Win 10 Sluggish on Laptop

[Bobbin]

It does though, for general usage purposes.
I setup an Acer laptop a few weeks ago. 5400 rpm drive. 4GB RAM.
It's snappy and really responsive.

I am not saying an SSD won't help. It will.
Whether you want to invest that money on an old and slow system is up to that person.

Personally I invested in high performance RAM and an SSD for my own laptop.
Back then it didn't cost an arm and a leg as it does now.

No offense, but I've seen so many I actually am not inclined to believe you. And I would have colleagues with the same consistent experiences after another to back me up on that, some who've messed around with many more PC's than I But it seems you aren't lying either, you have no need to.

So I sit here scratching my head Next time I pick up a laptop like that will play around again, but we simply just refuse to touch them it's been that bad. I've had customers want to throw their brand new laptops back at us because of this (And they don't even know what an SSD is). Even an ex of mine had to get the HDD swapped out for SSD it was simply unusable, and I'm not joking about that or being pedantic, I really mean unusable not just a few seconds slow, unusable!

Somethings not adding up. Maybe there was a big bad batch of drives or something, or controller drivers.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

It does though, for general usage purposes.
I setup an Acer laptop a few weeks ago. 5400 rpm drive. 4GB RAM.
It's snappy and really responsive.

I am not saying an SSD won't help. It will.
Whether you want to invest that money on an old and slow system is up to that person.

Personally I invested in high performance RAM and an SSD for my own laptop.
Back then it didn't cost an arm and a leg as it does now.

Does recording CD quality audio, and running video intensive presentation software, and possibly VLC along side count as general usage purposes, with possibly 2 tabs open in Firefox for YouTube.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

I have the exact same Lenovo laptop - the first thing I did when I bought it about 5 years ago was to replace the 1 x 4GB SODIMM with 2 x 8GB SODIMM's. - that improved performance quite substantially.

I also use the Hibernate option when shutting down - and usually only do a 'full shut down & reboot' every 2 weeks or so, just to clean things up every now & again.

So it will take 16 Gig. RAM, nice, never hibernate, but then, I am reasonably mobile with the laptop.

 

[deesef]

Hi,

Upgraded my Lenonvo G50-80 laptop from Win8.1 to Win 10 yhe weekend, and it was slow and sluggish. Reset back to Win 8.1 and it was back to being fast as it normally is.

Ideas, please, or should I just forget Win10 on my laptop.

Step 1: check if the laptop needs a bios update. Many computers needed a bios update with the upgrade to Windows 10, to ensure full compatibility.

 

[lkswan747]

I have the exact same problem on my HP laptop which has become laggy since the last update. I have been considering a fresh install but have been putting it off because of the hassle reloading everything! The specs of my laptop are:

Intel 512GB SSD installed.

Seems like I am able to type faster than the keyboard buffer at times! I guess I will have to break down and re-install as there does not seem to be a solution on this thread at the moment.

 

[|tera|]

No offense, but I've seen so many I actually am not inclined to believe you. And I would have colleagues with the same consistent experiences after another to back me up on that, some who've messed around with many more PC's than I But it seems you aren't lying either, you have no need to.

So I sit here scratching my head Next time I pick up a laptop like that will play around again, but we simply just refuse to touch them it's been that bad. I've had customers want to throw their brand new laptops back at us because of this (And they don't even know what an SSD is). Even an ex of mine had to get the HDD swapped out for SSD it was simply unusable, and I'm not joking about that or being pedantic, I really mean unusable not just a few seconds slow, unusable!

Somethings not adding up. Maybe there was a big bad batch of drives or something, or controller drivers.

TBH, the best way I resolve slow systems is by doing it manually.
Does Task Manager report excessive disk, network or CPU usage?
If so, check the specific program or service name and search in that direction.
Eg. high disk usage with Windows Defender.
Many articles will give guidance on how to resolve slow and non-performing systems.

No offense intended to you as well.
Personally, this is my standard "manual" configuration:
Disable write-cache buffer-flushing, on any SSD or HDD (if it's a laptop with a working and functioning battery, or a PC with a reliable UPS).
Disable SysMain service,
Make sure drive is in AHCI mode (most new ones are).
If using an SSD, be sure to disable the Windows Defrag service.
Check for erroneous startup entries with Microsoft Autoruns and either delete or remove invalid entries.
(Small tip, don't ever delete DLL's if you don't know their origin or impact on the OS. You can render your OS unusable by deleting important DLL's with Autoruns.
If the system has a HDD, then I suggest obtaining software that defrags the drive automatically, Disk Zone and important files and folders.
No need to disable System Restore. It does save your bacon.
As I've said before. Make sure Windows 10 is on the current and most recent build.
An in-place upgrade could be done with a new and current build. The upgrade also keeps all apps and personal files, which a standard Refresh doesn't allow for.
If the system is still unresponsive, check installed software.
If you know all of the above, good for you. If you don't, please research and confirm my steps.
By default the system should be secure and without any malware.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Well after removing everything that can be uninstalled, and system at idle, this is what task manager shows.

Cpu 1 - 10 %

Memory 39 - 40 %

Disk 2 - 5 %

Network idle

GPU idle

Is it normal for Dropbox to use 232.7 MB RAM?

Antimalware Service Executable 152.4 MB RAM

Those the big memory users

 

[|tera|]

Well after removing everything that can be uninstalled, and system at idle, this is what task manager shows.

Cpu 1 - 10 %

Memory 39 - 40 %

Disk 2 - 5 %

Network idle

GPU idle

Is it normal for Dropbox to use 232.7 MB RAM?

Antimalware Service Executable 152.4 MB RAM

Those the big memory users

Those are low numbers in RAM isage for Windows Defender (antimalware service) and Dropbox. Memory increases higher than that with no concern needed.

The rest is fine as well.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Those are low numbers in RAM isage for Windows Defender (antimalware service) and Dropbox. Memory increases higher than that with no concern needed.

The rest is fine as well.

Well, after doing a clean install, it is much improved, improved a bit by getting rid og as many bloatware bits as I could uninstall.

Programs still load slowly, but in similar fashion as to when Win 8.1 was loaded.

Way better than the installation that prompted me to start this thread.

Slowly getting my normal stuff re-installed.

Will still do the SSD upgrade, and RAM in the coming months, even if just to make it perform a wee bit closer to my desktop.

 

[Bobbin]

TBH, the best way I resolve slow systems is by doing it manually.
Does Task Manager report excessive disk, network or CPU usage?
If so, check the specific program or service name and search in that direction.
Eg. high disk usage with Windows Defender.
Many articles will give guidance on how to resolve slow and non-performing systems.

No offense intended to you as well.
Personally, this is my standard "manual" configuration:
Disable write-cache buffer-flushing, on any SSD or HDD (if it's a laptop with a working and functioning battery, or a PC with a reliable UPS).
Disable SysMain service,
Make sure drive is in AHCI mode (most new ones are).
If using an SSD, be sure to disable the Windows Defrag service.
Check for erroneous startup entries with Microsoft Autoruns and either delete or remove invalid entries.
(Small tip, don't ever delete DLL's if you don't know their origin or impact on the OS. You can render your OS unusable by deleting important DLL's with Autoruns.
If the system has a HDD, then I suggest obtaining software that defrags the drive automatically, Disk Zone and important files and folders.
No need to disable System Restore. It does save your bacon.
As I've said before. Make sure Windows 10 is on the current and most recent build.
An in-place upgrade could be done with a new and current build. The upgrade also keeps all apps and personal files, which a standard Refresh doesn't allow for.
If the system is still unresponsive, check installed software.
If you know all of the above, good for you. If you don't, please research and confirm my steps.
By default the system should be secure and without any malware.

On that note I've found out that the May 2020 update for Win 10 supposedly also improved performance for mechanical hdd's. So perhaps there is hope after all