Help before I throw this laptop out the window!

I've got this Windows 8.1 laptop that I got 6 months ago and it's really slow, to the point that I can't stand to turn it on!

I've got a MacBook Air which I just got to replace it but i'd still like to ROM hack, I don't know what's wrong with the Windows laptop it's just really slow and freezes most of the time then comes back.

It takes about 1-1:30 hours for it to become usable again, I know I don't have any malware or viruses.

Thanks in advance!

What is the model of Windows laptop?

Let's first determine whether it's slow as molasses because the hardware specs it has aren't adequate for what you're doing, or if there's malware/bloatware running in the background you aren't aware of. There are, of course, other issues it could be, but have patience with it.

It's a Acer with a Intel Core i3-4005U with Intel HD Graphics 4400 and 4GB of RAM

What tasks are you trying to accomplish when it freezes to the point of becoming unusable? And does it behave any differently on different power settings?

I've had my laptop for several years now and it's gotten to the point where it doesn't like to be charged anymore - regardless of the power settings, and regardless of what I'm trying to do, be it load a YouTube video, open Microsoft Word, or even move files from one folder to another. I don't know if that could be your problem, because you said your laptop was only ~6 months old, but maybe try and perform the task you were attempting while unplugged, if you were attempting to task plugged in previously.

Aside from that, the other thing I would suggest trying out is opening the task manager to see what's running in the background.

I'm not a professional by any means, but that's my two cents.

Hufen iâ said:

It's a Acer with a Intel Core i3-4005U with Intel HD Graphics 4400 and 4GB of RAM

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That's a pretty weak processor for Windows 8.1, and generally doesn't sound like that powerful of a computer.

Tell your computer to check for updates, run those, then try again. It could be Windows Update trying to run in the background hoarding resources (this is a problem that tends to happen to Windows computers no matter the Windows OS being run, as long as it's an OS that's Windows 2000 or newer).

Also, do another check for malware/bloatware. There may be some that you missed even if you think you're 100% certain there's none left. Use stuff like Malwarebytes and Spybot Search and Destroy for cleaning.

donavannj said:

That's a pretty weak processor for Windows 8.1, and generally doesn't sound like that powerful of a computer.

Tell your computer to check for updates, run those, then try again. It could be Windows Update trying to run in the background hoarding resources (this is a problem that tends to happen to Windows computers no matter the Windows OS being run, as long as it's an OS that's Windows 2000 or newer).

Also, do another check for malware/bloatware. There may be some that you missed even if you think you're 100% certain there's none left. Use stuff like Malwarebytes and Spybot Search and Destroy for cleaning.

Click to expand...

Keep in mind that Windows 8.1 runs pretty fine on smartphone-grade SoCs, so I'm going to guess that there's something running on top that's causing performance to suffer.

After running Windows Update and letting it install everything, check the other parts of the computer to see if there's anything else that's wrong.

How many processes are running on your computer? Task Manager should show it in the CPU section of the Performance tab. Is the system disk constantly spending a lot of time being busy doing something?

Twiggy said:

Keep in mind that Windows 8.1 runs pretty fine on smartphone-grade SoCs, so I'm going to guess that there's something running on top that's causing performance to suffer.

After running Windows Update and letting it install everything, check the other parts of the computer to see if there's anything else that's wrong.

How many processes are running on your computer? Task Manager should show it in the CPU section of the Performance tab. Is the system disk constantly spending a lot of time being busy doing something?

Click to expand...

It seems the system disk is always at 100% but I'm unsure what's causing this as nothing appears in the task manager?

Hufen iâ said:

It seems the system disk is always at 100% but I'm unsure what's causing this as nothing appears in the task manager?

Click to expand...

Check the Processes tab and click on the Disk column.

The thing that's hogging up the disk will be at the top.

donavannj said:

That's a pretty weak processor for Windows 8.1, and generally doesn't sound like that powerful of a computer.

Click to expand...

i3-4005U should be plenty to run 8.1. Any Haswell processor should have no problem whatsoever with basic usage, and even a Bay Trail Atom would be sufficient for the majority of users.

It must be something with software. A screenshot of task manager could be really helpful as others have pointed out :)