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Suggestions for fixing laptop
Old 06-17-2018, 09:51 PM   #1
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Suggestions for fixing laptop

My DWs laptop is slow...


She is always complaining about the internet speed, but it is not slow.... it tests at a high enough speed almost all the time...


The issue seems to be her computer... it seems to be writing all of the stuff for the screen on the hard drive as that seems to be running constantly when you are surfing...



I am doing a memory test on it right now, so do not have all the info... but it is a Toshiba Satellite with an AMD A6 Vision processor... it was designed to play blue-ray discs so I thought it would be OK... it was when new, but seems to have slowed the last couple of years...


And NO, I do not want to buy a new one... all she does is web surf and she does most of that on her Ipad...
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Old 06-17-2018, 10:00 PM   #2
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The exact model would help knowledgeable folks give you better info.

However, 2 cheap things are: switch her hd for an SSD , these days you can get a 240 GB one for about $55.

Increase her memory if it's less than 4 Gig. You can check here: Crucial US | DRAM, Solid State Drive (SSD) & Memory Upgrades
They have a scanner so you can get exactly the correct specs.
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Old 06-17-2018, 10:36 PM   #3
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I had a similar problem with my laptop. I noticed after the laptop went to 'sleep', it would be very slow to wake up and from then on, the hard drive seemed to be working over time. I changed the settings so that it would not go to sleep as long as it was plugged into the wall. Since then, it's been great! Just a suggestion to give that a try if you notice the same thing.
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Old 06-17-2018, 10:37 PM   #4
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What OS are you running? My Satellite 655 ended up being too slow for windows 8.1 and 10. So we put linux LXLE on it and it works great. It's my DWs primary machine.
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Old 06-17-2018, 11:31 PM   #5
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Did you open the task manager to see what processes are running? Are you running a virus scan? Windows securities essentials can slow down older PCs. You can try to uncheck the enable write caching for better performance in the device manager for the hard drive.

a. Press the Windows key and the R key together to open the Run prompt and type devmgmt.msc and press enter to open the device manager.
b. In the device manager, double click the disk drives to expand it, then select the hard drive you want to disable the write caching for.
c. Click on the Polices tab. Under the upper Removal policy section, select (dot) Quick removal, or check the Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device box, and click on OK.
d. Restart the computer and check
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Old 06-18-2018, 03:43 AM   #6
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There is another very long thread on Windows 10 and Toshiba laptop problems. There are many solutions in that thread, went past 250 posts.
http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...one-92071.html
My first and final guess is that the laptop has too little memory. Start with a memory upgrade.
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Old 06-18-2018, 05:54 AM   #7
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Did something happen recently to make the laptop slower? Or is this just the need for speed?
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Old 06-18-2018, 06:13 AM   #8
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all she does is web surf and she does most of that on her Ipad...
Why not have her web surf using the iPad ALL the time?
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Old 06-18-2018, 06:35 AM   #9
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If it's a 7 year old laptop (which I think it is based on the description), you can probably expect some mild improvement by follow the recommendations here and in the other thread, but that's an old machine.

start shopping.
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Old 06-18-2018, 07:57 AM   #10
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all she does is web surf and she does most of that on her Ipad...
If that’s all she does, I’d wipe out the hard drive and start fresh. Save any files you care about first, of course. Do you have the original install disk? That would make it a lot easier. If your not inclined, take it to a local shop. If you're inclined, you could load up a clean operating system - Linux.

I know you don’t want to buy new, but for just surfing, a chromebook would work just fine and they’re pretty cheap. Personally, I would not want to spend a lot of time figuring it out. Been there, done that. I have no patience to do that again. I’ll leave that work to Omni. She seems to have the patience of a saint and the tenacity of a pit bull.
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Old 06-18-2018, 08:06 AM   #11
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What OS are you running? My Satellite 655 ended up being too slow for windows 8.1 and 10. So we put linux LXLE on it and it works great. It's my DWs primary machine.

It is Win 10
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Old 06-18-2018, 08:13 AM   #12
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What OS are you running? My Satellite 655 ended up being too slow for windows 8.1 and 10. So we put linux LXLE on it and it works great. It's my DWs primary machine.
I have an older laptop that’s just sitting. How difficult is it to do this - change over to Linux? I’ve always done the reinstall.
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Old 06-18-2018, 08:20 AM   #13
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It had 6GB of ram....


Model is L8750-S7332..


OK, I lied.... it is not always internet... she does photoshop and other programs on it... I was not thinking when I wrote that...



Not sure if I want to change to Linux.
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Old 06-18-2018, 08:20 AM   #14
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Things I would do:

Clean reinstall Win10 by using the media creation tool from Microsoft.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10
SSD upgrade
Memory upgrade (But 6GB should be fine)
If none of that works, go to Linux.
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Old 06-18-2018, 08:23 AM   #15
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I have an older laptop that’s just sitting. How difficult is it to do this - change over to Linux? I’ve always done the reinstall.
All you do is make an install disk and overwrite your old OS. Here is the link Revive that old PC! < The LXLE Desktop

DW is not a computer nerd like me, and all she does is use the web and check email. She has had no problem with LXLE.
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Old 06-18-2018, 09:24 AM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerry1 View Post
I have an older laptop that’s just sitting. How difficult is it to do this - change over to Linux? I’ve always done the reinstall.
Quote:
Originally Posted by timo2 View Post
All you do is make an install disk and overwrite your old OS. Here is the link Revive that old PC! < The LXLE Desktop

DW is not a computer nerd like me, and all she does is use the web and check email. She has had no problem with LXLE.
Here's a link to the most recent LTS (Long Term Support) version of LXDE/Ubuntu:

https://lubuntu.me/

Also, the install process is super easy in a case like this where you don't care about keeping the old Windows active. You can just let it install over everything, no worries about keeping Windows bootable, which isn't normally a big deal, but does add some complications.

And other 'flavors' (I've been using Xubuntu - it's lightweight and easy for me to customize the desktop to work just the way I like it (panels, tools, and multiple 'virtual desktops' that are super easy to use and keep me organized).

https://www.ubuntu.com/download/flavours

While it doesn't seem like OP is ready to jump to Linux, it's still (as some of us mentioned in omni's thread) a good idea to learn how to boot from Linux on a thumb drive, it is a powerful debug tool. And, if OP decides to buy a new laptop, putting Linux on the old one would give him something to play with.

As far as slow computer issues in the OP, lots of good suggestions, and first I'd focus on memory usage and disk space. If an app, or just general use, is using up most of the 6 GB, you will be going out to the disk to 'swap' memory in/out, and that is thousands of times slower than direct memory access. And if the disk is near full, it's really going to slug through it.

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Old 06-18-2018, 09:27 AM   #17
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It had 6GB of ram....

Model is L8750-S7332..

OK, I lied.... it is not always internet... she does photoshop and other programs on it... I was not thinking when I wrote that...

Not sure if I want to change to Linux.
Well if she does photoshop (actual photoshop software) then she cannot change to Linux, as it does not run on Linux (I'm not counting running the wine emulator).

Changing to an SSD would make it much faster, you can clone over her hard-drive.
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Old 06-18-2018, 09:35 AM   #18
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Switching to a SSD made more of a difference than upgrading memory on several MacBook Pros I have (left the memory at the stock 4GB)
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Old 06-18-2018, 09:36 AM   #19
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Well if she does photoshop (actual photoshop software) then she cannot change to Linux, as it does not run on Linux (I'm not counting running the wine emulator).

Changing to an SSD would make it much faster, you can clone over her hard-drive.
Here are some photoshop replacements for linux. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-phot...can-run-linux/

Or you can just get a new laptop.
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Old 06-18-2018, 09:56 AM   #20
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Here are some photoshop replacements for linux. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-phot...can-run-linux/

Or you can just get a new laptop.
I use linux regularly, and I use GIMP on rare occasions, which can be considered close to photoshop, but operates quite differently, so it's really different software his wife would need to learn.
If she bought any plugins to photoshop, they won't move over.

If she is keen to learn a new photo editing software, then yes move over.

I keep a Windows machine to do tax software (download) as there is none for linux, and I won't do it online until there are no alternatives.
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