Question Fed up with my i7 laptop.

[Ananth Kumar]

Hey Guys, Need some suggestions!!

I'm really frustrated after started using my Laptop on a regular basis. Although the laptop is around a year and half old, I honestly started using it from only the last three or four months and feel really frustrated. The problem starts mainly from the boot-up. Once after my laptop is started, it is booting for a long time (however, this could be negligible). The real problem starts after booting-up. It is taking more time to settle upon in a steady state. Even when I try to go to file explorer/internet/settings, whatever it maybe, the system just hangs, which is really frustrating for me. Sometimes, the application that I open responds me as "NOT RESPONDING". Even for switching from one tab to another, it lags or responds me as "NOT RESPONDING". However, the problem seems to be settled after a while, say, 10 to 15 mins after booting and the problem could be noticed only a few times. Why it is actually happening at the start, although I have an i7 processor inside. If you guys have any idea, please post it.

I use a Dell Inspiron 5459 Laptop.
4GB DDR3 Ram
1 TB Hard Disk (Local Disk C has around 400 GB's of free space).
2GB inbuilt and 2GB AMD Radeon Graphics Card.
Intel core i7 6500U @ 2.50 Ghz processor.
Windows 10 Home Edition with all latest (daily) updates.
Dell drivers and softwares updates (regularly) with Dell Support Assist App

Pls let me know if you need any further details.

 

[WildCard999]

The mechanical HDD, 4gb memory & the amount of bloatware that Dell puts onto it could all be contributing to the poor performance on it. Heat could also be a factor.

I'd...

-Carefully clean dust from it.
-Do a factory reset (backup any important files or transfer them to another drive such as a flash drive).
-Post factory reset I'd go through and get rid of all the unneeded bloatware on the system.

Performance should improve but adding in more memory would be ideal. And lastly if performance still is lacking then it's time to add a SSD to the build.

 

[geofelt]

Any pc without a ssd will feel slow.
Laptops in particular, have HDD drives that are optimized for battery life and not performance.

You will be amazed at the difference that replacing the HDD with a SSD will make.

I would agree that 4gb is a bit small these days and an upgrade there is in order.

In the mean time, defragging the HDD might help a bit.
Be patient, it may take a long time to do.

 

[TJ Hooker]

-Do a factory reset (backup any important files or transfer them to another drive such as a flash drive).

I'd personally do a clean install rather than a reset. Just make sure you download drivers (at least the network drivers) onto a seperate USB drive before you do.

 

[Ananth Kumar]

Thanks all for your response. I've already done a factory reset though. The performance did seem to be the same. What does clean install means? @TJ Hooker.

 

[WildCard999]

I'd personally do a clean install rather than a reset. Just make sure you download drivers (at least the network drivers) onto a seperate USB drive before you do.

True however if the OP isn't careful then they may lose some Dell programs for hardware such as the webcam. Backing them up is the way to do so however it's easy to miss if they haven't done it before, plus you don't want to lose your Windows license.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Thanks all for your response. I've already done a factory reset though. The performance did seem to be the same. What does clean install means? @TJ Hooker.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/how-to-do-clean-installation-windows-10,36160.html

 

[Ananth Kumar]

Thanks mate. If upgrading to an SSD is the best option, can anyone please provide me the link to purchase a SSD for my laptop. Also, I need 1 TB atleast. I'm from India. I have Seagate in my mind. Correct me if that's not the correct choice for SSD.

 

[TJ Hooker]

https://www.amazon.in/Crucial-MX500...rs&ie=UTF8&qid=1552587903&sr=1-5&keywords=1tb

 

[Ananth Kumar]

Hey Guys,

Pointing to the same problem, today, I noticed in task manager immediately after booting up the PC (where the above stated problem occurs), the disk is actually showing as 100%. Does this confirm us that the issue is because of the Hard Disk. If so, upgrading to an SSD is the only option left to resolve the issue (as per the previous replies). Is it also possible to fully replace HDD to SSD?

 

[TJ Hooker]

You can look to see which applications are all loading on startup and potentially try disabling some to see if that helps a bit. But other than that, yeah what you're seeing is not at all unusual to see with a slow HDD. Replacing it with an SSD would be by far the most effective way to remedy that.

 

[Ananth Kumar]

Thanks mate.