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Message
new laptop with an i5-4200U shouldn't be slow...but it is...
Posted on 12/29/14 at 10:41 am
Posted on 12/29/14 at 10:41 am
got my brother a new laptop for Christmas - it wasn't a top of the line system, as it was only about $400, but it has an i5-4200U.
in general, though, the performance has been...sluggish. opening a few tabs in firefox, such as google maps and facebook, and the machine starts to lag. my personal machine is a dell notebook with an i5-4300U, which is essentially the exact same processor as the 4200U, only clocked about 300 mhz faster, and performance on my machine is like butter.
granted, I have 8 GB of ram and a SSD. my brother's laptop has 4 GB of a RAM and a conventional platter based hard drive. i've thought about upgrading the memory on his machine to 8 GB, but after opening all of his most used apps (firefox with ~5 tabs, spotify desktop client, and microsoft onenote) he's only using about 3 GB of memory, so it doesn't seem as if upgrading the ram would help.
thus, i've thought about upgrading his drive to a ssd. whenever i pull up resource monitor, his hard disk is always at or near "100%".
i know a ssd can improve read and write speeds, but would it really improve general fluidity within the OS and browser? the fact that this machine has an i5-4200U and is this sluggish is unacceptable, and i'm not sure where to begin with attempting to improve the speed
also, it's an asus laptop, so what little bloatware was present on the machine was removed
in general, though, the performance has been...sluggish. opening a few tabs in firefox, such as google maps and facebook, and the machine starts to lag. my personal machine is a dell notebook with an i5-4300U, which is essentially the exact same processor as the 4200U, only clocked about 300 mhz faster, and performance on my machine is like butter.
granted, I have 8 GB of ram and a SSD. my brother's laptop has 4 GB of a RAM and a conventional platter based hard drive. i've thought about upgrading the memory on his machine to 8 GB, but after opening all of his most used apps (firefox with ~5 tabs, spotify desktop client, and microsoft onenote) he's only using about 3 GB of memory, so it doesn't seem as if upgrading the ram would help.
thus, i've thought about upgrading his drive to a ssd. whenever i pull up resource monitor, his hard disk is always at or near "100%".
i know a ssd can improve read and write speeds, but would it really improve general fluidity within the OS and browser? the fact that this machine has an i5-4200U and is this sluggish is unacceptable, and i'm not sure where to begin with attempting to improve the speed
also, it's an asus laptop, so what little bloatware was present on the machine was removed
This post was edited on 12/29/14 at 10:43 am
6
Posted on 12/29/14 at 10:57 am to demosa
quote:Well there's your problem.
it was only about $400
There's a whole lot more to system performance than just the CPU, as you touched on when referring to memory and hard drive.
quote:Windows tries to keep a free memory "cushion", and it puts stuff into VM seemingly regardless of how much memory is used anyway. But yeah, 4GB should be enough for such light usage.
i've thought about upgrading the memory on his machine to 8 GB, but after opening all of his most used apps (firefox with ~5 tabs, spotify desktop client, and microsoft onenote) he's only using about 3 GB of memory, so it doesn't seem as if upgrading the ram would help.
quote:This is the problem you need to solve. Open up Task Manager and sort by disk usage to see if a process is constantly churning. If not, you probably have a driver issue. Go to Windows Update and update all your drivers. If the problem persists, it might take a while to get to the root of it.
whenever i pull up resource monitor, his hard disk is always at or near "100%".
This post was edited on 12/29/14 at 10:58 am
Posted on 12/29/14 at 10:58 am to demosa
quote:
his hard disk is always at or near "100%"
Wipe it
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:03 am to GrammarKnotsi
quote:Or just go straight for the nuclear option.
Wipe it
But it's not a sure-fire fix, assuming the reinstall will just put it back to factory condition.
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:05 am to Korkstand
quote:
Open up Task Manager and sort by disk usage to see if a process is constantly churning. If not, you probably have a driver issue. Go to Windows Update and update all your drivers. If the problem persists, it might take a while to get to the root of it.
interesting, i wasn't aware mechanical hard drives had drivers.
is it possible that the drive itself is just exceptionally slow (as in, <5400 rpm)?
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:07 am to Korkstand
quote:
Or just go straight for the nuclear option.
Fairly sure something went wrong in his installing of new programs
quote:
assuming the reinstall will just put it back to factory condition.
I mean just windows..Not the branded windows
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:09 am to demosa
quote:
always at or near "100%".
Are you talking Physical memory or CPU usage ?
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:13 am to GrammarKnotsi
quote:
Are you talking Physical memory or CPU usage ?
neither - under resource monitor the hard disk "usage" is always at or near 100%, even when just browing in firefox with the spotify client open.
which is odd, because if i'm not trying to pull up or save a file, i'm not sure why the hard disk usage would be so high
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:17 am to demosa
quote:
under resource monitor the hard disk "usage" is always at or near 100%
If you are wording this exactly as you see it, you may be short on HD space...Installed too much...
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:18 am to GrammarKnotsi
If this is Win8
quote:
Go to charms bar and press search, then type view local services.
Once here, stop and disable BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service). Also, set windows update checks to manual.
Chrome also seemed to be a factor so uninstall that too.
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:19 am to GrammarKnotsi
quote:
If you are wording this exactly as you see it, you may be short on HD space...Installed too much...
there are 400+ gigabytes available on the drive, so it isn't space.
this is the windows 8.1 resources monitor - under the "disk" tab, utilization is always at or near 100%. i'm not exactly sure what that represents, but i think it's certainly a contributing factor to the overall languid performance of the machine.
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:23 am to demosa
quote:They do, but I wasn't referring to that specifically. I meant that the driver for any device in the machine could be misbehaving. It could even be a BIOS issue.
interesting, i wasn't aware mechanical hard drives had drivers.
quote:No.
is it possible that the drive itself is just exceptionally slow (as in, <5400 rpm)?
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:23 am to demosa
quote:
this is the windows 8.1 resources monitor
Looks like thats the difference in 7...
See above comments...This got a ton of results when I googled your issue
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:24 am to GrammarKnotsi
quote:
If this is Win8
quote:
Go to charms bar and press search, then type view local services.
Once here, stop and disable BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service). Also, set windows update checks to manual.
Chrome also seemed to be a factor so uninstall that too.
There is no reason why any computer modern enough to run Windows 8 should need these services turned off.
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:25 am to GrammarKnotsi
quote:Is that even an option? Don't most computers these days not even include install media, and instead just have a restore partition on the hard drive?
I mean just windows..Not the branded windows
It's been a while since I bought a pre-built machine.
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:26 am to GrammarKnotsi
quote:This was the top result I got, as well. Quick and easy and definitely worth a shot.
Go to charms bar and press search, then type view local services.
Once here, stop and disable BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service). Also, set windows update checks to manual.
Chrome also seemed to be a factor so uninstall that too.
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:28 am to Korkstand
quote:
Is that even an option? Don't most computers these days not even include install media, and instead just have a restore partition on the hard drive?
It's been a while since I bought a pre-built machine.
Most manufacturers nowadays include a recovery partition and a Windows program that allows you to make bootable USB drives or burnable CD/DVD sets. You have to do this yourself, but there is usually some kind of nag screen that pops up upon bootup until you do it or tell it to stop reminding you.
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:28 am to efrad
quote:This is true, which is why it's turned on by default.
There is no reason why any computer modern enough to run Windows 8 should need these services turned off.
Unfortunately, any software can suffer from bugs and/or poor design, even if "intelligent" is right there in the name of it.
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:28 am to Korkstand
quote:
Is that even an option?
I give them out like candy..You just have to have a license key..
Posted on 12/29/14 at 11:31 am to GrammarKnotsi
quote:Would the license key on his machine work with any copy of Win8? Honest question, I really don't know. I haven't dealt with license keys in nearly a decade.
I give them out like candy..You just have to have a license key..
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