Is it a slow computer?
Is it a slow computer?
Hey everyone, I have an older GoBOXX work laptop that was made around December 2018. It feels a bit old now and might be ready to get replaced. But buying a new one isn't super cheap, so using my current machine is actually more eco-friendly than throwing it away. Basically, over the last year or two, my computer has been getting really slow, especially when I try Solid Edge design software. It gets slower as time passes, and restarting just helps for a little while before it slows down again. Some simple tasks are also stressing out the machine; for example, loading the YouTube home page used to show thumbnails quickly, but now it takes a few seconds to fully load. To figure out what's going on, I've done these steps: - Updated all drivers so my system is running Nvidia Standard and non-DCH drivers (which seem really important for Solid Edge) - Tried to fix the infected software - Cleared out junk programs or anything that wasn't needed to get work done - Deleted necessary apps and then did a clean install of Windows 10 Pro - Checked for updates on the operating system - Upgraded to Windows 11 Pro by formatting the drive and reinstalling only the required stuff - Ran the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool, which found some problems - Scanned my RAM using a bootable scanning tool (I don't remember exactly what I used), but it detected errors, so I replaced all the RAM modules and cleaned out the chassis. The laptop isn't too dusty though. After re-scanning with both the bootable and Windows tools, there were no more problems found. My computer is still painfully slow. Then I tried Samsung Magician, and there were no issues there; read/write speeds look fine according to the specs. Next I ran the Intel Processor Diagnostics Tool, and everything checked out okay. Even though it's been overheating for a bit, I turned down the CPU speed to 95% just in case, installed NZXT Cam to watch the temperatures, and nothing was over 50 degrees C. Finally, I benchmarked my graphics card; it seems fine to me and is roughly within its expected specs. So, after all of this, my question is: what should I check next? My next thought is to replace the heat transfer paste or maybe swap out the graphics card, but I've read that this might cause more headaches than it will solve (not that I know one for this laptop). Maybe I should just drive over with my truck. Here are all the detailed specs: Intel® Core™ i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz running Windows 11 Pro Build 22621, installed 64.0 GB of RAM, Nvidia Quadro P3200 graphics card, BIOS AMI E17A5IE6.101 from August 2018. Thanks!
This brand-new hard drive is a Samsung 980 Pro with speeds up to 500 gigabytes in PCIe 4.0 and uses M.2 storage. It swapped out for an old 970 Pro model that had only 512 gigabytes of space.
Your laptop settings are still pretty solid. It looks like you've tried some cool software tricks already, but now the real problem shows up: heat. After five years of dust getting in and not being cleaned out by hand or air, it just keeps heating up even if we try hard to clean it properly. I'd open her up and blow away all that dust from the fans so you don't see the metal plates covering where the air goes. Also, replace the thermal paste while it's open. Just a tip: when you're about to touch the fan blades gently, make sure they stop spinning right before you pull out your screwdriver or tools; otherwise, taking them apart is way more work than it should be. If you really want to see what's inside, there are probably some YouTube videos if you look hard enough.
I put Arctic MX6 heat transfer paste on my CPU and GPU today. I also checked my fans and air cooling pipes to make sure there were no dusty messes inside. I didn't see any dust at all. Right now my PC is running a bit warm, hitting 43 degrees Celsius when the processor works hard but the graphics card stays cool at 55 degrees even when it does nothing. My memory sticks are busy holding about 6.4 gigabytes of data. But in Solid Edge, everything feels really slow and sluggish as usual.
How much space is on that SSD? Did you set up a few different drives or just one big section there? Try running the Samsung Magic Eraser to see if it works.
The hard drive has a few extra sections on it, filling up about 57% of its space. The first section is C, which holds my computer's operating system and all the apps that run for me. The second part is D, where I save all my temporary work files. When this drive was new, people said it worked well using a tool called Samsung Magician. Even though it looked fine back then, I changed it anyway because the price was only about sixty dollars. After changing to the 980 Pro version, which has better tools for checking health, I just thought maybe updating the BIOS would help. There are also two graphics cards that don't show up when you check them in the computer menu. You can't even change this setting from the BIOS screen because it isn't listed there either. But if you turn off the graphics card using the Device Manager and restart your computer, it still shows the Intel graphics card instead of the Nvidia one. Even though some things don't show up that way, I can still see my desktop and use simple tools like a word processor or the internet without any problems.