A laptop has become an imperative part of our life. We require a laptop for official as well as personal purposes. Hence, it becomes a great concern when our laptop becomes slow. Several internal and external factors can lead to a slow laptop performance. And until and unless we are aware of them, we cannot make an effort to fix this issue. So let us go into more detail with how to fix a slow laptop issue.
Factors Leading To A Slow Laptop
A laptop generally slows down due to the following reasons as discussed below.
- If TSRs or startup programs are running in the background, then they can affect the performance of the laptop.
- If you do not delete temporary files and folders on a periodical basis, then they can deteriorate the PC performance to a large extent.
- A faulty, corrupted or fragmented hard drive, CPU or RAM is can be another reason for slow laptop performance.
- In case you are running outdated Operating System on your computer then, slow performance problem won’t be an alien to you.
- Outdated device drivers do not let the PC to run at its actual speed.
- Corrupted Registry entries a standard hard drive can result in a slow PC.
- Generally, a computer slows down when it becomes more than 5 years old.
- PC running slow issue often occurs when the computer or its processors gets excessively heated up.
How To Fix A Slow Laptop?
We are discussing below the apparent solutions for how to fix a slow laptop with ease.
Temporarily Remove TSRs and Startup Programs
Hold the ‘Ctrl’ key and press ‘Shift’ and ‘Esc’ simultaneously to open the ‘Task manager.’ Click on the ‘Process’ tab, select the programs you want to delete and tap the ‘End Task’ button.
Delete Temporary Files And Folders
- Click on the ‘Start’ button and then open Settings.
- Select ‘System’ on the home page of ‘Settings.’
- Then, click on ‘Storage’ and select the drive where you have installed Windows 10.
- Now, the ‘Storage’ page pops up displaying the disk space used by the temp files and other applications installed on your PC.
- Choose ‘Temporary files’ to open the ‘Temporary Files’ page.
- After that, check the box next to ‘Temporary files.’
- Then, click on the ‘Remove files’ button located at the end of the page.
- Click ‘Yes’ in the confirmation box to confirm that you want to delete the temporary files.
Update Device Drivers Manually
Open Device Manager and expand ‘Network Adaptors.’
- Right-click on the device which requires an updated driver and then you need to select ‘Update Driver.’
- Browse the computer for the driver software and click ‘OK.’
- Check the box ‘Include sub-folders’ and click ‘Next.’
- When you restart the PC, you will find that your device has updated drivers.
If this method does not fix a slow laptop, then move to the next one.
Install The Latest Updates For Windows
Open the Control panel and choose the ‘Windows Update’ option. This inbuilt Windows feature checks for updates and displays them if any such updates are available. Then you can click on ‘Install’ to install the pending updates for your Windows.
Enhancing The Processor’s Speed
- Shutdown the computer and reboot it.
- Press the ‘Delete’ or ‘F2’ key depending on the computer’s manufacturer.
- Locate the CPU Multiplier settings and increase the CPU speed not more than 20%.
- Moreover, you will need to adjust the CPU power accordingly.
- Click ‘Save’ to exit the BIOS setup and reboot the system.
Erasing The Hard Drive And Reinstalling Windows
Use this method to fix a corrupted or faulty hard drive.
- Open Settings and select ‘Update and Security.’
- Choose the ‘Recovery’ option, navigate to ‘Reset this PC’ section and tap the ‘Get Started’ button.
- Now select one of these options ‘Keep my files’ and ‘Remove Everything.’
- Follow the prompts and start recovering the hard drive.
If this process does not restore the corrupted hard drive, then you will need to replace it.
Automatic Repair Of Corrupted Registry
- Insert the Windows 10 DVD and reboot your laptop.
- Press any key to boot from the DVD and follow the on-screen prompts to restore the Operating System to a stable state.
- Right-click on the ‘Start’ menu and select ‘Run cmd as administrator.’
- Enter ‘sfc/scannow’ in the command prompt and let it scan and fix the corrupted entries in the Windows Registry.
This article focuses on the most convenient fixes for how to fix a slow laptop. You can pick up one of these alternatives which will meet your purpose in the best way.