Laptop troubleshooting forum: How do I bring new life to my older Windows laptop?

I still have an old xp laptop, and I restore it about once a year, it is really fast for about a year, then it starts to slow down again. The updates do slow it down a little, but not as much as you would think, as long as you have a reasonable amount of ram (I recommend 1gb but 512mb will do as a minimum with xp). It still runs great after 6 years, and I plan to do the $40 windows 8 upgrade, with 3gb ram the release preview ran great.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1520 that I bought back in 2006, here it is 2012, do the math.
It runs just as fast as the day I first got it, in fact, it runs faster now.
When I first bought it from Dell, it had 2 GB of RAM, Windows XP Home, and a 80GB 5400RPM hard drive.
I installed a 7200 RPM, 320GB Western Digital hard drive, installed 4GB of RAM, and installed Windows 7 64 Bit operating system on it. I clean the dust out of it on a regular basis, run AVG free, Malwarebytes for virus control. I run disk clean up on it, and defrag the hard drive occasionally.
Laptops will serve you well for many years, IF you take care of it/ do regular maintenance on a regular basis, and stay away from nasty places on the net.
The main thing to be mindful of with a laptop, is to keep it as cool as possible. Laptops by nature, run much hotter then desktop computers, so they need more TLC then towers.
Hope this helps.

HELLO ANYSIA,

Reading your post about deactivating software that is needed....How do you deactivate software, sorry but am very green with laptops and my compaq is running very slow.
A little bit of help would be appreciated.....many thanx.

Julianna, I had a similar issue just recently. I had a Dell laptop issued to me by my employer that had been previously used by another employee. It has Windows Vista, dual core processor, and 2 Gigs RAM, and it was irritatingly slow to respond while hammering the hard drive big time. It now performs very well. Here's what I did.

I downloaded and installed two free programs (available on Cnet) called Ccleaner and Defraggler. Ccleaner, which I have been running for years in a half dozen machines, cleans up a lot of the garbage that accumulates in the Registry and on the hard drive that interfere with smooth operation. Defraggler is a defrag and optimizer program that arranges the files on the hard drive so the computer accesses them more efficiently.

I ran Ccleaner twice, rebooting after each time, then ran Defraggler twice, likewise rebooting each time. The result was more than a little satisfying. I suggest you might start with them. A word of caution: Nothing, even utilities that many people have used confidently for years, is perfect. Using a CD, DVD, or flash drive, back up your data files first! It's 99.99% probable that these utilities won't do any harm, but you don't want to tempt fate.

First, you are not limited to 2G Ram with XP. The architecture of a 32 bit OS, whether XP, Vista, 7, or even *nix (I believe), have a functional cap of a bit over 3 GB. You could put in a 2GB and a 1GB and you will see a boost. You could also use a second 2GB dimm. Yes, some of the RAM will sit idle and unused, but the goal is to get a performance increase and a 2GB dimm can be had for ... $20?

As far as upgrading to Linux (*nix), that depends heavily upon what software is needed and what alternatives there are. It is my suspicion that such is beyond the comfort level of Julianne.

Replacing the hard drive: Yes, she could have her techie friend do this, but if he charges her, she would be better off doing it herself. It isn't that hard.
1) Purchase the drive: depending upon how much of her drive she is using and the size she actually needs, she should consider a SSD (solid state drive). A 120 GB SSD can be had for around $80 after rebate. Using an SSD instead of a traditional hard drive will substantially increase all speeds involving drive access. It will also significantly decrease battery consumption, extending her off-AC operations. Newegg.com currently has an OCZ 120 gig SSD for $75 after rebate. Can't beat that with a stick.
2) Purchase an external drive bay. For around $20 you can purchase an external 2.5 in drive enclosure. If the laptop has an eSATA port, get that version, otherwise, get one which has USB 3.0 compatibility (yes, her laptop doesn't have USB 3.0, but she will be able to use the enclosure with a 2.0 system and still have a viable enclosure come the day she upgrades to a new laptop).
3) Get a free drive clone software tool available online and install that on the machine. Macrium Reflect works very well. Run that software with the new drive attached via the external enclosure. When complete, simply take the old drive out of the laptop, install the SSD/replacement drive, and boot. If all goes well, you are done. If there are problems, you still have your original drive completely intact. Assuming all goes well, create an image of the new drive on the old drive in case of need of a restore down the road.

As I see it, newer software expects to run on new computers. And after 4 years your computer really feels its age. And, if you got Vista, then the problem is worse because Vista and Windows 7 and 8 are not nice to older computers. The big exception is Windows XP, which continues to do pretty well, even though the newer browsers and their toolbars do their best to slow your computer down (SeaMonkey is a good browser alternative, by the way).

One solution that might work for you is to use Puppy Linux, a small operating system which also runs web browsers and word processors and isn't affected by most trojans and viruses. There is a slight learning curve to LINUX, but if no one else uses your computer, you simply follow the on screen instructions to set up a "partition" and be able to start Linux directly, bypassing Windows without eliminating it. The other advantage? You can use the Linux partition to clean up your hard drive if you get infected (you'd run the antivirus from a thumbdrive or from a CD).

Just in case, remember that your hard drive can fail suddenly after 4 years, so be sure to back up your data regularly.
Good Luck!

I'll agree with ERICfm and add a bit. About 3 months ago my son's ex-mother-in-law's Toshiba laptop crashed and wouldn't boot past the BIOS, no Windows, not even close. Barb too is a retired nurse, mostly ICU. She had never made a recovery or re-installation disk and of course, her Toshiba hadn't come with one. A shop told her she'd need to buy a new installation disk and they'd install for her.
My house is a Linux household since I got tired of fixing Windows after nearly every update they sent out several years ago. My wife and I started with Ubuntu 9. I burned several versions or builds to try in Live mode, which is the default load for many builds of Linux. If you remember the very old days when you had the 9" floppy disks for Microsoft, you'd know what the Live load is. Anyway, I settled on Ubuntu and ran it on a dual-boot for about a week, then reinstalled and replaced Windows totally. I do web authoring, subtitleing and make publicity packages for the local chapter of the American Council of the Blind and have no trouble with Linux, actually it's easier with Linux! After about two weeks and my fixing my wife's Windows twice more, she too wanted a dual boot. She was a medical secretary, now retired also, and wanted to keep Windows so she could keep practiced up on some Windows programs. After about two months she got fed up watching me have no trouble and had me remove her Windows too. Since then we've talked up Linux to friends and neighbors but no one really listens.
Barb listened when I asked her why she thought she'd have to buy Windows twice for her computer when I could set her up for free with a trouble-free system. I had just tried Ubuntu 12 on Live load and wasn't impressed with the new Unity style desktop. I wanted to upgrade and had just tried and settled on Mint 13 which is an Ubuntu spin-off. I had the installation disk and Barb had her laptop back since she was going to take it to another shop for another opinion. I put the Mint 13 Maya with what's called the Mate style desktop on her laptop and it fired right up. Her wireless mouse worked great, her wireless internet was also flawless. It recognized everything fine. I installed a few games to show Barb how to install programs and how to navigate the desktop which she had no learning curve problems with at all. I opened the email program Thunderbird and Barb ran to get her ISP setup disk. I told her I didn't need it and couldn't use it either. She was instantly skeptical. I asked her two question; user name and password and her eyes popped as I finished the setup in less than two minutes and her emails started rolling in.
By this time I had initiated all updates and had also installed Bleachbit, a disk cleaner. I restarted her laptop and ran Bleachbit set for the deepest cleaning except for a memory cleaning which lasted for about an hour. I like running Bleachbit to clean up new installations and it makes the the system faster. Barb was impressed with the speed before I ran Bleachbit and was totally blown away with the speed afterwards. Other than learning new program names, Barb had no trouble switching to Mint 13. One of the games I installed was Mahjong ... big mistake! Barb is now a Mahjong junkie!
Linux can do everything that Windows does except for a couple of file formats. Overly complicated DOCX from Windows authors aren't handled well by the Libre Office package and there's a presentation type that isn't handled well either. DOCX files authored through Libre Office alone are fine. Other than those two file types you'll have no trouble with any other Windows file types. On top of that, the entire package is free. There are no registration or licensing fees, no purchase costs, nothing. If you like it and use it, the only cost is to pass it on and learn enough to help yourself and other Linux newbies. No, you don't have to become a guru, just learn to use it well enough that you can help others begin to learn about it.
I also promote and install Vinux which is another Ubuntu spin-off that's been developed by and for the visually impaired. Vinux can be installed even by someone who's deaf-blind because drivers for Braille displays are included with the installation. No other operating system can make that claim. Look at vinuxproject.org for more.
Linux has so much flexibility and ability that once you get the hang of it, you'll wonder why it isn't much more popular. Honestly, other than the hype that surrounds Windows, that's all that Windows has going for it, just the hype. At this moment, I'm using Mint 13 on an Acer laptop writing this review and recommendation. I have almost zero worries concerning security such as viruses, absolutely zero as long as I download from the internal Linux repositories only. Linux is nearly a steel wall compared to the Swiss cheese that Windows is made of.

Easy! Spend maybe $100 , Replace & upgrade the hard drive & memory card.

The biggest problem with updating the memory is making sure it's seated properly, but if you don't get it right the first time, you pop it back out and triple check it's seated next time. On hp laptops there's 2 screws then 2 tabs. The hard drive is even easier. 3 screws to get the drive out and four to take it out of the housing. After install, reinstall OS. Piece of cake.

I agree wholeheartedly with manperez. On our recent vacation my wife kept complaining that her netbook was horribly slow. Trying to use a 1.0g atom processor on a netbook with 1g of ram can seem glacial after being used to a dual core processor with 3g of ram. I gave her my laptop, which dual boots Kubuntu and Windows 7, then installed Puppy Linux on the netbook from a flash drive I had with me. I used it for the rest of the trip and it was every bit as snappy as my dual core HP with 4g of ram that I gave her. As manperez says, you can dual boot it to try, leaving your windows installation intact. There are word processors that save in MS word compatible formats such as Open Office you can use. The best news is you can download and try it for free.

It's all well and good for all of us who have never looked at your computer say to try this or switch to that. There can be MANY issues that will slow down your computer. I do a performance study of mine or one from work when someone tells me it was slow. Here are some things I have found:

1) Memory - as someone already pointed out, a lot of application programmers assume that you have a modern (less than a month old) computer when designing and coding their apps. Regardless of the "minimum" requirements on the package or user guide, they usually are talking about minimum resources just to run the software and not to run it well. Think of the software you had on your computer when it ran great. Now, what has changed or has been "upgraded".

2) Processor - see discussion on processor, above.

3) Hard Disk - This has its roots in several places. First of all, older hard drives are, well, slow. Remember that the technology that the drive uses must match your disk controller if you want to buy something newer. Then there is the issue of transfer rate. How fast can the data get from the drive into your memory? Latency and other issues can slow you down. Another thing to watch out for is disk errors. With age, more errors show up even though the hardware corrects for these and even moves your data around, there still would be a slowing effect. Some people swear by the speed of Solid State Disk (SSD) drives. Fine but I have seen some weird things happen with these that indicate space is not freed up exactly when files are deleted (older SSD) and there is still information out there that they have limited lifespans with regard to read/write cycles. Defragging? It may help. Has little to do anymore with the physical drive characteristics but it still is a factor in the use of "clusters" by Microsoft's NTFS. (Stll, I would not suggest running this on an SSD). Checkdisk (or CHKDSK)! Very important, especially if you have something messed up in part of your NTFS system.

4. Software - As someone pointed out, the less junk you have around, the cleaner and better your system should run. Think about this: if you have an anti-virus program and it does a scan, which computer would it run faster on? One that is near empty in terms of number and size of files or one that has a kazillion files and many are large? What would I do? Go to the control panel and get rid of anything that a) you know what it is and b) you don't need it. What about LINUX? If you have time to learn something new, this could be great. If you don't have the time or patience, this could be frustrating. Always try it before you buy it!

5) Startup - If the computer is slow starting up, try to figure out what is running at start up. Have a techie show you how to work MSCONFIG.EXE. You can use it to stop all programs from starting up when your computer starts (careful not to stop normal Windows stuff). If it runs better, you can go into there and allow more and more to start up until you find out where the slowdown is.

6) Task Manager - If the slowdown is during normal running, you can run the task manager (right click on taskbar and then select task manager from the menu). If you go to the processes and sort by the CPU column, things that seem to be taking up a LOT of CPU (except "idle") could be worth looking up and seeing what they relate to.

7) Malware - You've seen that malware doesn't always have the slowing effect but it could have. There are many free anti-virus programs out there but, you really could need more. Not all malware programs are viruses. Adware, spyware are things that you not only want to get rid of but can slow you down as well. I don't trust an A?V program to get rid of these very well. Try a free download of Spybot Search and Destroy. You don't need to run "Tea Timer" in the background, just update it, do an immunization and a scan every once in awhile, especially if things seem slow or just plain weird. Too much scanning? That could be an issue, especially with most anti-malware software that scans. Here's what they do: Your computer starts. The malware software immediately starts (so you're not unprotected during startup), then the software decides that it needs to check for updates (all this while your PC is still trying to start) and, after downloading updates, it might start doing a scan. Should you go into settings and tone it down? You can, but the more you tone down your anti-malware software, the less safe you are. The question then becomes, are you TOO safe? Is it worth "some" risk to speed up your PC? Maybe. It depends on your environment and what you do with the PC. Spend a lot of time going to weird sites or sites that have a lot of advertising that they show from elsewhere? or do you just run Word mostly?

My suggestion is to find someone local to you who works as a technician on computers every day and someone you trus and offer to take them to dinner if they can do a thorough study of your PC. You will need to show them where it is slow for you and what you do with the PC. The last PC I looked at that was "slow" was trying to connect with a server in China often.

what is the Op system in your Computer? what windows?

... your comment regarding programmers above. As one who has written software at the corporate level, I never make such assumptions and do everything I can to optimize my code, use as few resources as necessary, and make a point of having my code clean up after itself, not relying upon automatic trash collection. This is a practice followed by any programmer worth being paid.

Spybot is a good tool, but saying you don't trust AV programs? Lame. Spybot is not the be-all and end-all you make it sound like.

The last machine you looked at that was slow ... so, you found malware on it, correct? Did you only use cleaners or did you wipe the drive. If you only used cleaners, you should probably give back whatever you were paid. Once a system is infected, you should never trust it until it has been wiped.

and it is free if you don't donate a buck or two!

Juliana-

You don't provide many additional details about your current system other than to say it's 4 years old and has "plenty" of hard drive space and RAM, so it's difficult to give you specific advice. At 4 years old, you probably have Windows Vista - which is/was a real dog. You also don't say how much you're willing to spend or what programs are critical to you. (I can assume something like Word will be necessary because you say you're writing a book.) Here are some suggestions to get you thinking:

1. Get a new laptop. Check the ratings here on CNet and see if one of the budget laptop recommendations would be right for you. You can get a decent machine for as little as $500.

All the following recommendations require you to back up your existing data onto something before you go with any of them. I personally like the Transcend StoreJet 25 units that come in a shockproof case. A 500 gigabyte unit - which will surely be enough - will run you about $80. Having a solid external backup device is a good idea in any case, so it's a sound investment.

Also, before you do any of the below, go to Control Panel / Programs and Features. Go through the list and identify all programs that are critical to you. Anything that you don't recognize, you can probably disregard. It's amazing how much junk one can acquire over time. When you have created your list, go back through it and identify from where you installed each item. If you have separate install disks, all the better, because that will give you the most flexibility.

2. Reimage your machine from your original disks. You may need to do this in any case if your machine came with bundled software that you need and you don't have separate software install disks. Run Windows update until it stops offering updates to get you back up to date with patches.

3. Upgrade to Windows 7. A copy of the Home edition will cost you $90 or less. If you have separate install disks for your required programs, you can just do a clean install on your current machine, being sure to wipe everything out first. If you needed to Reimage to get back critical programs, then run the Windows 7 install as an upgrade after doing step 1. After completing the install, go back to your list of critical programs that you identified earlier and reinstall anything that's missing. Be sure to install good security software. I've been perfectly happy with Microsoft Security Essentials that's a free download from the Microsoft site.

4. Swap out your hard drive for an SSD (Solid State Device). If your machine is still too slow, you can consider this one last - but a bit pricey - step to get an extra boost. I recently put one in an old Dell machine, and the results are just short of outstanding. You can get one from Crucial (the M4 models are the fastest) that comes with an upgrade kit. 128GB runs about $124 (with the kit), and 256GB is about $235. The kit is super easy to use. Install the software and use it to create a boot disk. Shut down your computer, put in the boot disk, plug in the adapter cable to a USB port and the new drive, then boot up from the disk you created. If you ask for verification, the transfer of your old disk image can take several hours. After it's done, swap the two drives and watch it zoom. You may need to hunt around on the Sony website to find specific instructions about how to find and replace the hard drive on your machine. On some boxes, it's simply remove a couple of screws and slide it out.

Now note how much you would have to spend to get all the way to option 4. $80 for a backup device, $90 for a new version of Windows, $235 for a new SSD. At $400+ spent, you're getting close to the price of a new box, and you'll spend a lot of time getting there. Maybe I should discount the $80 for the backup device because that's going to be a good idea in any case, but you get the picture.

Tough choices, but I hope this helps.

John