Why Your Windows 10 Laptop is Slow as Hell (How to Fix it & Your Productivity)
I was nerd growing up. I got my start back in the days of Windows 3.1x, as a 5 or 6 year old, in that age I began playing the first MMO (massively multiplayer game) with a 2D graphics interface called Neverwinter Nights which ran from 1991. That eventually got me into building computers and optimizing my Windows environment’s performance to run games. Fast-forward years later of growing up with Microsoft and Linux, I couldn’t understand why Windows 10 had become so slow for me. I updated my RAM, and purchased a laptop with decent processor cores, and graphics cards long ago, why did Windows 10 still suck? Maybe you’re having a similar situation — I mean, Windows 7 was fairly quick… and Microsoft promised not to make Windows 10 a resource-hogging ogre, right?
My situation was supposed to get better (or stay the same)… not worse! I decided to go with the flow, continued my strategy of installing the latest optimizing software, reading articles online, and doing whatever gurus said to do. After all, a slow computer or laptop equates to slow productivity… for which I just didn’t have time for that given everything going on in my life.
“A slow computer or laptop equates to slow productivity”
Some months ago, my Windows 10 interface stopped loading due to all of the tweaks I applied on it. I couldn’t understand… given my existing hardware… I didn’t feel like I needed new hardware. After a very painful system-repair (data loss, program loss, and much more — I’d rather not discuss it). I felt myself at a loss —my “geekiness” wasn’t what it used to be… I figured a new laptop was in order…
My father-in-law recently purchased a laptop that had half the capabilities of my laptop, he also complained of how agonizingly slow Windows 10 was for him even on his new laptop. I ran some diagnostics on his laptop, and thought to my self, “why not attempt a slight upgrade?,” he could use a RAM upgrade, and why not add an SSD hard drive. I bought a 240 GB SSD for only $30 on AliExpress for him.
On Amazon, there’s a lot more name-brand varieties for just a few dollars more. Even though AliExpress typically says it takes about 30–50 days for delivery, after a few years of use, I find that it takes about 8–20 days to ship, even for products with free shipping.
I Felt So Stupid
The results were stunning. The speed was flawless, it was sexy, it was sleek, and it was only $30. His laptop loaded completely in 15 seconds. There was no lag time. We ran multiple programs flawlessly even though he only had 4 GB of RAM in his laptop; his laptop was a champion marathon runner compared to my laptop with out an SSD. I quickly bought more SSD hard drives for my other laptops. I experienced the same result. I couldn’t believe it. I felt so stupid… all of those years of suffering, delays, lag, lost data… for nothing.
The cost in not spending that $30… likely cost me at least $5,000+ in lost time that I could have spent being more effective and productive. If you lost 10 minutes a day, over a course of 250 work days, that comes out to 41 Hours, or about a work week per year. That’s what losing 10 minutes per day does… and let’s just say that I lost much more than that per day.
“…LOSE A WHOLE WEEK JUST FROM LOSING 10 MINUTES A DAY OVER THE COURSE OF A YEAR”
So What Happened…
“Software comes from heaven when you have good hardware .”— Ken Olsen
Why did the SSD hard drive cause my laptops to have a 20x-30x (or more) speed boost on all of my Windows 10 laptops? Well — then I realized… it’s quite simple. I remember from a supply-chain management class I took in college, that one of the biggest challenges of a supply-chain is the concept of bottlenecks… that essentially your overall output is dictated or defined by your lowest process output, in other words: the demands of the Windows 10 operating system had created a system of bottle-necks within the separate pieces of hardware (and some software) within the laptop itself.
The speed of a computer is highly complicated. Most people think: if the components are from a name brand, it’ll be fast... or the more processing speed, the faster it will be… or at some point, people usually figure out that if I add more RAM, my computer will be faster. The truth is, that those are all half-truths. A computer is like an engine, and each component or part needs to be uniquely optimized because the impact of a single component can have a monumental impact on the rest of the engine (in both positive and negative ways)… similarly to how today’s cars function which are heavily moderated by computers. For example, if the equation for the mixture of oxygen to fuel ratio for your car is off, then the gas-mileage will end up being lower, but perhaps the power will be higher. However, too much power can cause damage to various parts in the engine. The same principle exists for the components of a personal computer. The software has to play nice with the hardware.
The demands of Windows 10 in the way that it’s codified causes too much disk-reading and writing that the hardware can no longer function smoothly in tandem with the HDD disk drive — regardless of one’s computational ability (computer CPU), RAM, graphics capabilities, or anything else. Thankfully, in today’s age, SSD’s have become affordable enough for most people to use and can be easily installed and used.
The Quick and Easy: What Makes a Computer Perform Fast
I’m going to try and break this down as simply as I can in list format just to make it flow. If you ever go out to purchase a laptop, do keep these factors in mind in order to avoid buying something that will give you poor results.
Performance Depends on These Factors:
- Software — the software programs you are using and the amount of software programs being used in tandem. (Usually) keeping your software (mostly — but not fully) up-to-date, as well as minimizing the use of other programs can help with performance.
a. Using programs like Advanced System Care can help optimize the settings of your laptop or computer but be advised that these programs do alter sensitive areas of a computer and may not always change settings that are relevant and that are helpful, I have found that when the program altered some settings then I actually experienced a poorer experience.
b. Keeping background processes low in number by turning off one of the dozens to hundreds of background processes Windows turns on by default, should help your computer operate more smoothly as well, but should be used with caution as turning off the wrong processes can cause instability.
c. Uninstalling software you don’t use and utilizing Registry Cleaning Software (ccleaner is free) will be helpful as well. - Operating System — Not all operating systems are created the same.
a. Utilizing operating systems like MacOS or Linux (like Ubuntu) tend to be leaner operating systems that don’t eat up system resources, but conversely they don’t support a range of programs. Most critics will argue that Windows XP and Windows 7 were the best versions of Microsoft Windows, but as of 2019 neither are supported with future updates from Microsoft. As such, we made the focus of this article on Windows 10.
b. You can easily keep your drivers (programs that interact between your hardware and software) up to date by installing and using Easy Driver Free or Driver Booster Free. - Hardware— Here’s what you should look for before you click purchase when selecting a laptop or desktop computer.
a. Processing Speed / Processing Cores — The two most common processing chip makers in the United States market are Intel, and AMD. When choosing the number of cores, it’s best to have at least 4 to 6 cores, with at least 1.5 gHz per core if possible. Check out this quick guide on WikiHow to understand more.
b. RAM Storage / RAM Speed — Your RAM type will be dependent on your motherboard, if purchasing a new motherboard or new computer, you’ll want to purchase one that supports at least DDR3 (or better yet, DDR4 / DDR5) RAM, with AT LEAST 1200 mHz speed. Here’s a quick read for more information.
c. BUS Speed — This one is a less known, easily overlooked, and one of the most important features of a computer system. It quantifies how fast internal processes work between each other. The higher the BUS speed, the better — obviously, but as we stated before, BUS speed tends to be one of the many causes of computer bottle-necks. A higher BUS Speed (over 400 mHZ) will ensure a less constrictive computer system.
d. L2 & L3 Caches — Another very overlooked feature similarly to BUS speed that influences the computer’s ability to process information internally are the L2 & L3 Caches, both of which function similarly like RAM, but more specifically for processing internal temporary information. Having an L2 Cache of over 2 MB is ideal in ensuring smooth process flows for your overall computer system.
e. Graphics Cards / Chips — These have grown in popularly and in headlines in recent times due to the demand and popularly of block-chain currencies like Bitcoin. Top of the line graphics cards were used to “mine” crypto-currencies — with more advanced graphics cards being able to “mine” a faster rate of a crypto-currency. The number of graphics cards and chips vary and are numerous — but one should be careful to use a common chip maker like NVidia or AMD as the brand maker of their graphics card. Having a processing speed of at least 2 gHz and dedicated memory of around 2 GB is ideal in ensuring that you have high-performing graphics abilities for years to come. If purchasing a laptop, be careful to NOT purchase a laptop with Intel graphics chips as they tend to perform much weaker; stick to NVidia or AMD.
f. SSD Drives — There are many factors that influence a computer’s speed and we DID NOT list all of them purposely so as to not make the process overly confusing. If you factor the features in this list, you’ll do well to avoid purchasing a computer which will be a disappointment. The only other big factor to mention is to ensure the use of SSD hard drives, (which is the whole point of this article). The more common and archaic HDD drives simply create too much of a bottle-neck for today’s computational needs.
SSD Drives and RAM: the Easiest to Replace for Either a Netbook, Laptop or even Desktop Computer
Ok — so now that you know that you need an SSD drive and a RAM upgrade, let’s focus on replacing those items. RAM is very easy to replace, you simply need to locate it, understand which exact type of RAM you need, purchase and then quickly replace or supplement that exact type of RAM (with a new RAM stick of much more storage). This can usually be done without much work (about 5 to 10 minutes to understand your model of RAM, 15 minutes to find a decent upgrade on Amazon, AliExpress, or eBay, retrieve your RAM and replace). There’s a lot of resources on the internet that focus on just this, so we’re not going to spend too much more time on it.
SSD drives require a bit more work and as such we’ll primarily be focused on this step. When purchasing an SSD hard drive, you’ll have to be aware that you’ll need to literally replicate your old drive onto your new SSD drive (NOT by copying & pasting, but by “cloning”). When searching for a new SSD, you’ll want to make sure it supports SATA3 cables with at least a 6 GB/S or higher data transfer rate (which should be the standard of most 2019 or later SSD drives).
You’re Telling Me I have to Install Windows 10 and All of My Programs All Over Again???
The first thought someone might have is that one would need to install of their programs as well as Windows 10 all over again. Thanks to some very generous software makers, that’s untrue. All you’ll need is a SATA3 to USB cable (generally about $1–3 in most places), it looks something like this.
Check out this product on Amazon
After you’ll obtain this cable and a new SSD drive, both found on Amazon, eBay, or AliExpress in excess, you’ll have everything you need to give your computer a transformational makeover.
We’ll go over 3 different free software products you can use to transfer a replica or some would call, “a clone” of the information on your HDD hard drive onto your new SSD hard drive. But before we do that, you’ll need to ensure that your current HDD hard disk is free of errors and fully defragmented. To achieve those important tasks, we’re going to utilize a free program called “Smart Defrag.”
Checking/Removing Disk Errors and Defragmenting Your Disk
The first step in preparing your disk drive before transitioning the memory is to check for disk errors. Fixing any potential errors and defragmenting your memory is critical in making sure that you have a smooth transition of information from one drive to the other. In order to transfer your disk, do so by —
- Accessing “My PC” from the folder view.
- Right Click on the drive icon you want to copy and select “Properties”
- Navigate to the “Tools” section of the menu, and then click “Check” under the “Error Checking” options.
- The process can take up to few hours but you can let it run in the background. Windows might ask for you to reboot your computer to complete the process, this means it needs for the disk to not be operational to fix any errors. Just let Windows 10 do the job, if you find that you restart your computer and it seems like your computer is frozen — it’s actually not frozen — Windows 10 is incredibly notorious for having inaccurate progress bars or inaccurate update information. Just let it do what it needs to do until it finishes. It might seem like it’s frozen for hours, and hours, but its actually not.
- After you have fixed any errors (most likely, you should have none), you’ll need to fully defragment your hard drive. Rather than using the Windows generic defragmentation tool (although you certainly can!), I recommend using “Smart Defrag” (← it’s free, click to download).
- Open Smart Defrag, select the (1.) drive, then click (2.) analyze.
After this process completes (usually 5–10 minutes — let it run in the background), then you can either do (3.) Defrag and Optimize (1–3 hours) or (6.) Defrag and Prioritize (3+ hours).
Follow it up by conducting a “Large File Defrag” (5-20 minutes), and “Free Space Defrag” (20–40 minutes).
After you’ve finished, you’ll be ready to transfer your drive using one of the three programs below to clone your existing HDD hard drive to your new SSD hard drive.
What Happens if I Don’t Check Errors and Defragment My Hard Drive Prior to Cloning?
Good question. You might be alright, really! You might not even need it... But do so at your own risk — of the 4 drives that I’ve transferred personally, I found that even if I was able to successfully clone my drive, I would experience all kinds of weird problems and bugs. Not to mention, the transfer rate of the HDD hard drive’s data is much slower without a proper defragmentation. 3 of the 4 of those hard drives transfers failed with a proper defragment, wasting incredible amounts of time (you have no idea).
Your New Windows 10 Computer Starts Here
In order to create and format your new drive, we’ll be using one of the 3 (FREE) cloning programs below. Honestly speaking, only one of them worked 100% of the time from my experience. That doesn’t mean that the other 2 won’t work, it just means that I can personally vouch that it successfully works for all of the various drives I’ve used. As such, we’re going to run through how to accomplish this with Lazesoft Disk Image and Clone to start.
Lazesoft Disk Image & Clone (Free Edition) | Download Here
-After you install the program, click “clone disk” from the left-hand menu.
- Highlight the hard drive from which you wish to copy from. Click Next.
- Select the disk that you wish to copy to.
- Most of the time, you’ll just select “fit partitions to fit disk” if your SSD drive is smaller than your HDD drive. If you have an SSD with the exact same size as the HDD, then you can just select the first option.
- Click start after you verify that everything looks good in the review screen.
Macrium Reflect (Free Edition) | Download Here
- Select “Create a Backup” and then “Clone this Disk”
- Select “ALL” of the partitions, and then select “Next”
- Skip the scheduling by clicking “Next”
Review, that everything that you select, and click “Finish.”
EaseUS ToDo BackUp (Free Edition) | Download Here
- Click “Clone” or “System Clone” — either will do the same thing, but “System Clone” will be a little bit more straight forward. For demo purposes, we’ll be doing a system clone.
- After you select “Clone” or “System Clone,” Select the Hard Drive you want to clone, but don’t hit “Proceed” yet!
-Click on “Advanced Option” on the bottom-left of the screen, then click “ok.”
- You can edit the partitions if you need to by selecting the partition and editing the properties. Hit “Proceed.” Once you hit “Proceed,” the data on that hard drive will be wiped.
If you have any questions, wisdom, or praise/comments, please comment below.
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Hoping this helped!
