[dafy1234]

At the moment my laptop is running very sluggish it has an Intel Core i3 M370 at 2.40GHz 3GB of DDR3 1333MHz ram and a 320GB hard drive. I have defragged the hard drive and cleared up as much space as i can but it still runs slow I am going to upgrade to 6GB of ram shortly but I'm thinking of upgrading the processor to at least an i5 but I am unsure of what one to purchase.

 

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Need a little more info, like the Brand & Model number of the laptop.

There are a couple of schools of thought on this kind of thing for a laptop especially. Your machine was designed around a core. Without knowing what your model is I can only guess...but many wouldn't work any better with a core upgrade. I also see the i5 (quad core) uses a different socket then the i3. Your mobo manufacturer will have a listing of which cores it will support. A dual core i5 is around the same capability as your i3, if there is even a dual core i5 that would fit your socket.

Many people that have a slowdown or sluggishness (BTW, how long have you had the laptop, and if it's branded, how much of the bloatware that comes with a branded computer is still running?) drop back to XP SP3. Others I have worked on have so many accidentally loaded resource hogs that just removing all the supposed 'help bars' from their internet browser speeds things up. These days, you must always choose 'custom' install while installing software you actually want in order to turn of the hidden bars (which still run, even if the browser is shut down) which often are installed during the 'Standard' or 'Default' install. The Ask tool bar is often installed this way. So are all the resource hog 'Google' helper toolbars. Then of course are the malware bars, spambots, commercial bloatware (HP has been doing this for years - and many times their printers won't work unless their bloatware is running, always connected to the net...the worst kind of corporate intrusion).

So, perhaps taking it to your friendly neighborhood consultant would be of benefit.

 

[dafy1234]

Okay thank you for the fast reply so the laptop is 2 years old and I think this is the full laptop specs I hope this helps:


Inspiron N5010 (UK6, FCG71) - i3-370M (2.4GHz, 3M)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
N02N5054
Inspiron N5010 BTS Order - UK
15.6" High Definition (1366x768) WLED
3072MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [1x1024 + 1x2048]
320GB (5,400rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
Inspiron N5010 Resource DVD (Diagnostic & Drivers)
DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD)
65W AC Adaptor
Primary 6-cell 48 WHr Lithium Ion battery
1 Meter Power Cord
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator HD
Dell Wireless 1501 Mini Card (802.11g/n)
Internal Keyboard
1.3 Mega pixel Integrated Web Camera
1 year Collect & Return Hardware Support included with your PC
Intel® CoreTM i3-370M Processor (3M Cache, 2.4 GHz)
Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth Module
Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Word Starter, Excel Starter)


I have deleted all of the bloated dell software so i don’t think that should be a problem and i do install software in custom settings to that unnecessary stuff is not installed.

 

[Tyree]

Do you have any Symantec (Norton) apps or McAfee installed?

 

[dafy1234]

Nope the only anti virus I have is the free version of avira.

 

[[email protected]]

Well, if it isn't a financial hardship, then perhaps a memory upgrade would help. Win7 64bit should run comfortably on 2GB, you have 3GB, but 6GB would probably speed you up somewhat. You might increase the size of your page file as a HDD is the bottle neck in today's computers.

Other then that, perhaps running RevoUninstaller Free and doing an advanced uninstall on seldom used software would help. Then another 'Chkdsk' followed by a 'Defrag' might help after that's been done.

I don't have a Win7 machine available to test this on but perhaps this: Win7 SDK might work. You'd want to use the Performance Toolkit portion. I believe it's a Win7 equivalent to Bootvis, which is a great little program from MS that helps speed up boot times in WinXP.