slow laptop how to fix it ??

[big specht]

Any body know a good cleaner to down load ???

[Lord Letto 20]

2 come to mind:
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
and
http://www.superantispyware.com/

[MonroeMike]

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/

[kb0nly]

CCleaner is the best out there in my opinion, run the registry cleaner in it as well as the crud cleaner, as i call it.

Malwarebytes is the best for that purpose as well.

Which OS is on it? How long has it been running since its last reinstall? Sometimes i like to just backup and reinstall to freshen things up. Also if it can take more memory a quick RAM upgrade is a good boost also. Not much you can do as far as upgrading laptops sadly, memory and hard drives thats about it.

If the laptop isnt too old you might consider a RAM upgrade to max it out on memory, and an SSD to upgrade the hard drive. I have a 480gb SSB in my laptop, it was night and day, from 45-60 second boots to 10-15 second boots. Apps open faster, even web surfing is much more responsive. I upgraded my desktop to an SSD also, that thing boots in under 10 seconds, but its a far more powerful quad core processor.

[big specht]

I use ccleaner already I will try some of those other ones when I get home

[300rman]

I think that as computers age, they slow down all by themselves. Ive had dog-slow loaded down computers that I did fresh installs on, and it did LITTLE to improve the performance, even though the system specs clearly indicate it should run a lot faster. I'm not sure if its the components wearing out and running slower, or if theres a program on the hardware somewhere that slowly makes the thing run slower and slower until you trash it.

[Dirtcrasher]

I find I have to format my PC every few years.

I have AVG and Malware Bytes as well but it doesn't get it fixed.

[rg97]

I think that as computers age, they slow down all by themselves. Ive had dog-slow loaded down computers that I did fresh installs on, and it did LITTLE to improve the performance, even though the system specs clearly indicate it should run a lot faster. I'm not sure if its the components wearing out and running slower, or if theres a program on the hardware somewhere that slowly makes the thing run slower and slower until you trash it.
I agree with you. My dad's accounting computer ('02, XP home, 256mb ram, 32gb hard drive) ran great for the first few years but slowly it slowed down until my dad decided to get rid of it this year. Along with things wearing and slowing down, modern things that you download (google chrome, ccleaner, most malware/spyware programs) are made for modern computers, not older ones which are much less powerful in a processing aspect. that slwos things down too.

specht, any chance i could have some more specs than just 'a laptop' because they differ A LOT and like 300rman said if its old it will run slow no matter what. If you arent too tech savvy, just a model # would work so i can look it up and find tech specs myself.

[big specht]

Its a dell latitude d620

[Dirtcrasher]

I agree. I ran xp awhile back, had to format it twice (computer aids) and hop up to Win 7 which I formatted last week.

Ya probably have upgrade every 3 to 5 years (Not a programmer, just simple photos, pics, downloads etc etc). It suks and it's just like a damn cell phone............

[rg97]

I know what you mean. Get the best phone tomorrow and within a week they come out with a better one. Computers, like DC said, take a little longer to go obsolete, but they still do. I will say one good thing is that as technology gets better, slightly older, but still good, gets really cheap, which is where computer owners want to aim. Usually, buying a 1-2 year old used computer is better for the price than new, and it can be better to get another computer than fix the one you have. more $, but productivity increases.

While im on the topic, heres a few computer tips:
-avoid windows 8 unless you have a touchscreen and avoid anything used with windows vista. get windows XP or windows 7
-dont be convinced to buy the best thing out there, just get what will satisfy your needs
-battery life is more important than you think when getting a laptop

dont be puzzled by tech talk if your getting a new computer. heres a basic guide
-RAM- How much the computer can do, put very simply. Numbers are usually 1-8. Basic users will only ever need a maximum of 3 or 4. Dont be influenced to get higher
-Processor- How fast the computer thinks. Top brand is Intel. Only get processors with an i in front of them (i.e. i3, i5, i7) Intel i3 is the best for basic users. once again, the higher the # the more performance.
-Hard Drive/Disk- Amount of storage space on the computer. Two measurements are used here, GB and TB. You should NEVER need anything with TB unless you think need a lot of space. about 300 to 500 GB is more than enough for a basic user.
-USB- Places where stuff plugs into. look for USB 2.0 or 3.0, and have at least 4 of them.
-DVI- High definition video. Not a necessity, but nice to have. Not all screens have DVI, especially older ones. the ports are white
-VGA- Less-than-DVI-but-still-high-definition video. Most common and all you should ever need. all screens have these ports. These ports are blue.

Thats all I can think of right now, I'll edit later if I can think of any more.
-

[honda200xguy]

Anti-Virus software...You probably have viruses or spyware.

[kb0nly]

I have formulated my own theory... Its really not the age of the computer that makes say a computer running XP since new suddenly slower. Its process bloat and changes to XP over time. This is why doing a fresh install doesn't make as big of a difference these days, because over time you reinstall all the updates and your back to where you were, running a fresh yet updated version of XP thats more then what the computer was originally built for.

Adding RAM and killing unneeded processes can squeeze new life out of it. I don't run less than 1gb of memory even on an older XP machine, usually a memory upgrade helps give it some new life.

Windows 8 is annoying at best... There is some addons to bring back the start menu and eliminate the start screen now, makes it more like Win 7 but still the advancements of Win 8.. Still not sure its totally worth it though. I will likely stay on 7 for the perceivable future. I have a few pieces of hardware that are not Win 8 compatible yet, and probably won't ever be, and the cost factor of replacing them to be Win 8 compatible outweighs the benefits.

[big specht]

I think I have some kind of spyware cause I seem to get a lot of pop ups that should have been blocked. I'm not sure what to go in and delet cause I need some programs to run some of the FMC dealer web pages that I use when I log on.

[300rman]

I understand what you mean kbOnly, but on many computers, even without installing all the new updates, they remain dog slow. Something running a 2.5 GHz processor and 1.5 GB of RAM should run a fresh install of XP like lightning, but it literally takes several minutes just to log on and get to a place where you can open up a browser. then another two minutes before you can browse, which takes forever. I've tried several things, and ive seen it on a LOT of machines. If a fresh install doesnt revive something, I am pretty sure its just the hardware "tiring" out. I have noticed the same phenomenon when hacking my androids-they slow down over time, and even fresh installs do not get the performance and stability that a lightly used "motherboard" will get