Laptop is kinda slow, any tips?

[Hyperwolf122]

Hello! Apologies if this is the wrong area to put this. so my laptop is a HP laptop (model number: 15-bsO6Owm) running intel icore 3 and running Windows 10. and the laptop isn't used much. It's operating system was installed of February of this year. It's once again not used much. The only things I have installed are have Firefox, Wacom Intuos tablet driver, Mediabang paint, Malwarebytes (free version), malwarebytes anti exploit, Adblock plus Firefox extension, malwarebytes Firefox extension, and lastly adwcleaner. It's only really slow when booting up its just a black screen for a solid minute and I can move my cursor around then it boots up to the log in screen then when it boots up the desktop it's black with a cursor for another solid minute and it takes it a minute to load the wallpaper and the menu bar and my app icons. I also had this with my old laptop which also ran Windows 10. Would I need to defrag the hard drive or something or is it something with Windows 10? 

Thanks!

 

-Casper

[nukecad]

If you are not using it much then it could be slow on booting because it is installing updates to Windows as it boots.

I've seen a similar behaviour with a friends laptop that only gets turned on once or twice a month and she asked me why it was always slow to boot.

Win 10 home will automatically download updates in the background while you are working, and then install them next time you boot.
(The Built in Windows Defender will also check for and download the latest security definition updates, if the laptop has not been on for a while then there will be definition updates to download, but that should be done after you get to the desktop).
You could check if this updating is what is going on by booting it up and looking in Task Manager to see what it's doing.
If it is updates then the various update and system services will still be working for a while after you have got to the desktop.

Once things have settled down in Task Manager shut down and see if it's quicker to reboot.
If it is then that would indicate that it's probably slow booting because of those Windows updates.

I'd also download the latest AdwCleaner (v7.4.2) and give it a run to see if it finds any pre-installed bumf which is loading at startup and slowing things down.

A defrag probably wouldn't hurt (though whether it would speed up booting is debatable).
Windows 10's own defragmenter will run itself occasionallly, IF the machine is switched on and 'idle'. But if you are not using it a lot then this probably isn't happening.

Edited November 11, 2019 by nukecad

[Hyperwolf122]

That makes a lot of sense! Thanks for the reply this was very helpful! 

[exile360]

If your system uses an SSD then defragmenting the drive likely won't help at all, and as mentioned Windows will perform maintenance on the drive automatically when idle (TRIM/garbage collection etc.) to optimize performance.  Other than that, if your system does have an SSD and it turns out it isn't Windows Updates slowing you down, it could be that a particular driver or some other startup program or background service that launches when the computer boots is slowing things down.  Such issues can sometimes be fixed by updating drivers and startup applications as well as removing any programs from startup that you don't need/don't use.  To get the latest drivers for your system I'd suggest going to the system manufacturer's website.  They should have a support page for the device that lists all of their latest drivers for it for you to download.  If you have trouble locating it let us know and provide the system manufacturer's name (like HP, Toshiba etc.) as well as the specific model number if possible.

[Firefox]

Besides us knowing you have an HP laptop (model number: 15-bsO6Owm) running intel icore 3, running Windows 10 and it is not used much, you did not tell us how much memory it has, or what type of hard drive is on the system.

I work on many laptops that are slow, most of them only have 4GB of memory and have a SATA drive.  I upgrade them to 8GB of memory and swap out the hard drive with an SSD drive. You would not believe the difference that makes.

Edited November 20, 2019 by Firefox
fixed typo's

[Porthos]

2 hours ago, Firefox said:

I work on many laptops that are slow, most of them only have 4GB of memory and have a SATA drive.  I upgrade them to 8GB of memory and swap out the hard drive with and SSD drive. You would not believe the difference that makes.

Same with my clients. SSD's have come down in price considerably over the last couple of years. Ram is inexpensive as well.

[David H. Lipman]

2 hours ago, Firefox said:

Besides us knowing you have an HP laptop (model number: 15-bsO6Owm) running intel icore 3 and running Windows 10 and it is not used much, you did not tell us how much memory it has, or what type of hard drive is on the system.

I work on many laptops that are slow, most of them only have 4GB of memory and have a SATA drive.  I upgrade them to 8GB of memory and swap out the hard drive with and SSD drive. You would not believe the difference that makes.

I have to second that statement .