Laptop Troubles

[Inferna]

So for the past while my laptop has been playing up. It's the one I bought after getting advice on here actually but it's mostly been pretty solid, I'll give it its dues!
It's incredibly slow when it comes to opening certain programs. Like with Sai for example (I'm assuming it's a pretty lightweight program), I can click on the icon on the taskbar and it just doesn't do anything. Even trying to run task manager can take an age sometimes. Other times this doesn't happen and it'll be completely fine, like a few weeks back I had a 40 page document on InDesign open, plus illustrator, and a few tabs on chrome.
I'm still running Windows 8.1 (been meaning to get 10 but just don't have my hdd with me at uni) and my antivirus is Avast. It's updated to the latest version. The laptop itself is roughly 3 years old. Had a few niggles with it but nothing major.
I don't know if I might have a virus of some sort or not? I haven't been on anything dodgy recently though lol and I think the last thing I downloaded was rollercoaster tycoon 2 from steam so I doubt that's the problem lmao. Only other thing I can think of is that the wifi both in my flat (uni halls) and at uni is unsecured. Due to my flat wifi being a piece of crap I tend to only have it on my laptop when I need to upload assignments or whatever, tend to keep it turned off while at uni unless I need it.

It's getting pretty irritating tbh. I have been debating to save up and get a Mac and if I can't sort this then this will probably be the last straw. Hopefully it won't come to that though aha.

So yeah does anyone have any suggestions/help/advice? Thank you!

[Kpyna]

Hey -- I used Avast and really not sure why they're topping the charts in protection... try the free trial of Panda and see if it gets anything. Viruses can take a bit of time to take serious action sometimes too.

Download things like CCleaner too if you haven't already. If for some reason your laptop has an SSD, don't run it on an SSD (they exist)... otherwise clear away, with the warning a lot of your page history and passwords will disappear.

Anyways, otherwise, what's your laptop? Some brands are known to not last very long and computers slow down. CPUs can slow down because of dust, as well as heat. If your laptop is hot, might be worth getting a cooling pad if there's no significant damage to the solder.

unfortunately, components of a computer can go to crap sometimes, and not gonna lie, i'd say most laptops quality dips a lot quicker than in the case of a desktop. brand can also matter with this.

[Inferna]

I might try a free one again once this year is up, I'll keep that one in mind!

Just gave it a good clear out with Ccleaner, usually clear out crap once a month at least. Need to back a lot of stuff up onto my hdd but like I said its at home.

I've got a Samsung of some description. It's got half decent specs for what I wanted and what I could afford at the time (6gb ram, 2.5ghz). This was my first Samsung lol, had a toshiba before and it was just awful. Surprisingly 8 years on it is still chugging away but prob riddled with viruses so. It does the job for doing uni work but wouldn't mind a bit more oomph for when I make the odd video with premiere.

I would love to get a desktop but it's def much easier to have a laptop for portability reasons. Personally I'm not that keen on bigger screens anyway because of my eyes, sounds dumb I guess because I do art/design lmao. 15" screen is perfect for me, couldn't go much smaller really either.

I have been debating getting a MacBook Pro but I don't know if it's form over function really! I know you can customise your own laptop for probably half the price as well.

[Milsap]

A defrag of your hard drive might be worth doing as well. I use Malwarebytes to clear off some of the more 'stubborn' viruses.

[Kpyna]

true that -- i've found that using malwarebytes in conjunction with avast was just as good as panda. oh but be warned panda likes to try to sell you things. so i'd say its up to preference... i like having just the one program personally.

its kind of hard to determine the quality of your laptop in comparison to others if you don't know the brand... but now more than ever due to cheap assembly and mass production laptops are living shorter and shorter lives. i'd say 3 years is about the time that a laptop lasts for... just how it is honestly. you might get an extra year or so out of a mac, but most people i've met with macs can't do more than 4 or 5 years before they dump their mac for a new computer.

also i totally understand why you prefer a laptop, im typing on one right now... even though i'd love to be back on my desktop, fact is, you can't take your desktop anywhere with you haha

[lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes]

i tend toward MSE these days as an antivirus cos im fat n dumb

and uMatrix cos im Paranoid (browser attacks and outdated plugins and XSS are the New Threat) altho uMatrix is a bit overkill and will kill most sites so maybe dont do that and use Ghostery and uBlock Origin.

p much second what everyones said in this topic w/ running malwarebytes and CCleaner (also run Spybot Search n Destroy to catch what malwarebytes doesn't) and also make sure you're Updated windows-wise cos otherwise ur computer could have an unpatched backdoor and could be part of a botnet/bitcoin mining rig. which if ur fan is fwooshing up a lot for no reason may be likely.

if ur paranoid about Telemetry make sure you dont install/uninstall the updates listed here tho cos windows tried the Weird Spying stuff in retrograde "essential security" updates for win 7/8 too

also make sure ur laptop hardware is Updated n all cos i got a massive speed increase when i updated my graphics card drivers lmao



i remember my win7 laptop (cheap toshiba plastic piece of crap) used to freak out all the time cos of all the toshiba bloatware and the fact that it was not actually that good. and running ubanto lunix was the only thing that shut it up. then again running ubuntu was even worse, so

(edited cos i rambled too much about my dumb laptop dying)