Terrible Performance and speed (HP Notebook - 15-ay031na) - Please help!

[SimonGregory]

Bought this computer around 6 months ago, as a relatively cheap replacement, and it is by far the slowest and worst performing laptop I have ever used. Even just trying to load onto this discussion board took forever. Slow to start up, switch off,  etc.

All programs and applications take far too long to start and respond. Using the internet would be quicker to go to an internet cafe and work there! My internet provider is Virgin cable 200 mbs and works perfectly on other devices.

Someone please provide some feedback or advice. I still have 6 months warranty.

[iomare]

Hi,

A couple of things you could do to try to improve performance a little would be to install an ssd and you could also consider to change the wifi module to something more fast such as this:

Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168 802.11 ac 1x1 WiFi + BT 4.2 Combo Adapter

Also check to see if you have all the latest drivers and Bios updates. I see there is a BIOS update from decembre which speeds up boot process.

Hope it helps,

David

Italy

[mdklassen]

>  [bought]  as a relatively cheap replacement ...

As they say in drag-racing, "speed costs money; how fast do you want to go?".

From: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05187199

your specifications are:

Microprocessor: Intel® Pentium® N3710 (1.6 GHz, up to 2.56 GHz, 2 MB cache, 4 cores)
 
Memory, standard:  8 GB DDR3L-1600 SDRAM (1 x 8 GB)
 
Hard drive:  1 TB 5400 rpm SATA

So, any "single-threaded" program on your computer will only use one of the 4 "cores", namely 1.6 Ghz to 2.56 Ghz.

That's not very fast, when compared to a more-recent (and more-expensive) CPU that runs at 3 Ghz per core.

You have "lots" of RAM -- the 64-bit version of Windows 10 requires 2 GB, and is "happy" with 4 GB.

Your disk-drive is slightly slower than a 7200 RPM disk-drive, and much slower than a SSD (Solid State Device).

> All programs and applications take far too long to start and respond.

Windows start-up, and loading any application is a "single-threaded" process, and it reads many files from your disk-drive.  So, this can be "slow".

You can try to buy and connect a USB memory-stick that is compatible with Windows "ReadyBoost" -- Windows will put its "start-up" files onto the SSD, to make it much faster to reboot Windows.

Is your anti-virus software running correctly, and updating itself, daily?  Have you recently run a "full scan" ?

If your computer has some malware, that could slow it down. 

Download the free "MalwareBytes" one-time virus-scanner, and run it, to see if it finds anything.

Also, "measure, measure, measure", before spending any money on a faster disk-drive or SSD.

Start the Windows "Task Manager", and click "more details" and then the "Performance" tab.

Look for any "bottle-neck", such as the CPU running "flat-out", or all the RAM being consumed, or the disk-drive being 100% busy for an extended time.

Within "Task Manager", click "Performance Monitor".

You can "drill-down" to see which applications are the heaviest users of the CPU, and which applications are doing the most input/output activity, and whether your Internet connection is "busy".