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Slow Laptop Computer

1K views 17 replies 4 participants last post by  Rich-M 
#1 ·
My Samsung laptop is nearly five years old. Operating system is Windows 7. For a few weeks now trying to start the computer has become very slow. I turn on and nothing happens. Just a black screen. Occasionally a message to say there has been a drive read error, press cont-alt-delete to restart. I do so and get another black screen or perhaps the message again. Today I repeated the process I guess about 12 times before eventually windows started to boot up very slowly compared to how it used to be.

The next hurdle is connecting to the Web. I try to open Google Chrome or Internet Explorer (both the latest versions available for Windowes 7) then another long wait before I can access Web pages. In all about 25 minutes from turning on the computer to accessing the Web.

From this point the situation is not too bad. I have a good broadband connection and pages load quickly. If I leave the computer for say half an hour, not having turned it off, when I try again to access the Web it is a slow process though not as bad as at the time of the original start. My computer had six GB of RAM. My anti virus scans find no viruses or malware.

I do not have windows OS installation disk but Samsung has a recovery mode that allows the system to be restored. The OS recovery solution plus a load of junk is on one of the virtual drives. I thought about trying this. It is however not always possible to access the recovery mode as the computer has difficulty starting anyway.

I think the hard drive needs to be replaced. If so I would then have to buy an OS installation disk. Quite a lot of expense for an old computer.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
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#2 ·
Hi there,

I agree that the internal hard drive might be defective, especially when you get a message from the computer saying that "there has been a drive error". Since the computer is able to at least function, I recommend backing up as much files on the computer as you can. Do you have an external hard drive or a USB flash drive? If so, connect the device to your computer and back up any files that you can.
 
#3 ·
5 years is not that old, a new HDD or an SSD will breathe new life into your computer. But before you do that;
After safely backing up your personal files, run Check Disk on the drive
Go to Start/Search and type CMD, Right click the CMD results and Run As Administrator. In the Elevated Command Prompt type chkdsk /R and press enter. Now type a Y for Yes and reboot the computer. Check Disk will start at next bootup and go thru 5 stages. It will take a long time, try this overnight. The longer it takes, the more bad sectors your drive has. If it does not complete overnight, or it hangs at a certain place for hours, it is time to replace the drive. If you get a new HDD you can install Windows 10 for free.
 
#4 ·
Oh hey I usually agree with you Spunk but must differ here as 5 years for a laptop is old as we both know because they suffer so much fr0m cramped space and heat issues. Most techs would say the average "shelf life" for a laptop is 3 years and I cannot help but wonder with a 5 year old laptop being ignored to get that way how many other things have also suffered so I would definitely move on even though the replacement itself isn't that big a deal unless it needs a reinstall of Windows which I would bet is also necessary. Remember do all that and then in 2 years and a few months do it all over again because you have to move up to Windows 10 for sure then and then you have a 7 1/2 year old pc with inadequate ram and a really old motherboard you could have spent the price of the replacent unit on to get to that point.
 
#5 ·
Thanks to all who replied. I have already run the check disk. All my inportnat files are backed up. I think I need to buy a new laptop. This was has been worked very hard in its nearly five years. Nine hours per day or more. I wish I could buy a laptop and install an OS myself. I hate it not have an OS installation disk. As I said on my original post, the restore facility would replace the OS plus a load o trash that I do not want. Once again many thanks for the help.
 
#6 ·
Understood. Shop the business division laptops which are the best quality anyway IMHO, because HP Elitebook and ProBook as well as Lenovo Thinkpads usually come with if not Windows dvds at least restore disks and I believe Dell Small Business Division laptops do also.
 
#8 ·
I am tempted to buy a new hard drive as they are not too expensive. Less than I expected. May I ask another question? My computer is very slow once it comes to life. I explained my problems ib the first post. I cannot see how a new hard drive will improve the speed. Task Manager always show low CPU usage a planty of spare memory. Thanks in advance for any replies that may help me to understand.
 
#9 ·
New hard drive would be a dramatic improvement in speed, ssd drive even way better, the real question is does it make sense to do it on a 5 year old laptop. I would never advise that since I feel the shelf life of a laptop is 3 years but many would say do it.
 
#10 ·
It depends on your budget. If you can afford a new computer, then do that. If you don't have that much to work with then getting a new HDD or especially an SSD and adding more RAM will dramatically improve the speed of the computer.
 
#12 ·
If web pages are loading slow, then you may have a problem with your Internet Service Provider.
Test your internet speed at Speedtest.net by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test If it shows that your speed is less then the advertised speed on all of your devices you are paying for, then have your ISP test the lines.
 
#13 ·
I did a speed check q few days ago and it was excellent. The strange thing is that the web pages are only slow loading when I have been aaway from the computer for a while. Perhaps an hour. After an initial slow start things improve. I have had computers for years and never had an experience like this before.
 
#14 ·
While the impact of a slow dying hard drive doesn't have tremendous play on the internet it still does make things move slower everywhere because it houses Windows and the very fact that it doesn't occur all the time is evidence the hard drive condition is in play there as well because as the wheels spin and you find better sectors things do pop quicker wherever you are.
 
#15 ·
Today I found the drivers I will need. The Samsung website was terrible. I struggled to find the drivers and then had to download them all individually as Zip files. They could have put the together in one archive.

Now I need a Windows 7 installation disk. The key is printed on the bottom of my laptop. I found where I could download one a few days ago but cannot remember where now. I should have made a note.
 
#17 ·
Just to update all those who helped me so much, I bought a solid state drive for my laptop. More expensive of course but I thought that if my ageing laptop does not last much longer I can use it on a replacement. I also invested in Windows 10 Professional. I completed my upgrade two days ago and I am delighted with the result. It boots up so quickly now.

The only problem is that I cannot install my printer now and I have posted a question on the printers section. I hope someone will be able to help.

Thanks again to all above who advised me.
 
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