Lag suggestions?

[dionysus]

Unfortunately, I let my mother use my pc and she's got a fantastic habit of breaking it

Anyway suffering from major lag - playing games, opening files, loading pages.....anything from graphic intensive like playing slots online to the most benign like opening ducuments or opening a browser

did all the usuals:
no viruses/scans
did all updates
CClean often
chedk task manager, nothing extraneous enabled, nothing running high
everything...is just slow

do people still defrag?
any other suggestions?

 

[pereblue]

Take a look HDD use, if its about 90% full, your Lapt (PC) could suffer a performance drop.

 

[dionysus]

i checked and i have a terrabyte free
and error checking says no errors

before i let my mother play with lol it ran like a dream, being a gaming laptop
i just cant figure out why EVERYTHING, no matter the task runs like molasses

 

[zap987]

If it's a laptop and running slow on everything, could be some power saving setting preventing it from going full speed.

 

[dionysus]

If it's a laptop and running slow on everything, could be some power saving setting preventing it from going full speed.

thanks, but looking under power saving options, everything is set to never

it's just so weird
but ty to both of you for suggestions

 

[Sonict]

It is possible that you need to clean out the laptop since dust may be blocking the heat vents where the CPU is. If the CPU is getting too hot, it will throttle down and your performance will suffer.

 

[dionysus]

It is possible that you need to clean out the laptop since dust may be blocking the heat vents where the CPU is. If the CPU is getting too hot, it will throttle down and your performance will suffer.

i have it hooked to the tv and under the coffee table
with 2 cats that's a distinct possibility - ill giver a good dusting/blowing in the am

 

[dpp00]

which virus scan are you using, personally never found anything as good as malware bytes (free) as with all virus scanners set them to run at boot or safemode

so any offending bug cant load,

and ccleaner is good but not as good as 10bit also (free)

 

[ternur]

How much RAM you have on the machine (also check the virtual memory / paging file settings)? Did you check what services and programs autorun at startup (does the computer start up like it used to or is it slower)?

You said all the latest windows updates are installed. How about GPU drivers (if applicable)? You could also see if there are any other hardware and outdated driver conflicts.

If you have SSD there's no use to defrag. I've never had any signicant boost by defragging older HDDsr, but it be helpful in some cases.

Like suggested, check how hot the computer rans. Speccy for example gives you multiple readings (CPU, motherboard, storage and graphics temperatures).

 

[goatwack]

Hey my laptop cuts out when it gets too hot, how'd you like them apples

Anything above Solitaire and it sounds like Heathrow terminal during peak season

I should really clean the fan and replace the thermal paste on the heat sink

 

[pinnit2014]

My poor MacBook gets killed by one provider - Thunderkick. The Wild Heist turns into a battle for its Fan Soul.

Defragmenting? Sounds so 1997

 

[dionysus]

thanks guys...will do a (physical) scour this weekend
was so hung up on software issues never contemplated the hardware ones

 

[NeverLucky]

Hard to say without knowing the Hardware. SSDs do work wonders though and are quite cheap by now.
Also no need to defrag...

If she uses Chrome it might be worth a try to switch back to Firefox as that has been receiving quite a few good performance updates.

Edit: It might also be throttling due to being low on Battery while being charged and used, might be worth checking.