Tips to help speed up a laptop

Amateur

Hi all,

I have a friends laptop that at present is running very slowly. He has asked me if I could do something with it to help performance. I have performed a Disk Cleanup and defragged the drive. They wanted me to wipe the laptop but they dont have the OS cd so wouldnt be able to reinstall it following wiping.

Any tips what else I can do to help the PC performance? Any tips would be great.

Kinetic^

What operating system is on it?

Tallon

use Ccleaner to give it a general cleanup and fix registry problems

Amateur

Kinetic^ wrote: »

What operating system is on it?

Windows XP Home Edition.

Zascar

If it's really really slow generally you can't get it back to perfect.

The best and quickest thing to do is backup all the data, and then wipe it and reinstall windows. It should be as quick a the day you bought it when you are done.

I reinstall mine every 4-6 months approx. Even though I have a hige amount of data, prgrams and customised setting etc - I can do it in an evening.

If that is not an option, cCleaner, ad-aware, Spybot, and a virus checker - avg etc

Amateur

Zascar wrote: »

If it's really really slow generally you can't get it back to perfect.

The best and quickest thing to do is backup all the data, and then wipe it and reinstall windows. It should be as quick a the day you bought it when you are done.

I reinstall mine every 4-6 months approx. Even though I have a hige amount of data, prgrams and customised setting etc - I can do it in an evening.

If that is not an option, cCleaner, ad-aware, Spybot, and a virus checker - avg etc

The missing cd has been found so can reinstall windows now!

Being not too familiar with this process of wiping and reinstalling, any where i could find a guide to doing this?

Zascar

Its easy. Restart the PC with the CD in the drive, pick New Installation. Delete the partiton, made new one, install windows.

Google it and you'll get step by step instrcutions. Any questions just ask

Kinetic^

Just put any important files on a USB key or an SD card. Insert the disk, power on the machine and it should run by itself.

Amateur

Kinetic^ wrote: »

Just put any important files on a USB key or an SD card. Insert the disk, power on the machine and it should run by itself.

So this will uninstall the current operating system on the laptop and install a new "version" of it?

CCSL

Click start - Run and enter MSCONFIG

look through the programs listed under startup and remove any you dont need.

This can make a big difference to the performance after a reboot as over time programs tend to put stuff in to load on startup.

CCSL

Amateur

Zascar wrote: »

Its easy. Restart the PC with the CD in the drive, pick New Installation. Delete the partiton, made new one, install windows.

Google it and you'll get step by step instrcutions. Any questions just ask

Ok, thanks for this advice. I have reinstalled the OS and all went fine.

Only issue I have now is that I am missing some drivers after reinstalling the OS. Is there any quick way of finding all the missing drivers and downloading them? Any app out there to do it for me? Dont have the drivers CD :rolleyes:

Zascar

Do a full Windows update that will sometimes do it.

When you are asked to install drivers, let Windows go off and check if it can download them automaticalyl - it can take some time but often works.

If not generally a google search will find what you need.

Let us know what you are looking for specifically and we'll try to assist

MunsterCycling

What make and model is it?

If you can't find that info, then this will help:

DriverMax

It can search for drivers for you, used it myself and it is very good.

MC

Zascar

Wow, that looks very interesting! I'd be skeptical about it really working but I will definitely give it a try!

MunsterCycling

DriverMax is the dogs dangily (sp?) bits, can sniff out most hard to get driver files or at the very least you can get hardware info that might lead you to being able to find it yourself.

MC

Zascar

Microsoft should buy them and integrate it with Windows

ronkmonster

try drivermax. it can look online for drivers needed.
requires free registration. and net access obviously

if you go the manufacturers website they usually have drivers in support section too