Got a low-spec laptop, any tips to make it faster? (Read description please)

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Upgrade to SSD. They’re dirt cheap for the smaller sizes /end thread

No matter what tweaks you do, it will be slow until you get an SSD.

There is very little in the software to compensate for a slow hard disk.

Don't you love it how the Microsoft developers have gobbled up all the speed gains of SSD and now you MUST have an SSD drive just to make your OS as responsive as Windows 7 on an HDD?

I would say try to defragment your HDD. Windows has a build in defragmenter. If that doesn't help much try a clean install of Windows. Also remove any bloatware that you might have. If you have any 3rd party antivirus remove it and use the windows defender. Also stop all the unnecessary applications that run at startup.

Not many people suggest making it faster for free, I've cleaned up soo many low end laptops so happy to provide some support that you can do right now that will make a big difference, all actions below you can do without downloading any software.

• disable background apps (search 'background apps') this makes a massive difference

• disable unnecessary startup programs in task manager

• disk cleanup (go to your c: drive properties and run the disk cleanup program (include everything in system files)

• open up file explorer, to to view tab and then options, uncheck the bottom two checkboxes in privacy and clear the file explorer history

• remove unnecessary items in the start menu, you can right click a group and remove the bunch at once if you have windows build version 1903 or above

• clear your browsing history (internet options, Google chrome/firefox/edge)

• Disable fast startup (go to power options, additional power settings, choose what the power button does, select change settings currently unavailable and uncheck fast startup

• once that is done, restart your pc.

If you run into any issues with windows, some windows files may already be corrupted, so running sfc (system file check) can scan your operating system for corruptions and attempt to fix them which can be done by opening command prompt as administrator and typing SFC /SCANNOW

After that is all done, you should see a massive difference on a low end machine,

if you need to improve it further, then I would suggest upgrading the ram to increase the total to 8GB to prevent the system from freezing and install an ssd and clean install of windows to load programs faster (its possible to clone the ssd but this can be tricky to do if its your first time) it would be easier to backup your data, take note of programs you want installed, export your internet bookmarks if not signed in and copy that over once you have rebuild windows 10 on an ssd

SSDs are much cheaper now and you can grab a 240GB for under £40 / $50 USD or 1tb for under £100 / $100

Double the RAM and replace the HDD with an SSD. End of story. That's all you can do.

4GB just isn't enough to run Win10 efficiently. 8GB is absolute bare min. for passing performance. The problem is you might have a 32-bit build of Win10. If that's the case then you're SOL upgrading the RAM unless you install Win10 x64. Also I'd bet that 4GB SO-DIMM is soldered to the board, so if you upgrade you're probably limited to adding a single 4GB or 8GB SO-DIMM. Read your manual before upgrading.

Even so, even the slowest 5,400 RPM 2.5" hdd shouldn't take 10 min. to boot. Something is wrong.

Uninstall programs that you rarely use, turn off animation and transparency, but I don't think those 2 will help much

I have been using 4GB RAM machines with windows 10 for a long time and never have I seen it use above 50% - always up to 2GB for caching stuff and that's perfectly splendid for the OS to do. Yours doing 3GB is not OK, but not alarming either. You probably have some background stuff running..

In my experience, clean reinstalling windows while formatting C: is very effective at regaining performance (ms don't care anymore since a ssd hides any issues, but they have broken ntfs somewhere along the line)

there are a few tricks that will help HDDs even without reformatting:
SystemPropertiesAdvanced.exe - Performance - only Smooth edges of screen fonts is really a must, and Show window contents while dragging to not feel like w3.1

• set the virtual memory pagefile to a fixed size in Advanced tab above, recommended 4096MB at a minimum = maximum

• disable CompactOS, microsoft are absolute morons when they force that on for HDDs to theoretically save rotational access, and at the same time make everything pathetically slow, specially windows's own updating, because machines that still have a hdd will most likely not have a powerful cpu to do the on-the-fly (de)compression in the first place
  compact /CompactOS:never

• disable ntfs features
  fsutil behavior set DisableLastAccess 1
fsutil behavior set Disable8dot3 1
fsutil behavior set DisableCompression 1
fsutil behavior set SymlinkEvaluation L2L:1 L2R:0
fsutil behavior set mftzone 4
fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 1

• defrag; can't stress enough how important is to keep fragmentation to a minimum on HDDs; and the more free space, the better, so try to first delete/move huge files between partitions; windows' built-in tool is lacking, so try something like Defraggler (can do a boot time defrag for in-use windows files)

• tweak your Settings for a potato PC, not the extremely wasteful defaults microsoft has placed:
  Update & security - Delivery Optimization - Allow downloads from other PCs = fuckin OFF
  Privacy - Speech - Online speech recognition = fuckin OFF
  Privacy - Ink & typing personalization - Getting to know you = fuckin OFF
  Privacy - Diagnosting & feedback - everything = fuckin OFF because they don't care about your PC performance anyway
  Privacy - Activity history = OFF
  Privacy - Background Apps = all OFF, you can't afford it - maybe turn it globally OFF
  Apps & features - Offline maps - Map updates = OFF

Microsoft Store - Update apps automatically = OFF

Microsoft Edge / ChrEdge - Settings - New tap page - Preload.. = OFF
Microsoft Edge / ChrEdge - Settings - System - Continue running.. = fuckin OFF
(you should really give Firefox a try, specially with my recommendations)

8gb of ram and an ssd would be good starting places

If you don’t need windows use Linux.

To everyone suggesting the drive is faulty... it's probably not, windows 10 just hates non-SSD. At work, we sometimes bundle a laptop with our instrumentation hardware at customer request and I get annual pushback to pick a cheaper laptop. Even though our control software requires basically no resources, I won't let manufacturing ship anything without an SSD & 8GB RAM in it because performance is that garbage.

Story-time example, in early 2019 I got three dell latitude laptops for qualification, a pair of i3s and an i5, the two i3s had 5400 rpm HDDs, one of 'em had 8GB of ram (as did the i5), all near about the same mfr date and roughly the same patch level. The i5 on SSD took about 30 minutes to do first boot, fully patch (from local WSUS), run my qualification test script and reset. The 8GB i3 on HDD took 4-5 hours; it was done when I came back from lunch. The 4GB i3 on HDD took 18 hours just to update. We RMA'd #3, thinking it had to be defective but the replacement did more or less the same thing. Granted this is anecdotal: I didn't check to make sure they were installing exactly the same patches, and windows update was surely thrashing swap on the 4GB machine.

I fully expect the behavior OP is experiencing based on the hardware they've got. It's definitely a combination of storage speed and RAM capacity shooting them in the foot.

I know you said it's not an option, but you NEED an SSD. I can't stress enough how much of a difference it makes. It's night and day. Hell, I upgraded an old laptop with SATA2 support only from an HDD to an SSD and the improvement was astounding. Just get a cheap 500GB SSD (like 50€ or less), slap it in there after cloning your drive and watch the magic unfold. It's seriously the best thing you can do for a laptop.

That, and adding more RAM if you have the option.

The 4Gb of RAM is killing you because, between Windows and the browser, they're probably sucking all your ram. Add to that the hard disk with paging, and you're in for a world of hurt. Get your RAM to at least 8 gb. Get at least a 256Gb SSD. Crucial MX500 is a solid option. Turn off most of Windows advanced visual candy except smooth fonts and maybe show windows contents while dragging. Turn off the search indexing service. There is also a Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser task that tends to be a resource hog. Having said all of the above, and having two laptops from 2012 running Windows 10, the RAM and SSD make most of the difference.

To make your laptop faster. Either add more RAM, or upgrade to a better laptop. End of story.

Sounds like the hdd may be faulty. That and the low specs aren't helping.

Upgrading to an SSD would be the bet, but I'd put the money towards a new machine.

Did you try to reinstall Windows completely? Sounds like you have some malware. Or the HDD is dying.

Basically the same kinda thing was happening to me ( i have same specs). I just upgraded my

4GB RAM to 12GB and it works smooth and fast without lag or crash.

120 GB SSD + caddy for your HDD to replace your CD reader, you can swap them easely, it will be mint

Maybe give Linux a try and see how well it performs, even if you have to try it out over an external drive or flash drive. USB3.0 is preferred for all parts involved. But you may have se trouble getting some stuff running that you are used to.

I have a somewhat old tablet (surface pro 3 i5 4g ram) and its been running great so far. My idle takes about 1.5 to 1.9 GB RAM. All I have to do is to keep the machine cool while gaming because of the aggressive throttling. I suggest you reset your laptop (backup all your files first) to see how it operates under a clean system.

Buy a ssd and more ram. If you cant afford it then consider switching to Linus. Ik this is windows subreddit but honestly Linux will give new life to your laptop.

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I am not an expert but at the stage you are in, there isn't much you can do in software. Since you need Windows 10, I can't even suggest you to go for some light weight Linux variant.

But there is huge improvements you can do hardware wise. And honestly speaking, a SSD can improve your boot time for 10 mins to 7 seconding.

Not sure about if NVME SSD will be better. Does it?

Everybody here is recommending an SSD, so that should tell you a lot about how good they are at reviving old computers. And yes, you need more RAM. I hope it’s upgradeable and if it is, it shouldn’t be too difficult as long as you have a screwdriver with small bits. 8 GB should be enough for your needs but I would recommend 16 if it’s supported. I think those are the only upgradeable performance-improving parts in laptops so you should be good with those.

Good luck!

As most people have already indicated: get an SSD and slap that bad boy with no less than double the amount of RAM you have and it should be smooth sailing.

If you're system is this slow & you don't have any viruses or setup issues, then you are experiencing the slow death of your hard drive. Likely due to having only 4G of ram, the OS is swapping data and basically using the HD as the additional ram it needs. It's not a matter of if, but when that HD will fail. Ebay can be a good source of cheap ram and SSD's.

My potato laptop has the exactly same specs as yours but it works kinda smooth (not to mention that I play a LOT of games). Try to debloat your windows, it removes a lot of window's default apps so you have to consider it. Think and decide which app to remove
https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater
Remember to read the wiki, follow it and backup properly. If this still doesn't work, well then the problem is your hardwares. Upgrade it

Believe me, check if you can upgrade to a SSD, a cheap 240GB one is like $30. Also look into getting new ram.

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Sounds like you don't want to do an SSD right now because of the downtime it would cause. So, bump the RAM up to 8GB (16GB if it can take it, likely not on a budget laptop).

This will stop all the trashing. You likely have a 4500RPM hard drive. They're painfully slow. On top of that, your lack of RAM is causing constant swapping in/out of the pagefile (the file on the disk that "extends" your RAM). Swapping out to a slow HD is the absolute worst.

So, upgrade the RAM, it takes 5-10 minutes and won't cause any real downtime. Then, over the holiday break buy and install an SSD. I'd do a it onto a fresh installation of Windows. If your laptop can take two, and you can do a RAID0 stripe, consider doing so. But NEVER put ANYTHING IMPORTANT into a folder that isn't cloud sync'd (that should be your rule now, but doubly-important for a striped disk).

While I don't have any personal experience with Intel's Optane stuff, if your laptop supports it you may want to spend a little on an SSD that has this. Basically, it's got a little bit of extra-fast persistent memory (NVRAM) mixed on board. This is supposed to help boost performance by putting your swap disk onto something that's closer to RAM speed than SSD speed (a sweet middle ground).

Since you're so tight for RAM, and swapping seems to be a pain point, you could also try using a USB thumbdrive or mini-SD card for swap. I forget the name of the feature in Windows, but it lets you use removable storage as swap space. It would most certainly lead to early death of the media, but it could be a decent stop gap.

Ok, like many others my best recommendation is upgrade to an SSD, if possible the RAM aswell to 8GB (Google your laptop model to find out if it is possible).

However, you can try to remove unnecessary bloat from Win10 (Google windows10debloater or something like that, JayzTwoCents has a good video on it)

Also, defragmenting your HDD (windows has a build in tool for that) might be a good idea, but if your HDD is damaged it can cause more damage than be helpful, so think twice about that. (might be why it takes 10min to boot, or it's just because of too little RAM, so Win10 in pagefiling a lot).

Good luck.

Edit: you can also clone you HDD to an SSD that's at least as big as your HDD with a Linux USB stick or live CD, if you have a burner in your laptop, with a couple simple commands (SystemRescueCD for example), only problem is that you need a enclosure for your SSD so you can plug it in your laptop. You can also look an Amazon or the like for external SATA to USB cables, should be fairly cheap. With the cloning option you have almost no downtime (if you need it for Uni, do it an the weekend) and you can simply swap the drive after cloning & windows boots up as if nothing happened.

8 GB of ram. I added ram to my sister's old laptop and everything runs smoother. Gonna swap in an SSD next.

Everybody here is talking about physical upgrades, but there's a lot of OS optimizations you can do as well that actually provide a significant improvement to performance. All the optimizations, which are actually fairly thorough, are organized in a discord me and my friends made. DM me if you're interested.

If you think your laptop is slow never go for ram upgrade before switching from hdd to ssd. The difference ssd makes is clearly visible in day to day life.

For the hardware, cleaning old dusty fans will help with thermal throttling. And for the software, google ghost spectre.

You said you can't upgrade the HD to an SSD right now so your first option is to upgrade the RAM. That really should be your first move regardless since you are standing at 4GB. Do some research, find out what kind your machine takes, and go as far as you can. 8 is a good starting point, 16 would be better, I highly doubt a machine with the specs you list will go higher than that. If it can higher wouldn't hurt, but you aren't likely to be doing anything on that machine that will take advantage of the extra RAM..

Cleaning up software might not be needed after the RAM upgrade, but as long as you don't get too aggressive it shouldn't hurt, every little bit helps..

Since the SSD upgrade is on hold regardless, keep a look out for a good, hopefully a very good, deal.. Do that upgrade when you can..

SSD/8GB of RAM are your best upgrades, even without the 8GB of RAM and just an SSD, the performance will be way better.

SSD and more RAM, just like most of the other responses. Except for this:

Put racing stripes and a spoiler on it. If it looks fast, it feels faster...

If you have internet above 50mbps you can try Geforce Now free plan to game in high details in 1080p.

Are ya serious 10 minutes to boot for an i3 7th gen? Man my i3 4th gem boots in 10-30 seconds. Depends on the Hard Disk’s wish though. Upgrade your ram it’ll help. I got 6 gigs ram and intel HD 4400 and I play most GTA on my system. Mine system is running in tip top condition. Never had any windows problems or slow downs. Mine system is literally customised to hell.

I just want to say: DAMN THATS FAST

get the machine to 8GB RAM and get an SSD. Order online, watch Youtube videos on how to perform the changeover, move your data to an external drive, install SDD and RAM, then install Windows. Minimize downtime by doing as much as you can while you are waiting for parts to arrive.

Your main bottleneck is the HDD, you aren’t going to be able to tweak your setup around that. You could maybe look into ReadyBoost on a thumb drive or something, but it might not make a noticeable difference. And if you’re spending money on a thumb drive, you might as well just buy a cheap SSD for your laptop.

Edit: to emphasize my point, my girlfriend’s laptop runs an i5, 8gb of ram, and it’s still slow as shit because her parents opted for the 1TB HDD over a smaller SSD. 4GB of ram is going to slow you down, too, but it’s more manageable when it’s paging to a significantly faster drive.

You can type “adjust the performance and appearance of windows” in the search bar and select the adjust for best performance.

This will get rid of animations when opening applications but it will save up more resources for your pc