Can laptops suffer from "Fatigue" as such?

Ronan H

Hi everyone...

I have a Dell laptop which i have had for almost 5 years now and it has served me impeccably in that time, but of late it has slowed down a bit and i was wondering about something in relation to that...

Is it possible that the processors or ram or other pieces of hardware can suffer from some sort of tiredness or fatigue? I ask the question because every so often i format my hard drive and re-install everything, but i have noticed that recently when i restored it to its original state (as in, the same as the the day i bought it), it definitely was not as fast as it was the day i bought it. This is why i ask if maybe the RAM or processor has simply fatigued from use over the years and if that would be a cause of a system slowdown.

I would be interested to hear some opinions on this. I would like to speed things up again but as far as i can deduct, im at my maximum for RAM already, which just leaves me with a processor upgrade to speed things up, and im not sure about the cost effectiveness of this as it would cost a fair bit more than a RAM upgrade...

Thanks...

RAM Head

Ruu_Old

You could try removing some of the unnecessary startup items and Windows services for a start. I assume you got anti spyware software installed and give CCleaner a run also. When you formatted did you use the disc that came with the PC (like a recovery disc)? As for the hardware its possible that after a number of years things will begin to break down, its just the lifespan they have.

Ronan H

Story Ruuuu...

Its running at maximum efficiency i would (hope) think, i have all the necessary programs that clean things up every now and again, i use TuneUp Utilities for that, a great program, similar to CCleaner but with more features...

I got ZoneAlarm Pro, Norton Antivirus and Windows Defender so most things that would potentially be detrimental to the machine should be zapped or trapped before they can do any harm.


I have always used the original recovery disks when formatting.

I have a 40G hard drive with about 7GB remaining. 17GB of that is music and 5GB is videos. This may contribute but i wouldnt have thought it would be a major player. Do hard drives perform slower depending on how much is on them?

GB Head

MunsterCycling

NORTON???? WTF and your worried about system slow down... Get rid quick while you still can, Norton causes more problems for more users than you can shake a stick at.

/Wonders if SouperComputer is still offering the bounty of €5 for the video of the destruction of a Norton disk?

Ronan H

RRReally? I hadnt realised that, actually i have to say ive been using Norton for years and never found it to slow things down, having said that, i will definitely get rid of it for a while and see how things go. Is AVG a good enough replacement for the meantime? Ive paid for Norton so i dont want to go paying for a new program just to test it... What ya think?

WTF Head

lomb

ye norton is very processor intensive. the lightest one is probably computer associates one free here
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/downloads/default.mspx
the other reason its going slower every day even with a reload is the increasing amount of security updates to the operating system and it requiring more ram.
there is no fatigue as such its just the increased requirment due to modern software.

Ruu_Old

Chuck Norton in the bin there laddy and get one of the free AVs around that have better protection. Avast!, AntiVir or AVG will do the job. Are you running XP with Service Pack 2?

Ronan H

Hmmm... Ive just tried AVG for about 10 minutes and i hate it already and it has already been uninstalled, terrible GUI and very cumbersome to use, i do not like it at all...

@ Ruuuuu: I have Windows XP SP2 with all updates...

Ill give some other ones a try and see how i go... Has anyone tried that Windows Live OneCare all in one thing?

I have to say im not 100% convinced that Norton is the culprit. Back in the old days i frequently found that the biggest perp (hah - watching too much CSI and Law & Order ) in slowing down the system was any kind of AV software, but im not sure about now. Since the start ive been using Norton religiously and never really found it to be a resource drainer... Anyway, some experiments with new programs will hopefully shed some light on the subject.

Getting back to the original question about the fatigue though, im till wondering if thats something that is possible or not?

Ta very much for help so far, long may it last...

Perp Head

leeroybrown

Head wrote:

I have a Dell laptop which i have had for almost 5 years now and it has served me impeccably in that time, but of late it has slowed down a bit and i was wondering about something in relation to that...

Look on the bright side. My sister recently bought herself a Dell laptop and the standard install that came on it had so much junk installed that it took about five minutes to finish startup (a bit excessive on a dual core 1.6GHz processor). Most of it was down to pointless programs that are 'supposed' to keep the system safe/clean. The Norton (and similar) junk was half the problem.

leeroybrown

Head wrote:

Getting back to the original question about the fatigue though, im till wondering if thats something that is possible or not?

It's not really possible with the CPU, RAM, etc, particularly on a laptop where there is less scope for altering hardware settings and if any of them were going wrong you'd notice crashes not a slowdown. The only likely hardware possiblity is that your hard drive is on it's way out and is causing the slowdown. Grab the drive manufacturers test tool (boot cd or floppy typically and test it).

With a windows laptop it'll just be software bloat that builds up over time. It's interesting that you are seeing a slowdown when you restore it to how it was originally (exactly I presume - any updates will typically be bloated).

Ronan H

Thanks for that Bad Boy

Its not a drastic slowdown i might add, the machine is still working very well and still serving all necessary purposes. I dont currently have a concern about the hard drive, as in if its dying or not. I would subscribe more to the software bloat problem, which is why i usually re-format anyway, and out of boredom :rolleyes:

In relation to your sisters slow startup on a new machine, the startup is where i mainly notice the slowdown, so heres another question...

Obviously there are more places on a machine that hold startup stuff than the basic startup folder, coz ive whittled that down to the basics, and im monitoring programs that do "stuff" at startup like scans etc... so can anyone tell me where else startup entries are kept? Is services.msc something to do with it? Also does anyone know of any way to find out which programs are hogging the startup time and what it is they are doing?

Head.msc

By the way ignore my question about Windows Live OneCare, ive just discovered that its only available to people in the US! Grrr...bloody descrimination, were only Irish like... ... ...

MunsterCycling

Start > Run > msconfig

Start-Up tab is what you want, btw you know that to properly erase NOrton you will prob have to reinstall, leaves crap all over the registry and can lead to crashes if not cleansed.


MC

sceptre

Head wrote:

@ Ruuuuu: I have Windows XP SP2 with all updates...

If you've got SP2 installed with all updates it can't be in the same state as it was when it arrived in your door on day one almost five years ago as service pack 2 is currently two years and one day old. I'm not going to try and speculate as to what might be the reason for the slowdown but given that there's at least one difference there it might be part of the explanation for whatever reason.

jimmycrackcorm

Head, put windows 98 on it instead and it will fly. I was waiting foryouto mention that you hvae XP SP2.

heggie

when you restore are you only doing an application restore or a system wide format? have you defragged your harddrive lately?

TempestSabre

You've a virus on your PC. Its called Norton. You may wish to ignore that, but 99 out 100 PC techs will tell you to remove it. AVG is not pretty but it works better then Norton. Try Nod32, or something like that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOD32

.

...NOD32 is certified by ICSA Labs.[1] It has been tested 46 times by Virus Bulletin and has failed only 3 times, the lowest failure rate in their tests.[2] NOD32 is rated highly by users on CNET.com, with a rating of 9.4[3] out of 10, compared with 2.9[4] for Norton Antivirus 2006 and 5.9[5] for McAfee VirusScan 2006....

Yay go Norton :eek: - CNET.com isn't very accurate, but this gives you some idea of how bad Norton is.

AFAIK, CPU's and RAM do not fatigue, as least not within the lifetime of the machine. HD get errors overtime and can eventually fail. If its badly defragmented it will be slower. As you get used to a machine you get increasingly inpatient with it as time goes by. Remove Norton, turn off all the visual effects in XP, don't load anything you don't need like resident apps like Skype, iTunes, Office Tool Bar etc. Turn off drive indexing and buy a faster HD for your laptop. XP runs fine on a PII laptop if its configured correctly. But turn on all the bells and whistles and it will crawl

rogue-entity

My vote goes for NOD32, Avira AntiVir or Kaspersky.
NOD32 has the smallest footprint, but it has a slightly technical interface which can be a little intimidating to someone who is more used to Norton, its more of a set-it-and-forget-it programme. Set it up, and it will keep itself updated and it will happily scan everything in the background.

AviraAntivir PersonalEdition Premium is what I use myself, and I have found it to be quite good, When I set it up I just let it do a full scan and then forget it. It updates automatically when it detects you are online, but you can easily schedule it to update at a certain time every day and it will work away. Its interface is clean and well laid out, and it doesnt have any of the bloat of Norton or McAfee.

Kaspersky is second only to NOD32 for memory footprint, speed and effectiveness, but it has a much better interface which is, like Avira, better suited to non-technical users and technical users alike. I cant say more as I have not used it personally, I just stuck with AntiVir.