2 year old laptop takes 5 mins to boot up

Fingers Mcginty · 31-08-2019 4:25pm #1

Howdy folks, Mother in law has entrusted me with fixing her laptop. It's only 2 years old but takes ages to boot up and is horrendously slow in general.
I notice the disk is on 100% in the task manager window.

Atlantic Dawn · 31-08-2019 4:26pm

What free hard drive space is left on it? What spec is the laptop, how much RAM, processor etc?

Upgrading to a SSD drive would be a good solution either way, €30-€40 would get a decent one.

Fingers Mcginty · 31-08-2019 4:33pm

HP laptop with i3 CPU
4G Ram
running windows 10
881GB free of 915GB on C drive
Recovery (D) 1.7GB free of 14.3 GB

Even trying to open explorer took an age

bren2002 · 31-08-2019 4:35pm

Sounds like it could be a bot.
Wipe and reinstall.

whomitconcerns · 31-08-2019 4:36pm

Run Windows 10 cleanup. It puts the OS back in as clean a format as possible.

4gb of ram is not much either.... But if that wasn't a problem it probably still isn't.

And a budget pc with a 1gb HDD means it's not an SSD, so it's not going to boot super fast, but again is it wasn't an issue then, it won't matter now

knockers84 · 31-08-2019 4:36pm

Issue with hard drive I would think. Get a 240GB SSD for 30 quid and reinstall windows. If just using it for browsing the net and YouTube 4GB of ram is fine

Fingers Mcginty · 31-08-2019 4:37pm

I tried resetting the laptop yesterday in the recovery section of windows ...came down this morniung at was hung at 42%

ancuncha · 31-08-2019 4:38pm

I had this problem a while ago, turning off superfetch solved it

Guide here https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/100-disk-usage-windows-10-fixed/

If that doesn't work try searching windows 10 100% disk usage, there are a few things that can cause it.

Fingers Mcginty · 31-08-2019 4:39pm

ancuncha wrote: »

I had this problem a while ago, turning off superfetch solved it

Guide here https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/100-disk-usage-windows-10-fixed/

If that doesn't work try searching windows 10 100% disk usage, there are a few things that can cause it.

Yes been there...tried all that but nothing worked. Looks like a hard drive issue?

ancuncha · 31-08-2019 4:41pm

Fingers Mcginty wrote: »

Yes been there...tried all that but nothing worked. Looks like a hard drive issue?

It may be, could also be a windows update failing to install and it it's constantly trying to re-install it

Fingers Mcginty · 31-08-2019 4:42pm

ancuncha wrote: »

It may be, could also be a windows update failing to install and it it's constantly trying to re-install it

I've just removed macafee and trying a reboot now

SteelyDanJalapeno · 31-08-2019 4:42pm

More than one antivirus installed?

Fingers Mcginty · 31-08-2019 4:44pm

SteelyDanJalapeno wrote: »

More than one antivirus installed?

No

ancuncha · 31-08-2019 4:45pm

Before spending on hardware, do a clean install of windows and see how it get on.
It's very likely to be more a OS issue than a hardware issue IMO

Fingers Mcginty · 31-08-2019 4:46pm

ancuncha wrote: »

Before spending on hardware, do a clean install of windows and see how it get on.
It's very likely to be more a OS issue than a hardware issue IMO

Excuse my ignorance but how do i do a clean install?

Fingers Mcginty · 31-08-2019 4:49pm

is this it
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10startfresh

ancuncha · 31-08-2019 4:50pm

Basically, backup all your files 1st
Download windows 10 usb installer from mirosoft onto a spare usb drive.
Check the bios that it will boot from usb
Reboot with usb drive in, delete partition on hard drive and install windows (it creates it's own partition)

ancuncha · 31-08-2019 4:50pm

Fingers Mcginty wrote: »

is this it
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10startfresh

That looks right

Fingers Mcginty · 31-08-2019 4:52pm

ok lads,,,,really appreciate the replies. I'll keep yiz posted ....

PropJoe10 · 31-08-2019 4:53pm

Instructions here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/all/how-to-perform-a-clean-install-or-reinstall-of/aef0ae63-2117-41ee-a8ea-4a3181625b08

As someone said, 4GB RAM for general usage is perfectly fine. A solid state drive in that machine would crown it. You wouldn't believe the difference in speeds compared to an old mechanical drive.

Fingers Mcginty · 31-08-2019 5:04pm

Looks like it might be hardware realted. I tried the fresh start option.
I have a window up now "refreshing your pc....getting a few things ready 1%"...It's been stuck at 1% for 10 minutes.
Looking like it is the hard drive at this stage?

knockers84 · 31-08-2019 5:11pm

Fingers Mcginty wrote: »

Looks like it might be hardware realted. I tried the fresh start option.
I have a window up now "refreshing your pc....getting a few things ready 1%"...It's been stuck at 1% for 10 minutes.
Looking like it is the hard drive at this stage?

Back up your files and try a fresh install of windows 10 is the handiest to do to here.

If not installing get an SSD

Fingers Mcginty · 31-08-2019 5:14pm

knockers84 wrote: »

Back up your files and try a fresh install of windows 10 is the handiest to do to here.

If not installing get an SSD

see my post above

FlipperThePriest · 31-08-2019 5:20pm

Just to echo what others have suggested... I have a 7 year old Lenovo laptop. I updated to Windows 10 a few years ago and it slowed everything down. Swapped over to a SSD and the laptop to this day is faster than the day I bought it. Cannot recommend a SSD enough. Huge difference across the board. Starts up in about 10 seconds. Photoshop / Blender / Video editing launch in no time and are far more stable.

Fingers Mcginty · 31-08-2019 6:09pm

OK...ive ordered the ssd. Obviously windows wont be on it. How do i get windows onto it?

ED E · 31-08-2019 6:11pm

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

+

Rufus

+

A big enough USB (preferably a fast one for your sanity)

Atlantic Dawn · 31-08-2019 6:12pm

Some SSD drives will come with software to backup your current drive over to it, alternatively you could download something like Macrium Reflect...
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

For the sake of €30 I can't recommend enough the difference a SSD makes, will be like a different laptop, mymemory and amazon have plenty...
https://www.mymemory.ie/memory/data-storage/ssd-drives.html

FlipperThePriest · 31-08-2019 6:41pm

When I was doing it, I toyed with the idea of doing a clone. But in the end I was told because of the difference between hdd and ssd architecture and how stuff is accessed a clean install would be more efficient, so I just did a clean install from USB. Backed up all the files on an external drive first. Bit of a pain having to reinstall all your software, depending on what's used on the machine.

Fingers Mcginty · 01-09-2019 8:39am

OK so i think I've successfully created a boorable USB. The stick was 8G so i was worried it wasn't big enough but it finished after about 6 hrs.
So basically just install the new drive when it arrives , insert the USB and should be good to go?
I also noticed there is a spare slot for some extra memory so will throw another 4GB in there.

knockers84 · 01-09-2019 8:42am

Fingers Mcginty wrote: »

OK so i think I've successfully created a boorable USB. The stick was 8G so i was worried it wasn't big enough but it finished after about 6 hrs.
So basically just install the new drive when it arrives , insert the USB and should be good to go?
I also noticed there is a spare slot for some extra memory so will throw another 4GB in there.

You will have to download the drivers from the manufacturers website as well when installed. If your relation is just browsing the internet and using light office 4GB is enough

DopeTech · 01-09-2019 9:24am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJCkI14Lcd4

2 year old laptop takes 5 mins to boot up

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