Help! Laptop Running Slow
 

My laptop has been running slowly for the past two weeks. I am not sure what the problem may be. I have Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes running with no viruses or malware. All programs are up to date.

It seems that the more graphics on a page the slower the computer will run. Am I missing a plugin or something?

This started about two weeks ago. No new programs added.

My laptop:

HP Pavilion g7 Notebook PC
i3 CPU M 370 @2.40GHZ
4GB of ram
64-bit operating system

Can anyone tell what the issue might be?

try avira boot scan.

Microsoft Security Essentials is crap you can start with getting a better free antivirus Avira Free Antivirus - Download the best free antivirus software


There are so many things that could be wrong no one on a message board will fix it for you.

Bleeping Computers Lots of helpful information should you think it is malware or virus .

Couple of things. Go to the HP website and see if there are firmware updates for your bios. Next check to see if the graphic driver is the latest version. HP is very good at keeping things updated and their website is very user friendly.

You might check to see what programs are being loaded at startup as there tend to be more and more added as you use your computer.

You might defrag your hard drive as that can also slow down seek times when loading programs and data.

Tried but nothing showed up in the scan.

Got it now.
Thanks :thumbsup

This is a great site. Book Marked!

Thank you :thumbsup

I tried everything in your post. But nothing helped.

Found the problem.

I downloaded a program from microsoft that did a test on my computer.

It turned out to be my power saving settings. Never heard of this causing this type of issue.

I let the program set my power saving mode and all is working like before.

I want to thank the people on GFY that posted recommendations. I really appreciate the time you spent trying to help me out.

GFY is a great PLACE!

Yeah that is what i wanted to say.Also you should clean regularly dust from fan,that can fuck up things as well.

comodo firewall and antivirus, use that!

Task Manager is useful in identifying resource hogs.

Computer repair shop is what I do for a living mainstream.

1) You probably need to blow out the heatsink and fan

2) Go with the following combination of programs to keep it clean

a) SuperAntispyware
b) Malwarebytes
c) Sypbot
d) Zone Alaram Free Antivirus + Firewall
e) MSE

3) if you use this for business and really value your stuff, find a local computer repair guy who owns his own shop and not a franchise. Have him tune it up. Your thermal grease probably needs to be removed and new applied and that can only be done on about 90% of laptops by completely breaking it down to get to the fan/heatsink on the bottom of the motherboard.

You might end up paying somewhere between $150-$200, but in the long run, its worth it and you are investing in your purchase which is a fairly decent laptop. You should probably upgrade your memory for that thing because 4gb aint really shit. Get it up to 8gb and you will solve a lot of slow performance and multitasking issues you have. You will also be able to run more security products at one time helping to keep your laptop secure and still have good performance.

I normally charge around $150 for a full service job and then do follow ups/tune ups every 3-4 months at about $25-$50 if they are in good shape. Thats not unreasonable and it beats having to deal with a busted ass broken laptop or identity theft. Take care of it like you would take care of a good car. Get its oil changed and tires rotated and it will work just fine for you for a long time.

change to ssd harddrive

wow $150 for a 30 minute job is a nice rate...$300 gets you a nice i3 laptop on amazon with the blackfriday deals though

You think it only takes 30 minutes to break down a laptop completely, clean off the old thermal grease, re-apply it, reassemble it. Then clean the OS, run multiple security scans on it (which normally takes at least 30-60 minutes each on an average machine) and then process MONTHS of windows updates that most people haven't done....

then the other host of advanced tuneup procedures like removing old dump data and checking log files for hardware errors...etc...and running self hardware diagnostics on the machine as well as memtest...

Sure....30 minutes...

try more like 4-8 hours...

Of course there are guys who spend 30 minutes and then charge $150 for doing nothing but wiping it over with a cloth and running one instance of MSE. Thats why I end up getting their business and my clients love me.

Great thread. :thumbsup

yes it does, i've done it many times last time just a few days ago.

all the other updates and checks might take 8 hours of waiting while you smoke bongs and surf gfy, but actual work its 20 clicks and 2 restarts.

Then you obviously don't know what you are doing.

The difference between you and me is that I actually know what I'm doing and you like to pretend you know what you are doing because you like to think how awesome it is that you can do something to save money. You do it as a past time and a hobby. I do it for a living. That means I know more than you. I do more things than you do.

There is always somebody like you in a crowd. You think because you drive a car everyday and can change your oil, that it makes you qualified to give advice on how to rebuild or replace an engine block. Replace a transmission.

See, this guy is asking for a real techs advice. I gave it to him. Sometimes you have to pay people who are experienced at something so the job is done right. Not nickel and dime it with my buddy who has a friend who knows this girl who dated Ferris Bueller who took apart his computer once in 30 minutes and put it back together missing 5 screws.

Sure maybe you can break yours down in 30 minutes. Great....after doing the same laptop enough times that isn't unrealistic. However all laptops are different even though they are standard and attention to detail is always a good idea.

Your advice is only to serve your obvious ego to have to be right to show how knowledgeable you are because you can do something in 30 minutes that somebody who has to be paid for it says it takes a few hours to be done properly.

Its true there are things that a home user can do to help maintain their computer, but it is a fucking advanced piece of machinery that is easy to fuck up. Some things require advance knowledge and its best to just pay a tech who is honest and does good work to take care of you and keep your machine running smooth. It's not a complex idea anymore than it is to have a good auto mechanic who does your standard every xxx milage checkups.

So, you can either think that their is an entire technology based scam going on by computer repair people to bill over 30 minutes worth of work globally, or that we actually bill for the hours we work and spend on the laptop + rack time....and generally a good honest tech isn't going to charge you for every single minute when its doing things like just scanning files....

wow so much bullshit i didnt even finish reading it...im sure all this talk comes included in the $150 price point....the old people that come with a broken computer to your shop must appreciate it....
i'm not doing it in 30 minutes because i did it many times on my laptop, because ones i do a laptop/pc refurbish it doesn't need to be replaced for two three years...i do a good job and funny that you know the quality of job I do....enjoy your day job, i would of figured with your join date you would do more then reapplying some thermal paste and thinking you're doing the job of a rocket engineer....

well because I don't charge $150 for 30 minutes of work asshole.

I'm more than familiar with what the rates of my franchise competitors are both residential work and commercial business and I'm way under that because I do take care of my clients and make sure its affordable enough to get repaired without having to pay the cost of what they could get a new halfway decent computer for.

Yes, my customers do appreciate that I do a thorough job and take the time to explain to them what I've done and what they can do to maintain it. Thats why I have good solid word of mouth references where I live and nothing but positive reviews from my customers on my website. They constantly tell me what shitty service they get from places like Geek Squad and show me their bills which are outrageous for the amount and low quality of work they have recieved.

I tried to share this same information here. What kind of price to expect from a private shop who cares about their customers who isn't raping you like the franchise places..and what kind of billable hours would be reasonable...and you want to fucking pipe in and say 30 minutes.

You're being an asshole and thats all there is to it. So go take your 30 minutes and shove it up your ass.

To get his computer serviced properly by somebody he can expect to pay somewhere between $125-$250 from somebody who is being fair and can expect to be billed somewhere for 2-4 hours....not 30 minutes...

Just get a fucking MAC "they just work" HA

Now that's just silly.

you must buy a new notebook sir :winkwink: i bet all have been said already, i would look at your task manager and check what is eating your memory, if nothing, i would disable as much programs running as possible, if nothing, i will try to update system :2 cents: then i will try to clean up your pc ... nice help of gfy in here, have luck :)

Just for the record what a thorough full service from me entails is

1) Breakdown laptop completely
2) Clean all case items and internal components from dust with static free wipes
3) Clean all ribbon cable connectors, inspect under magnification to ensure no broken creases
4) Remove all old thermal grease off of CPU/GPU N/S bridges
5) Seperate heat sink & fan, clean fins & blades, replace all new tape for component joins/wiring placements
6) Remove display bezel, full clean of display/trim
7) Blow out keyboard until all dust, hair, skin, items removed
8) Inspect all port items for wear/loose on the board. USB. DC jack, etc
9) Complete virus/malware removal with multiple cross layers of scanning
10) All OS updates completed
11) All chipset/GPU drivers upgraded
12) Firmware checks across all components
12) Bios check/flash if customer has agreed (a bad bios flash can brick a board, of course most new boards have a dual
bios in place to prevent this.
13) All exploitable items like java/flash upgraded
14) All old distribution files removed + typical disk cleanup procedures + update cleanup + autoruns cleaning + msconfig tuning.
15) Complete defraggmentation
16) Manufacture Hardware diagnostic scans + memtest + HD checks (usually quick method if hard drive is new and spin time power on hours are low)
17) Courtesy set of system backup DVD's I create.
18) Nice laymans document on what new softwares I have added and how to schedule them for mainetance..etc.


Yeah, that takes a lot longer than your 30 minute refurbish which is probably just slapping on some new thermal grease if you can get to the
heatsink easily enough through an access port and factory reseting it. Than slapping a for sale tag on it without any updates to it.

My customers get their shit back looking and feeling like its brand fucking new.....and they appreciate that and have no problem with my bills and what I charge...

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh


Man I don't miss shit like what the OP posted. Curious on how much of his day got wasted trouble shooting issues before asking for help, writing a post, reading what people are posting, trying out what advice is given to him, etc.


This brings back horrible memories of some of the shit I dealt with when i was using a PC; Win 95, 98 and was way fucking way over it after WinXp gave me problem. My problems were one thing, but all of my friends problems also took up my time. Shit like this is why I'm happy to pay more for a Mac. All of my buddies switched to Mac as well and all of the tech calls stopped.


I do think things have probably gotten better, but GFYers are way more PC tech savvy than the norm. I bet a lot of the GFYers are getting tech calls from their PC user buddies. Curious.



Just Dave

Access to all the internal components is the biggest drawback to laptops vs. desktops these days. Back in the day there wasn't much I couldn't diagnose/fix myself on desktops (took system config courses back in college) and keep it hummin' along nicely. Four screws to take the cover off the CPU and everything was readily identifiable - easy/peasy.

Hell, I was first kid on the block to make a 14.4K USRobotics modem work in a pc-xt (with its 20mb harddrive and 256K ram). :1orglaugh

But these days, all I use is a laptop - and I have to admit to knowing very little of their internal config - other than upgrading the RAM myself a few years back. I'd sooner invest in a new state-of-the-art system than nickel-and-dime to coax a few more years from my aging Acer.

I will never take a repair job from a customer whose computer is completely outdated that it makes absolutely no financial sense to clean it instead of getting a new computer. I'll usually help them find one that meets their needs and then I'll work out a deal on getting their stuff transferred over and software reinstalled/updated..etc...you buy a new laptop...its been on the shelf for 6 months and is already outdated.

imo, the biggest design flaw of most laptops is placing the heatsink/fan under the board with no screw plate access to it. There are a few Dells that have this feature and it is a joy because it takes about 5 minutes to replace thermal grease on them.

Dried out grease and a dust/hair mat between the fan and the sink is one of the major reasons for overheating and low performance on laptops....this is because people will not take the time once a month to blow it out from the outside ports....once a horizontal mat lays down with a few hairs....its over...

Most laptops the GPu & CPU are on the same piece of copper so then the overheating leads all your grease to dry out....if its really bad then you have the solder on the chips burning all flux out of them drying them out and you have an issue with the chips seperating from the board......there was a whole slew of nvidia chipests with bad placements on the board a few years back on HP dv series models that forced a recall on them.

So take me advice, find a laptop that has an access port in the back to the sink and that is a laptop that should last you a very long time and be hella easy to maintain.

OP: it is because you were targeted by NSA due to your avatar:winkwink: