Help for Acer Aspire laptop with W8 that runs slow

[Teac23]

Hello

I'm using an old laptop the moment and i'm having problems


Opening apps on desktop - Will not open or takes a long time.

Installing apps takes a long time.

Opening web browser takes a long time.

Webpages freezes scrolling up and down.

Startup is sluggish


I have done the following and still the same.


Tested for virus spy and adware

HDD is fine. I use Diskeeper 12

Complete system scan.


Is there a software worth trying that that will make an old laptop run better?


Any advice appreciated.

Thanks

[Keyser]

Maybe if you told us the laptop specs and the OS you are using, we could be of some help.

[DB83]

Take a look at Task Manager and see if anything is throttling CPU usage.

Also try other programs such as malware-bytes.

[IKnowNothing]

Assuming some form of windoze OS try the following

Run chkdsk or scandisk (right click on drive and it's under tools in the properties)
Clean out temp file (open windows explorer or file manager and enter %TEMP% as the path (then press enter)
You can (probably) safely delete everything in this folder

Clear out your browser cache

lastly run defrag (right click on drive and it's under tools in the properties)
This will take a long time depending on how bad the disk is.


If you want software to help try looking at CCleaner from piriform.com - it will do a good job of clearing cache files and temporary files.

In general the above steps will help but is may simply be a limit of the machine.

CCleaner will also allow you to view and disable programs automatically started during boot and login. Disabling ones you don't want/need may improve startup time and free resources to improve machine speed - however disabling the wrong thing(s) can make make your machine unstable or cause it to fail during startup (you have been warned)

[ndjamena]

Be liberal with uninstallers, and if nothing else works, try a clean install. It's not like you've got anything to lose.

[qz3fwd]

If your hard drive is almost full, then it will just thrash itself to death and you will sit waiting a looooooong time for just about anything to complete.....
The fuller your (non-ssd) drive becomes the slower your machine since the arm has to seek all over the platters to find a free sector to write to.

[hello_hello]

Most laptops have some sort of option to "restore" them back to the original factory state. I'd consider that. It effectively wipes the drive and re-installs Windows.

[mammo1789]

Another thing to try is ( if they are on ) is to disable indexing of hdd and disable hibernation. Indexing can slow hdd to a crawl ( type in run field services it is under the name windows search)

[Bjs]

Supply system specs first then describe the issue.

1: Refresh system icon cache ... for windows 7 go here to learn how.

2: Create another user account, log off and back in via the new account and see if things improve ... profiles do become bloated over time.

3: System updates eventually cause a seemingly fast system to slow down this includes newer programs ... more power needed.

If you have restore discs backup personal data, restore system and install only required applications.

Sooner or later updates will slow it again but you've got a bit more time before system replacement is needed.

[Teac23]

Sorry for late response. Thanks everyone for your reply.

It's an Acer Aspire, the HDD is fine, i don't have much stuff on it, so plenty of space and ram also ok. Running Windows 8

[drjtech]

It's an Acer Aspire

Care to elaborate? There are over 150 different Aspire models with varying specs.

[redwudz]

Teac23, in the future please use a more descriptive subject title in your posts to allow others to search for similar topics. I will change yours this time. From our rules:

Try to choose a subject that describes your topic.
Please do not use topic subjects like Help me!!! or Problems.

Thanks,

Moderator redwudz