Why is my laptop slow? Even after reset

jayjaymozza

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Jan 22, 2013
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Hi, I have got a Acer Aspire 5536 laptop.
The specs are:

Operating System: Windows Vista
Processor: AMD Turion(tm) X2 Dual-Core Mobile RM-74 2.20 GHz
RAM: 4GB
32-bit operating system

I bough it from a friend and as soon as I bought it i reset the full laptop (factory reset) so it wiped the full laptop and now it seems to be really really slow! I can't even listen to a song on YouTube without it crashing.
Does anyone know what I could do to make it run normal?

Thanks
 
Solution


80 degrees is really hot for that CPU, this is probably causing the instability. Did your friend ever clean it over the years? Since it's an old laptop I guess it's probably clogged with dust if it never been cleaned before. Grab a can of compressed air and blow some in all the openings you see (underneath the laptop, on the side and behind as well). If it doesn't solve your problem, then you might have to open it and clean it from the inside. If it still doesn't bring your temperatures down, you might have to uninstall heatsink and re-apply...

MC_K7

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Aug 31, 2008
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Did you monitor the temperatures? Maybe something is overheating?

As suggested by markwp, also make sure you installed all the service packs and Windows updates.

I would also check the Acer website for updated drivers and BIOS it could help.
 

bhabani

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Aug 20, 2013
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jayjaymozza

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Jan 22, 2013
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Hi, the laptop is running at roughly 80 degrees, I did have trouble installing the service pack 2 so I downloaded it from google and done it that way. I will now check Acer website. Thanks

 

bhabani

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Aug 20, 2013
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u said

RAM: 4GB
32-bit operating system

but if u use 4 gb ram, then u must have to install 64 bit os otherwise u will be in total slow....

i have solved exact same problem for 5 brand new laptops.
 

MC_K7

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80 degrees is really hot for that CPU, this is probably causing the instability. Did your friend ever clean it over the years? Since it's an old laptop I guess it's probably clogged with dust if it never been cleaned before. Grab a can of compressed air and blow some in all the openings you see (underneath the laptop, on the side and behind as well). If it doesn't solve your problem, then you might have to open it and clean it from the inside. If it still doesn't bring your temperatures down, you might have to uninstall heatsink and re-apply thermal paste on the CPU.

bhabani also made a good suggestion going to a 64-bit OS. I guess this one probably only came with a 32-bit CD so you might have to buy a Windows upgrade. I bet it would run a lot faster on Windows 7 64-bit. But first you need to solve your heat problem.
 
Solution

jayjaymozza

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Jan 22, 2013
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Hi thanks for that, I think I will just give him the laptop back and get my money back.
 

MC_K7

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That's true, I've seen many brand new laptops being super slow out of the box because they come with tons of pre-installed software and trials. They put so much crap in the startup you have to uninstall a lot of stuff. If you have access to a real Windows disk instead and can do a "clean" install it would be a lot better. Doing so you would have to install most drivers manually though.

 

MC_K7

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Yes if he's a good friend and honest, that's probably what I would do if I were you.

I mean the laptop can probably be fixed, but it needs someone with good knowledge like a computer tech and it will probably be many hours of work. Re-applying thermal paste on the CPU can be scary if you never done it before. Also optimizing the OS by removing all the bloatware you need to know what you're doing so that you don't uninstall something vital.
 

jayjaymozza

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Jan 22, 2013
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Oh I know how to re apply thermal paste, and remove all the shit the laptops come with, I have already removed all the shitty program's that come on the laptop, but still no luck.
So should I open it up, give it a good clean, maybe some new thermal paste and then test it?
I don't really want to spend £50-£70 on windows 7 just yet.
Thanks