Slow Laptop, need advice please!!

[pippy0512]

So I am normally ok with these kind of things, and enjoy the elimination process of finding the issue and learn a lot from this method as-well!
However, i have Dell Inspiron 1520...INTEL CORE DUO CPU T7250 @2GHZ 2001 MHZ, 2 CORES 2 LOGICAL PROCESSORS. It started running very sluggish and slow lately with simple tasks becoming very slow (folder opening etc) and i have always had a worry about the inferior Samsung HDD that came with it originally (clicking and beeping problems etc) so i upgrade to a Hitachi 500gb, at the same time i changed the Ram from 2x1gb to 2x2gb hoping with both of these the problem would go away. After the hardware installation and a fresh install of windows 7 i was happy it had seemed to have been solved....but no, today its returned (slow,sluggish.unresponsive) but after a restart it takes from around 5 mins to 30 for it to start. Im at a loss as its my main laptop and is used daily,i dont want to walk into Pc world and hand her over So what else could i do? could it be the processor? motherboard? its killing me!!

 

[PP Mguire]

1st point I'll make, Samsung do not produce inferior drives unless you mean speed wise. That being said, Hitachi drives are usually 5400RPM (2.5") anyways. If it isn't, then that and the RAM should have sped things up. Having a fresh install eliminates any possible virus of malware so only thing left is heat.
If the CPU is getting too hot then it will throttle so it doesn't burn up meaning it is downclocking itself to reduce heat output.

You need to take an air compressor or a few cans of air and clean the heatsink out and fan. If you can get to these easily (access panel of some sort) then go ahead and do it that way. Considering it's an older laptop I'm going to guess it hasen't been cleaned and the heatsink will probably have a thick layer of dust blocking airflow.

 

[mcaustin1]

It could be that you are not running enough power to the machine.

 

[pippy0512]

Hey PP Mguire, ok its just from a bit of research online and general faults with the same model, the samsung drive was prone to loud clicking noises and bizarre beeps (that do genertate small palputations ;-) and also a higher rate of dying completey! Anyways, i will try cleaning her up when i get home, ive done that kind of thing for friens laptops, of course i may of been neglecting mine! sad face! Heat may be an issue, but after using speedfan on and off for a year monitoring it as it has always been quite hot, it sits around 60 - 70, when i read online that laptops are built to stand this kind of temp, is this true? i presumed it gets hot due to it being top of its range at the time and they would power these machines up with little regard to how it will withstand with heavy use year on year and its quite old now could that really be an issue? Is it easy to replace Cpu?

mcaustin1, power could be an issue, how would i know and how easy to sort?


And can i just say thanks guys, you provide hope where there wasnt any........

 

[PP Mguire]

I'll answer your second question, power can't be an issue unless you think your home electrical is sending dirty power to your laptops power brick, or your laptops power brick is dieing. If it was your battery wouldn't charge.

Sits around 60 - 70c load or idle? If idle then yea that's way too hot. When you put a load on that bad boy it is probably shooting to the 100s and throttling causing your heat issue. Laptop CPUs can take a lot more heat than desktop variants, but not that much. They are binned more to stay sustained at higher ambient temps than taking higher load temps.

 

[iankenny]

So I am normally ok with these kind of things, and enjoy the elimination process of finding the issue and learn a lot from this method as-well!
However, i have Dell Inspiron 1520...INTEL CORE DUO CPU T7250 @2GHZ 2001 MHZ, 2 CORES 2 LOGICAL PROCESSORS. It started running very sluggish and slow lately with simple tasks becoming very slow (folder opening etc) and i have always had a worry about the inferior Samsung HDD that came with it originally (clicking and beeping problems etc) so i upgrade to a Hitachi 500gb, at the same time i changed the Ram from 2x1gb to 2x2gb hoping with both of these the problem would go away. After the hardware installation and a fresh install of windows 7 i was happy it had seemed to have been solved....but no, today its returned (slow,sluggish.unresponsive) but after a restart it takes from around 5 mins to 30 for it to start. Im at a loss as its my main laptop and is used daily,i dont want to walk into Pc world and hand her over So what else could i do? could it be the processor? motherboard? its killing me!!

Hi Pippy0512,
Since you have upgraded your hardware recently, I suggest you to delete the unwanted temp files and also disable unwanted start up items. To delete temp. files go to start->run and type 'temp' without quotes and also '%temp%'. Delete all the files that you see in those folders. You may also download the tool CCleaner to clean up these junk files. Do a disk cleanup and disk defrag. These Windows tools are found under system tools in accessories. Disable startup items. Go to start->run and type 'msconfig' without quotes. Disable unwanted start up items by unchecking the boxes. Restart your pc. A complete scan of your pc using tools like Malwarebytes might also help.

Regards,
Ian

 

[pippy0512]

Hey PP Mguire, from the sound of things the power will not be an issue, but after a good clean out and a fair bit of dust, the laptops doing ok, about half and hour in and still running smooth! RE the temps, most of them sit around 50 while just surfing now and the hdd around 35. so is all good!

 

[PP Mguire]

He has a fresh install. I doubt that will do much.

 

[pippy0512]

Laptop today has started lagging again, my concern when cleaning was i was unable to completely seperate the laptop in to two so had to kind of poke the air pipe through the small spaces!! would it be better to sperate and really get into the small spaces or not, it has affected the temps tho and now the laptop sits at around 40, but cpu is very jumpy :-(