Laptop is SOOOO SLOOOOOW

[Eel Snave]

I have a laptop that I purchased for cheap, and it's so dang slow. I can't figure out what the deal is. The hard drive gets pegged at 100% for long periods of time. I thought that it was maybe a page file, so I upped the RAM and turned off system indexing, no luck. I ran malware seekers, nothing.

System stats:

Win 10 Home
Core 13-6100
12 GB RAM

What am I missing?

[Blackhawk]

Does it have a custom Windows install, or is it running with a manufacturer installed copy? If the latter, you may benefit from running a decrapifier.

You might also consider finding a utility to log detailed performance statistics in order to nail down which program is accessing the drive so much.

[LawBeefaroni]

I'd start with CHKDSK (fix #8 in the link) but here are some other ideas.

[Eel Snave]

Running chkdsk now. Not sure why that didn't occur to me. It's been taking hours, so I hope I get some traction.

[Eel Snave]

Ran chkdsk, still running like garbage. On a whim, I decided to defrag the hard drive because it's a platter drive. Wouldn't you know it, it was tremendously fragmented already and now it seems to be running BETTER. Not perfect! But better.

[Punisher]

If possible use a surge protector.
Place it up high and then run to your laptop.
This way the electricity runs downhill and is faster.
It will be slow getting up to it but you should be able to benefit anyway.

[Punisher]

On a serious note, if you don't really need anything installed already you can always reset Windows.
If you do need everything installed, I've always had a lot of success with UVK portable.
https://www.carifred.com/uvk/

[Eel Snave]

If possible use a surge protector.
Place it up high and then run to your laptop.
This way the electricity runs downhill and is faster.
It will be slow getting up to it but you should be able to benefit anyway.

I tried this, but I ran out of electricity oil so it got clogged right in the middle. Now there's a huge bulge of electricity and I'm afraid to touch it.

[LordMortis]

I had an old laptop like that which I just finally retired for a crappy $120 Staples HP Windows 11 model with 8 gigs RAM. So much happier now. I believe the mainstay of the problem was it was a very hold HD that was just struggling too much with power and RPM requirements of contemporary computing in a non spinning HD world. Which is not to say that is your problem.

[Eel Snave]

It's very, very possible. I hear that thing grinding like it's milling flour.

[Punisher]

Is upgrading to an SSD an option?

[Pyperkub]

Yeah, don't run any laptop without an ssd these days, even if old

[Eel Snave]

I'm thinking I'm going to have to.

[hitbyambulance]

just saw this thread now. i assume this is second-hand? how old?

[Eel Snave]

It's not ANCIENT, as far as I can tell. It was never meant to be a gaming laptop or anything.

[Kasey Chang]

What's the spec anyway?

[Victoria Raverna]

If it has an old HDD or SSD, maybe replacing that can help.