Why is my PC getting so slow?

[justjax]

I have old laptop thats about 5-6 years old and I tend to put it into 'sleep' rather than shutdown/restart .. but I've noticed after several hours or a day or so of use (going in and out of sleep over a dozen times a day) it gets very sluggish and on first use this morning it was barely useable until I rebooted it.

When its freshly rebooted its rather speedy (well as speedy as a 6 year old machine running Win 7 can be). Spec wise its a Compaq Presario V5234TU, with a Intel Celeron M 1.46 GHz CPU and 768mb RAM, 60GB hard drive (with 44 GB free) running Windows 7. So whats the most likely cause? not enough RAM? not enough temp hard drive space? So thing else?

 

[Uber Philf]

Maybe it has a large amount of temp files, or it hasn't been defragged in months.

Have a look in;
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp

And delete everything within it.

NOTE: You must have Show Hidden Folder enabled to see the 'AppData' folder.

And do a defrag using Windows Defragmenter.

My Computer > Right Click on C: Drive > Properties > Tools > Defragment Now.

A reboot after doing the following steps couldn't hurt.

Hope this helps.

 

[Ch@n]

Its a combination of RAM, virtual memory. How much space is left in your boot drive?

Shortcuts:
Open Run - Type in temp
Clear all the files.
Open Run - Type in %temp%
Clear all the files.
Open Run - Type in prefetch
Clear all the files.

Or simply use CCleaner to do the job for you.

 

[acurasd]

In the RUN command type: msconfig (hit enter)

In the STARTUP tab.....
how many things you got going on there.

 

[justjax]

Maybe it has a large amount of temp files, or it hasn't been defragged in months.

Have a look in;
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp

And delete everything within it.

NOTE: You must have Show Hidden Folder enabled to see the 'AppData' folder.

And do a defrag using Windows Defragmenter.

My Computer > Right Click on C: Drive > Properties > Tools > Defragment Now.

A reboot after doing the following steps couldn't hurt.

Hope this helps.

Its a combination of RAM, virtual memory. How much space is left in your boot drive?

Shortcuts:
Open Run - Type in temp
Clear all the files.
Open Run - Type in %temp%
Clear all the files.
Open Run - Type in prefetch
Clear all the files.

Or simply use CCleaner to do the job for you.

I only rebuilt the laptop last week so I'm assuming its shouldn't need defragging. I have just cleared out the Windows temp, but if virtual memory is possibly linked,do I need to reduce/increase the amount of virtual memory?

 

[acurasd]

Maybe you got a virus that is using up all of your RAM...

did you ever run a virus or a spyware/malware check on your computer?

 

[Ch@n]

You should increase the virtual memory. BTW, how much is the space left in your boot drive. Also have you enabled Hibernate? If yes, this will take some huge amount of space. If lack of space and you dont use hibernate, you can disable it.

 

[justjax]

Maybe you got a virus that is using up all of your RAM...

did you ever run a virus or a spyware/malware check on your computer?

You should increase the virtual memory. BTW, how much is the space left in your boot drive. Also have you enabled Hibernate? If yes, this will take some huge amount of space. If lack of space and you dont use hibernate, you can disable it.

Don't think I have a virus. Its a fresh build and I have anti virus, etc running. as for space on the boot drive, do you mean on the main drive? (only have one hard drive). My main/C: drive is 60GB I have 44 GB free.

 

[Ch@n]

What about the virtual memory??

 

[justjax]

What about the virtual memory??

Well its automatically set at the mo to 1024MB, whats should I change it too (and what should the min be, it show 16MB at the mo). Should I also switch Processor scheduling from Programs to Background services?

BTW, since this morning I have turned off Hibernate, although with 44GB free, I wouldn't have thought its a space issue, but what do I know.

 

[Ch@n]

I dont think the issue is with the VM. Try to optimize performance according to background services.
Normally the RAM is eaten up due to activity. When you put it on sleep mode, the RAM stays at the same rate.
After wakeon, all the open application again starts to eat the RAM. This makes it unresponsive and slow.
Rather than sleep, I suggest using the hibernate. This feature, stores ur session in its place and releases it again, without any hiccup. But this also becomes unresponsive after prolonged use.
I normally use the hibernate option when having 1GB of RAM. After a couplke of days, my laptop becomes unresponsive forcing me to do a restart.

 

[Arc]

I have old laptop thats about 5-6 years old and I tend to put it into 'sleep' rather than shutdown/restart .. but I've noticed after several hours or a day or so of use (going in and out of sleep over a dozen times a day) it gets very sluggish and on first use this morning it was barely useable until I rebooted it.

When its freshly rebooted its rather speedy (well as speedy as a 6 year old machine running Win 7 can be). Spec wise its a Compaq Presario V5234TU, with a Intel Celeron M 1.46 GHz CPU and 768mb RAM, 60GB hard drive (with 44 GB free) running Windows 7. So whats the most likely cause? not enough RAM? not enough temp hard drive space? So thing else?

Hi pal !
Microsoft's page Windows 7 System Requirements and softpedia Windows 7 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia both says that minimum system requirement is 1 GB of RAM for 32 bit and 2 GB of RAM for 64 bit ! So it is no wonder that your system is a bit slow

Dont worry ! Just buy a new ram stick , obviously it is to match your existing ram's fsb, attach it, and get full speed

 

[PeteC]

I do not have an exact answer, but sleep mode uses ram to maintain settings et al, unlike hibernate, where these settings are kept on disk. Keeping in mind that Win 7 is not even recommended for systems with less than 1gb ram, I would suspect that there is a memory issue upon re-wakening your notebook, perhaps memory is not being properly reallocated.

In your case (and in many cases!) sleep mode may not work well...if that is the case, although boot time of course will be longer, hibernate may coexist with your lappy better.

 

[gregrocker]

Def need more RAM: add a gig stick in addition to what u got and you'll notice a big diff. It will help offset the inherent weakness of the Celeron.

Get rid of the freeloaders on your RAM/CPU in msconfig>Startup. I only allow my AV and gadgets (sidebar). Run a free low-impact effective AV like MSEssentials or Avast 5.

Run state-of-the-art free CCleaner "Run Cleaner" and Registry tabs, then Auslogics Disk and Registry defraggers monthly to keep it whistle clean and ordered.

Study the Event Viewer and Performance Log for repeat errors and Google them to a solution over time.

 

[Arc]

Def need more RAM: add a gig stick in addition to what u got and you'll notice a big diff. It will help offset the inherent weakness of the Celeron.

Get rid of the freeloaders on your RAM/CPU in msconfig>Startup. I only allow my AV and gadgets (sidebar). Run a free low-impact effective AV like MSEssentials or Avast 5.

Run state-of-the-art free CCleaner "Run Cleaner" and Registry tabs, then Auslogics Disk and Registry defraggers monthly to keep it whistle clean and ordered.

Study the Event Viewer and Performance Log for repeat errors and Google them to a solution over time.

A set of great suggertions to keep the pc faster ! Nice post, Greg

 

[justjax]

I do not have an exact answer, but sleep mode uses ram to maintain settings et al, unlike hibernate, where these settings are kept on disk. Keeping in mind that Win 7 is not even recommended for systems with less than 1gb ram, I would suspect that there is a memory issue upon re-wakening your notebook, perhaps memory is not being properly reallocated.

In your case (and in many cases!) sleep mode may not work well...if that is the case, although boot time of course will be longer, hibernate may coexist with your lappy better.

Def need more RAM: add a gig stick in addition to what u got and you'll notice a big diff. It will help offset the inherent weakness of the Celeron.

Get rid of the freeloaders on your RAM/CPU in msconfig>Startup. I only allow my AV and gadgets (sidebar). Run a free low-impact effective AV like MSEssentials or Avast 5.

Run state-of-the-art free CCleaner "Run Cleaner" and Registry tabs, then Auslogics Disk and Registry defraggers monthly to keep it whistle clean and ordered.

Study the Event Viewer and Performance Log for repeat errors and Google them to a solution over time.

Okay, so I have 768MB ram now (1 x 256 MB, 1 x 512 MB), could I just replace the 256MB ram with a 1GB one and have 1.5GB ram? I know they say you should ideally match the ram, but thats not the case at the moment anyway. Although saying that, I haven't looked inside .. is the 256MB likely to be the onboard ram that I can't change/remove? ...best find a screw driver...

Edit: just looked inside, appears that both RAM are removable, why would they put in 768Mb ram originally, odd amount?

 

[Arc]

Okay, so I have 768MB ram now (1 x 256 MB, 1 x 512 MB), could I just replace the 256MB ram with a 1GB one and have 1.5GB ram? I know they say you should ideally match the ram, but thats not the case at the moment anyway. Although saying that, I haven't looked inside .. is the 256MB likely to be the onboard ram that I can't change/remove? ...best find a screw driver...

Edit: just looked inside, appears that both RAM are removable, why would they put in 768Mb ram originally, odd amount?

You know, the larger the better ... but if you want to keep any of your existing and replace the other, you must match the fsb speed, otherwise it will appear as an average.

 

[Ch@n]

Along with the above suggestion, you should also check what is the maximum size of RAM ur motherboard supports. You can check this from the motherboard manual or the brand's website.

 

[Uber Philf]

Along with the above suggestion, you should also check what is the maximum size of RAM ur motherboard supports. You can check this from the motherboard manual or the brand's website.

Was just about to mention that, don't buy any RAM until your certain it can actually use it.

Good Luck!