Help Needed! Slow PC!

[CTech]

Something is bugging me.

I have a laptop on-deck at the moment. It's a 15.6 Samsung R519

Spec:-

1.90Ghz Celeron Dual Core
2.00 GB RAM
160GB 7200 Spin WD HDD

This machine is SLOW.

I mean, it's had a fresh install and updates of Windows 7. It's had a full clean-up of temp and install files, a full defrag and optimize and every tuning trick I can think of.

I've tested with PC Check and Passmark Burn-in Test. ALL components passed.

What am I missing?? I've NEVER had a machine of this spec be THIS slow.

Help!

 

[BrentfromZulu]

To be fair, there isn't anything outstanding with this PC. I would say benchmark the HDD to see if it is good, and if possible throw in 2 more GB of RAM.

Also, check little things, like BIOS and Chipset drivers. Perhaps there is a known issue with the computer.

 

[FremontPC]

Right. Check the hdd with Crystal Disk Info to see if it's reallocating sectors or the like. Check task manager to see if the CPU is mostly sitting there waiting for the hdd to deliver what it asked for and keep an eye on the hdd light when it seems to be stalling out. Check for updates to chipset drivers and software patches from Samsung. If restoring the factory image put in McAfee, pull that out. If no go, start using msconfig to kill startup programs. If no results there, back into msconfig, Services, hide MS services and turn off everything else. But check it with Crystal Disk and notice what the CPU and HDD are doing before anything else.

 

[CTech]

To be fair, there isn't anything outstanding with this PC. I would say benchmark the HDD to see if it is good, and if possible throw in 2 more GB of RAM.

Also, check little things, like BIOS and Chipset drivers. Perhaps there is a known issue with the computer.

What software would you recommend using to benchmark?

Right. Check the hdd with Crystal Disk Info to see if it's reallocating sectors or the like. Check task manager to see if the CPU is mostly sitting there waiting for the hdd to deliver what it asked for and keep an eye on the hdd light when it seems to be stalling out. Check for updates to chipset drivers and software patches from Samsung. If restoring the factory image put in McAfee, pull that out. If no go, start using msconfig to kill startup programs. If no results there, back into msconfig, Services, hide MS services and turn off everything else. But check it with Crystal Disk and notice what the CPU and HDD are doing before anything else.

CDI says all is good with the HDD, and nothing in taskman is of interest, all very standard.

It's running slightly warm so repasted the CPU and blew out the heatsink etc (just in case). Still remarkably slow.

It's not a spectacular machine by any description but it's just lagging behind what similar systems can do!

 

[mraikes]

That was a quite inexpensive and low performing laptop even when brand new. It's not going to be better 5 years later.

Its target market was was the person that couldn't afford anything better, didn't need particularly fast performance, and wanted a laptop.

"Slow" is subjective, so it's hard to interpret what YOU might think of as slow compared to our expectations of a machine with such low specs and design intention.

 

[CTech]

That was a quite inexpensive and low performing laptop even when brand new. It's not going to be better 5 years later.

Its target market was was the person that couldn't afford anything better, didn't need particularly fast performance, and wanted a laptop.

"Slow" is subjective, so it's hard to interpret what YOU might think of as slow compared to our expectations of a machine with such low specs and design intention.

Yeah it's difficult to explain "Slow". I've had 5 or 6 of this exact model come through my way and they've all been "faster" than this one. Booting takes forever, file transfers are slow etc. Everything POINTING to the HDD IMO. But, all tests say it's okay. Fecking thing.

Oh well

 

[Altster]

Everything POINTING to the HDD IMO. But, all tests say it's okay. Fecking thing.

Oh well

Then for kicks and grins, try installing the O/S (or cloning) to a different h/drive and see if performance increases.

 

[BrentfromZulu]

Then for kicks and grins, try installing the O/S (or cloning) to a different h/drive and see if performance increases.

Just about to suggest that.

 

[CTech]

Nah, it's not worth the hassle for now - customer and I agreed a fixed price for the service and I've spent an hour longer on it than I would have liked as it stands.

Just going to keep diagnostic results in case he comes back whinging lol

 

[cypress]

Let us know how the HD turns out, and try and upsell a RAM upgrade. It should at least have 4GB of RAM lol

 

[brandonkick]

As others have said, that thing never was a power house to begin with. It's a low spec machine.....


However, if you have had several of this exact same model (down to exact specs or at least VERY similar specs) and they all "felt" much faster then I too would be inclined to think it a fault of the HDD.

A quick way is to just clone the drive over to a new one. Takes less then an hour of your time total, and about 5 min of you actually having to do something.

 

[B Trevathan]

Booting takes forever

If you wanted to spend more of your time you could use Process Monitor to log boot-time activity to see if any of the processes are taking longer than you think they should.