Question Slow laptop ?

[64Pacific]

Hello everyone,

I've got an older GoBOXX work laptop from sometime around December 2018. I realize that the machine is getting a little long in the tooth and it may be due for replacement. However a replacement won't be cheap and maybe buying a new machine when one isn't required is not the most 'green' way of going about things. In brief over the last year or so the machine has become increasingly sluggish and is especially evident when running Solid Edge design software, it gets a bit slower as the day goes on. A restart will speed things up a bit but not to a reasonable level and it soon slows. Other simple tasks seem to be straining the machine, for example as of the last few weeks loading up the YouTube home page shows coloured thumbnails for a few seconds before the page fully loads. To diagnose the issue the following has been completed:

- Update all drivers, ensuring that the system is running Nvidia Standard and non DCH drivers (apparently this is critical for Solid Edge)
- Repair the afflicted software
- Remove all junk software - or anything that wasn't required to get work out the door
- Remove the software and as best as possible do a fresh install
- Repair Windows 10 Pro
- Check for updates for the OS
- Upgrade to Windows 11 Pro, doing so by formatting the drive and reinstalling only required software
- Run Windows Memory Diagnostic tool, issues detected
- Scan my RAM using a bootable scanning tool (can't recall which one), errors detected, replace all RAM, clean out the chassis - not too dusty
- Re-scan RAM, with both the bootable and Windows tool, no issues detected
- Machine is still painfully slow
- Run Samsung Magician, no issues found here and read / write speeds appear to be within specifications.
- Run the Intel Processor Diagnostics Tool, everything checks out
- Throttle back the CPU to 95% in the event that overheating is an issue, install NZXT Cam to watch temperatures, nothing above 50C noted.
- Benchmark the graphics card, it seems okay to me and is roughly within specifications.
- Replace the SSD just for kicks and giggles
- Set the graphics card to always run at its maximum clock speed

So, with all of this being done my query is, what should be checked next? My next thought is to replace the heat transfer paste, or maybe swap out the graphics card but I've read that this might cause more headaches than it will solve (not that I can find one for the laptop). Or maybe I should just drive over this thing with my truck.

Below are the detailed specifications, I can get something additional should it be required:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz 3.70 GHz
Windows 11 Pro Build 22621
Installed RAM 64.0 GB
Nvidia Quadro P3200
BIOS AMI E17A5IE6.101 from August 2018

Thanks!

 

[rgd1101]

what the storage?

 

[64Pacific]

The new SSD is a Samsung 980 Pro - PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 500Gb; the unit that it replaced was the 970 Pro, 512Gb

 

[stonecarver]

My next thought is to replace the heat transfer paste

Your specs for your laptop is still pretty good. Looks like you have tried a lot of software side things so cool. My first thought by what you have did already and where you are now is a heat issue.

You have almost 5 years of dust that had pumped through it and no matter how clean we try to keep them it just happens.

I would open her up and blow out the heatsinks and when your in there, there is a metal plate that covers where the fan blows into the heatsink that people miss the wall of dust bunnies under that metal plate. And also replace the thermal compound while it's open.

FYI when your bowing on the fan "s" gently keep them from spinning you don't need more issues taking out your fan.

I'm sure there is a teardown of your laptop on youtube if you look hard enough.

 

[64Pacific]

This afternoon I replaced the heat transfer paste with Arctic MX6 on both the CPU and GPU and checked out the fans and air to air cooling rads and found no appreciable quantities of dust. At the moment the system is running a 43C with 1-2 cpu load at 4390MHz, and the GPU is running at 55C with no load and at 1582MHz, the ram is sitting at 6.4Gb of load. Back in Solid Edge, it is about as sluggish as ever...

 

[rgd1101]

how full is the ssd? did you have multiple partition on it?
test the ssd with samsung magician ?

 

[64Pacific]

The SSD is partitioned and sitting at about 57% of total capacity, the partitions are:

C: 188 / 350 Gb
D: 75 / 114 Gb

C is where the OS and all software lives and D is where I keep all of my working files.

Previously the SSD (Samsung 970 Pro) was tested and was in okay health when tested with Samsung Magician, I decided to replace it anyway, for $60 or so dollars I figured it was a relatively inexpensive place to start, during the drive was upgraded to the 980 Pro variant so that it had more diagnostic tools.

About the only thing that I can think is to try the BIOS update (eek). The Integrated Graphics doesn't appear in the Device Manager and there is no option in the BIOS to enable or disable it. Disabling the Nvidia card via Device Manager and restarting still doesn't show the Intel graphics card but I can see the desktop and do various simple computing tasks.