's only a couple of years old and runs Win 10. It is so painfully slow at moving between applications, the fan's going most of the time and it really shouldn't be so sluggish. Task Mgr (which takes ages to open) is showing CPU darting between 30-90%, memory about 90% and disk space regularly red at 100%. There must be some clean up I can do, there are so many processes running but most of them mean nothing to me so don't know if I can end them (and they'll return anyway later won't they?). I'm a bit impatient and it drives me crazy.

[10ClarionSt]

I'm no expert, but I always do this before using my laptop:

1. Go to Settings
2. Select Network & Interne
3. select Internet Options. A panel appears showing Internet Properties. Click the "General" tab.
5. Click "Delete". This allows you to delete your internet history and any cookies. To view cookies, click "Settings" (next to Delete) then click "View Files". This is optional.
6. Having clicked on Delete, select all items you want to delete. I usually select everything. Then click Delete again. This will delete your internet history and cookies and should help to improve the performance. Others will say that files are not deleted permanently, but this process does help.

[DTCwordfan]

Ok, so you are a Microsoft user....go to an independent computer shop or someone who you trust and have them clean up the Microsoft upgrades by removing all but the last two. Microsoft never remove them..... to give you an idea, I had the cat flick her tail and it sent about 1/6th of a glass of red wine into my Asus. The insurance co paid straight out and I went to my local, Truro Computers, and bought the replacement model - £20 cheaper but in 18 months the capacity had gone up from 88GB to 280GB. I was using 44GB when the original one was fried.... when I looked at the new one - it only had used 24GB - what's the difference, I asked. "I removed all those Microsoft upgrades - they just clutter the place up."

[DTCwordfan]

Speed wise, it was liquid 'chit' as Bobbi would say.. I am now at 80/222GB of disc capacity, net of the process capacity so still plenty of firepower.

[barry1010]

Every year or so I reset my machines to factory default, it really helps to clear out the accumulated rubbish and speeds them up.
Thankfully it is much easier these days as W10 can do a similar job but keep all my files but it is still a bit of an undertaking.

If you think you might want to do it have a read of this
https://www.laptopmag.com/uk/articles/reset-windows-10-pc

If you proceed be sure to choose the 'keep my files' option.

[barry1010]

It is very easy to remove old Windows update files yourself if you don't want to do the reset.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/delete-old-windows-update-files/

[10ClarionSt]

I've just tried that Barry. A message says I haven't got enough space and I should rundisk clean up, copy files to an external device or uninstal programs. Can't understand all that as I hardly ever use it and there is nothing on it that I would care to save. hey ho!

[Hymie]

I recently had a similar problem on my ageing laptop – a colleague took a look and uninstalled the Kaspersky anti-virus program, which was supposedly redundant as I’m using Malwarebytes. This fixed the problem; apparently running two simultaneous anti-virus programs can cause conflicts and use system resources fighting each other.

To check out applications that could be an issue (and to uninstall them) go to the services tab of the system configuration and take a look at all listed. Only uninstall those that you are certain are not required – otherwise you might find you have an inoperable laptop.

[barry1010]

Run disk clean up :)

[Atheist]

Very simple first attempt is to download and run Ccleaner (it's free). If you're lucky it will remove reams of ***, like rodding your drain, and things will greatly improve.

[barry1010]

CCleaner fell out of favour some time ago - I used to be a big fan of it.
https://www.howtogeek.com/361112/heres-what-you-should-use-instead-of-ccleaner/

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/stop-using-ccleaner-windows/

[CrapAtCryptics]

Seriously look at as to whether you need all the programs on the machine. If you arent sure if they are safe to delete as here. If you have 8gb or less of RAM consider adding some more, if possible, to get the speed up. Windows has a pretty good file cleanup but add system files to get rid of all the old upgrade files.

[davebro]

Give it a damn good thrashing ! (Basil Fawlty)

[davebro]

When you're in task manager if you click the memory heading it will list the processes in order of which is using the most memory, If something(s) you don't need is using a lot of memory get rid of it.