Laptop And Internet Advice

[Neal 1,930]

I'm having problems with the speed of my laptop and wanted to see if anybody on here had any advice before I do anything about it.

 

My laptop is an HP Pavillion and my internet is via Virgin. I started noticing problems about a year ago, initially when sending emails. I found that the speed at which I was typing was too fast for the computer to keep up (and I'm not the fastest typist in the world) so that every time I looked up, half of what I'd written wasn't there. It's now reached the stage where every browsing session is a painful experience. Sometimes it takes ages to open a page (up to a minute) and will ocasionaly tell me it couldn't find the page. When the latter happens I'll go "back" and try again and sometimes it'll find it but sometimes not. Sometimes it won't go back either and then freezes. At this point I usually close the tab(s) down and open up again.

 

The other annoying thing it does is to "go back" too may steps e.g. if I'm on here, reading a thread and then press back to return to the "new topics" it will sometimes go back to something I was researching on bing way before I'd been on Hunting Life and then refuses to go forwards.

 

I did a search online for advice but it came up with dozens of "solutions" all along the "do these five things to speed up your laptop" vein but they weren't all saying the same thing...hence my confusion.

 

The laptop is about two and a half years old so should be ok. The problem is, I don't want to just give in and buy a new laptop in case it's the internet but I don't want to try to sort out virgin (I hate explaining my ICT problems to a random person over the phone) if it is the laptop.

 

Incidentally, my other option is to keep the laptop for writing only (I use it for articles and stories) and get a cheap tablet for the browsing.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks in advance.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Neal

[Tiercel 6,986]

Just as a first port of call, you have not said that you have tried this so give it a go. Knock your modem off on the plug and leave it off for 30 seconds then switch it back on, that sometimes works.

 

THL computer expert will be along soon Flipper-Al and he will give you the right information.

 

TC

[Nik_B 3,791]

If you are typing and there is a lag between the key stroke and the letter appearing on the screen then you pc is running very baddly. It's possible that you have loads of malware and other nasty things on your laptop but without looking at it it's hard to tell. Have you got a virus scanner? You really need one also try out malware bytes that's quite a good program. Is your hard drive full?

 

Also you need to run a clean up you can right click on the c drive

And there is an option to clean up and remove Internet files, that will free up.hard drive space. Then you want to do a defrag of your drives and also.sxhedule a scandisk to check for errors.

 

I am away from my pc at the moment so I am doing this from memory if need be I can help when I go home in a weeks time.

 

The nuclear option is to reinstall windows, over time the registry gets bigger and bigger which slows a computer down.

 

Also stay away from programs u have to pay for which claim to speed up your pc...they're bullshit. Also run speed test (just Google it) that will tell you your Internet speed

[jacknife 2,005]

Could be to much shit running in the background...... I would just remove anything you want and wipe it

[Lid 194]

To check your internet speed (and so hopefully rule it out as the main problem) use http://www.speedtest.net/ .

 

Nik_B 's diagnosis is likely to be the issue and a clean re-install is a good solution, but you need to secure all your personal files and data first which is not necessarily straightforward and then reinstall all your software, so this is not for the faint-hearted.

 

If you are prepared to pay for it, AVG tune up is good, but one of the features does require you to make some decisions about choosing which start up and background programs to stop and some of the recommendations should be ignored. There is a free trial, but it may only report and not actually make changes - I can't remember.

 

A good start is, after checking your hard drive is not full, is to delete the browsing data from your browser (from the beginning of time) - but if you delete cookies and stored passwords (I would do both), you will need to login fresh to all sites that require it like THL. Then download malwarebytes free from here and run it. Next run a full antivirus scan with whatever AV software you are running (assuming you have more than just windows defender). Good luck!

[forest of dean redneck 12,023]

I'm no tech expert but ,I find to many tabs slows even an iPad down,and unfortunally Neal, some consider a year old laptop old,so one coming up 3 is going to be obsolete to the nerds.

Sorry I mean whizz kids!

[Nik_B 3,791]

I'm no tech expert but ,I find to many tabs slows even an iPad down,and unfortunally Neal, some consider a year old laptop old,so one coming up 3 is going to be obsolete to the nerds.

Sorry I mean whizz kids!

The problem with ipads and smart phones is the companies deliberately enable them to update the operating systems when they know full well they don't have the hardware to cope. This makes them run like crap and encourage people to upgrade to a new device. Disabling OS upgrades will keep them running faster for longer. My wife's Ipad became useless after it updated the OS. I've experienced the same with phones.

[Nik_B 3,791]

Stay off porn

I might as well die now then lol

[walshie 2,804]

As TC says, Wait for Flipper_Al to come on, or pm him. He'll put you straight. He has been known to fix people's computer problems remotely and he's a top bloke.

[forest of dean redneck 12,023]

 

I'm no tech expert but ,I find to many tabs slows even an iPad down,and unfortunally Neal, some consider a year old laptop old,so one coming up 3 is going to be obsolete to the nerds.

Sorry I mean whizz kids!

The problem with ipads and smart phones is the companies deliberately enable them to update the operating systems when they know full well they don't have the hardware to cope. This makes them run like crap and encourage people to upgrade to a new device. Disabling OS upgrades will keep them running faster for longer. My wife's Ipad became useless after it updated the OS. I've experienced the same with phones.

My iPad i refuse to update it,as one of the kids we updated an it died.

[forest of dean redneck 12,023]

Stay off porn

I would have to start being nice to the missus then (shudders) an to old for a girlfriend lol

[Neal 1,930]

Huge thanks for all the advice...even the warnings to keep off the porn (which I don't I hasten to add what with me being so happily married!).

 

My wife's reminded me that the husband of one of her friends works in computers so she's going to ask him to have a look.

 

NB I'm doing the speedtest that somebody recommended on a separate tab...it said ping is 38ms (whatever that means), download speed is 22.24 and I got bored waiting for the upload speed so I've written this instead...and I'm still waiting for it to connect!

 

Huge thanks again everybody!

 

Edited to add: when I finished on here I closed this tab and the speedtest site immediately restarted and gave me a different result:

 

Ping: 25ms, download speed: 23.59 Mbps, upload speed: 6.18

 

I then did the same with a different one and got...download speed 2.62. upload speed: 1.41...not that any of that means owt to me!

Edited August 2, 2016 by Neal

[Nik_B 3,791]

Nothing wrong with your Internet speed then

[martyn2233 2,737]

Download this https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

And https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/

Then watch your laptop speed up sounds to me you have not enough memory

[Neal 1,930]

Thanks again.