Laptop Poor Performance

[iansheff 86]

I have a Lenovo Ideapad330 1TB HD and 4gb Ram which is almost 3 years old and still has over 900gb of space on the HD. Not had much luck with it and doubt I will ever buy anything Lenovo again. However it keeps stopping and not responding coming up at the top of the screen and can take ages to start again, it also takes ages to open  Excel or Word and again says not responding.  Clicking on the start  menu nothing happens for ages before the menu comes up, this is really annoying when I want  to shut it down. Anyone any idea how to improve performance. Is there a chance that if I download the Windows11  upgrade it keeps offering me it will improve the performance, I am reluctant to go down that route as I read some of the things that work on W10 won't work on W11

[Ghozer 112]

Mechanical drives really slow things down in current times, an SSD would bring new life to your Laptop, also a RAM upgrade from 4GB to 8GB would help a lot...

It also depends how often you use it, how often you turn it on and let it update (as Microsoft patch Weekly, some times twice weekly) - so if you don't use it for 2 or 3 weeks, there will be updates to install.... which will use some of the resources etc...

You could reset back to factory defaults, but make sure you have everything you need to keep and save backed up externally first...

If you need any help, let me know..

[iansheff 86]

Thanks Ghozer, I use it every day, don't do gaming or anything like that, as soon as there is a notification for an update I update it. I had a look and saw a 256gb 15.6inch screen with 8gb ram for £299, maybe I  ought to consider something like that rather than spend  money upgrading this one. I doubt I will ever go for Lenovo again, my tablet is Lenovo and it is rubbish, I got it to replace my other Lenovo tablet that packed in but it is not as good.

[Norbert 145]

It would be a lot cheaper to install:

SSD 500Gb = £40

Another 4gb RAM = £20

 

Than buy another cheap laptop

 

What CPU does your Lenovo have?

[Ghozer 112]

54 minutes ago, Norbert said:

What CPU does your Lenovo have?

My guess is it's this Laptop..
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-Ideapad-15-6-Inch-Laptop/dp/B07JNGGSJX
 
Which has an i3-7020U - while it's not the fastest CPU, an SSD and RAM upgrade as I said, and above would breath new life into it... it's really not that old tbh..

Edited May 15, 2022 by Ghozer

[iansheff 86]

It has an Intel Pentium silver  processor.

[Ghozer 112]

1 hour ago, iansheff said:

It has an Intel Pentium silver  processor.

Ah, not the best.. I mean, it's fine for web browsing and basic tasks...

Well, the call is yours, an SSD and more RAM would help, but it's not the best spec'd laptop by the sounds of it...

[fools 447]

Ignore calls to upgrade it, they aren't necessary.

 

Back up any data, and refresh or reinstall the operating system - (a google away if you don't know how, Lenovo site, youtube etc)

 

Failing that, Lenovo's tend to come with onekey recovery, which puts it back to the exact state it was when you bought it.

 

(You may need to reinstall office afterwards)

 

If you still think it's slow then (it shouldn't be), you can upgrade it to ssd

 

PS - don't automatically blame Lenovo, 99% of gripes with machines have nothing to do with the hardware - it's your software that's "not responding"

Edited May 16, 2022 by fools

[andysm 17]

You could also try defragmenting the hard drive. File explorer > Right click on OS drive (usually C:) > Properties > Tools > Optimise > Select the OS drive then click Optimise.

This may take quite a long time to run, maybe 1 hour.

Edit: Best to not use the machine while it is defragmenting.

Edited May 16, 2022 by andysm

[fools 447]

defragging is a waste of time, it's a myth that refuses to die.

Edited May 16, 2022 by fools

[walkertelecoms 16]

I've a similar laptop to yours but a step up, similar age though the LENOVO ideapad 310 i7.

All you can upgrade the memory to is 8GB, not brill but.....

Mine also starting running like warm cheese a couple of years ago. The trigger was after an update it took literally 10 minutes to get back on it's feet.

Nightmare.

From a cold boot it would take about 4 minutes, also not great.

Installed an SSD and did a complete system clone, warts and all, with a SSD-USB adaptor cable.

Boot time went from 4 minutes to 15 seconds AND IM NOT EXAGERATING, and that's from cold to an operational Chrome screen too.

Software boot times when from 10ish seconds to INSTANT.

 

After 2 years off SSD it's shown no signs of slowing.

[peteh1 10]

Got to say I put an ssd into my Dell i3 laptop and its not made it a ball of fire ... only 4GB ram so maybe shouldn't expect too much.