With longer use of a laptop, it is common problem with everyone that it got slow down and takes over 1-5 min of time to start the laptop and sometimes got hang and the only option to everything, as usual, is to restart the system.
So if you are familiar with this problem and looking for reasons on why is my laptop so slow or why my computer is running very slow then I have given all the reasons and how to fix the slowness of the laptop.
The major reason behind the laptop running very slow is if the hard disk of RAM space is full or your browser is filled with unnecessary extensions and if you are not cleaning up unnecessary files timely and random applications running in the background.
But there are a lot more that needs to be check and the best part is you can do this using DIY tips and no need any help from an external resource.
So let me give you all the reasons why your laptop is too slow or how you can fix slow running laptop which is lagging while working.
7 Reasons Why is My Laptop Slow and How I Fix it?
I will walk you through all the issues and you try their explained fixes parallelly to experience the instant change in laptop speed and if tried one and it not working go with others.
So here are the reasons why your laptops are very slow.
1: Too Many Start-Up Apps are Running
While you install any application in the system, there will be an option to set it as start while system login or not, and if you by mistake marked that as yes.
Then here you go, this is the major culprit cause all the time while you start your system, automatically all these apps started running even you are not using them actively and unnecessary occupying your system resources.
The best example which you are familiar with is anti-virus software.
How to close the startup program?
To save the system resources, it is much necessary to identify the start-up apps which are not necessary to start automatically.
Go to Windows search > Type “Task Manager” > New window will open there click to Start-up
Now startup. lists all the applications so whatever you don’t need simply right-click on each and click to Disable.
No worries this available to open any time through manual launch. So repeat these steps for all the unnecessary apps. and now test how fast your system is running.
2: Too many Unnecessary Programs Running in the Backend
It mainly occurs when you try to do multitasking on the system which is little to no capacity if it is old and running on basic configurations.
Sometimes, while you open 1 app and left it open, and move to another and the same continues for multiple processes. so all these together will start occupying space of the RAM and hard disk and as result, your laptop starts lagging or slow.
How to kill the process in Laptop?
The killing of the process can be done from the same task manager screen, but this time under the processes option.
Now the window not only shows the number of application running but also help you to identify which app is reserving how many resources.
That makes your job easier to close all those apps which are consuming major resources but you are not using that app.
Go to Windows search > Type “Task Manager” > New window will open there click to processes >Right click to program>click to End Task
After killing all the applications, do test the performance of the laptop is this still lagging then let’s move to another step.
3: Your hard drive is full over 90%
For running software programs including the movement of files, storage, uploads, and downloads the hard drive is the major part where OS is interacting.
After some times, it starts working as virtual memory which keeps filled with multiple files and significantly slows down the speed of the computer
If your hard drive is filled over 95% then performance will be slowed down by around 50%. So it’s time to perform the clean-up activities. It is advisable when you reached any hard drive storage of over 80% you need to follow the below steps.
How to Clean Hard Drive?
Your system might have different unnecessary files and to clean them follow the below-given steps and clean your system completely.
- Open to your Trash or Recycle Bin folder and delete everything by simply selecting and clicking the delete button.
- Major unused files you will find in your download folder, so just filter is based on size and delete all the major files using “Shift + Delete” for permanent delete else it will again go to trash and you need to clean it from there.
- Click to “Window+ Run” will open the run window just search with “%temp%” and whatever files displayed just delete them permanently.
- Now visit all the folders and find if you have unnecessary files, movies, software, etc so simply permanently delete them.
Using all these methods you should be able to create enough space for running all your applications or software correctly but it also needs timely cleanup, so for the same you can use the CC Cleaner.
You can use Ccleaner using the free version or can purchase its Pro version, Its pro version also updates your system health checkup and many more other things.
You can purchase CCleaner using this special link to speed up & Optimize your PC.
4: The system still has an unnecessary application installed
As we found something relevant, we start to download and install all those applications, and over time you use them or not but that remains in the system until you manually uninstall them.
Sometimes the application itself bulky enough and reserve unnecessary space, so here is how you can uninstall.
How to uninstall applications from Laptop or Computer?
To delete the application simply follow the below steps.
Go to window search and type “add or remove programs” it will display a list of applications, so select the app, and the option to uninstall appear. So simply click to Uninstall and you are done.
Go through all the apps which are displayed then simply uninstall all one by one and now recheck how your system is performing.
5: The browser is full of Extensions and too many tabs are open
I know the extension helps a lot in making your job easier, but this causes your browser to become very heavy and takes time to load.
Use of the internet is my primary purpose at the moment and probably of yours as well and then if you start working on multiple tabs that cause all together slow down system processing due to multi-tasking.
You can close the browser simply by clicking the X sign for each tab but to close the extension follow the below steps.
How to disable or Remove an extension in the browser?
Go to your opened browser as I am using mostly Chrome, so open it and follow the below path.
Go to the Three Dots available on RHS of the browser > click to More Tools > Select Extensions and you will have all list of extensions. Or simply browse this link: chrome://extensions/
With a list of extensions either you can enable or disable them and if not needed then simply click to Remove and your browser will be lightweight.
If you have tried all these 5 methods and nothing is working then try the below given three things and that will definitely improve the laptop performance and you can fix your laptop slowness issue 100% Guaranteed.
6: The system has not an efficient RAM
RAM is the area where all your active process is running, so if you are working on high definition applications such as video editing, photo editing, or any programming software, etc that require a huge amount of RAM.
Typically default systems are packed with a minimum of 2 GB RAM but this only suits the normal browsing, accessing emails and working on MS Office.
But as soon as you start multitasking or in parallel run any of the heavy applications, your complete RAM will be filled and no more space will be left and you find while you try to save or switch window your system got stuck.
How to fix the RAM Issue?
If you have tried all the methods or not but if you will check the existing RAM of your system and increase it by adding the same size or more that will 100% solve your system slowness issue.
Ideally, all the new laptops or computers are having a separate slot to expand the RAM may be up to 16 GB but in the old system if no extra slot then you need to purchase the large size RAM and replace it with the existing one if the system supports the expanded RAM.
If you need the smooth performance of the system then I recommend having at least 6 GB of RAM the more will be better. Here on you can purchase the RAM (Amazon) based on your Laptop Models.
7: Active Anti Malware or Antivirus Running all the times
You are familiar with how much this is important to have anti-malware software in systems that helps to detect the malicious software such as Virus, Trojan horse, worms, spyware, Ransomware, etc.
To prevent such malware, we are using anti-virus software such as Norton Antivirus, this actually benefits to scan the system and prevent it from any external malware attack
But sometimes due to some configuration issues you schedule to do a system checks every hourly basis and there it starts consuming resources and slow down your system.
So it is time to fix this issue.
How to Fix overuse of Anti Virus software?
This is different for different anti-virus software but I personally use Norton AntiVirus one of the most trusted and well-known anti-malware.
In that, I set myself to schedule tasks only when the system is not in use or I am not performing any task (The system should be on).
And instead of a full system check, I do select only key area to scan timely to make sure it uses the optimum resources and offer the best security features.
If you want to purchase Norton Antivirus then you can get it for the best price from their official site.
Well, the use of antivirus is a must in this internet world to secure your privacy and sensitive data.
In addition, last but not least I feel that below give two things that could be an issue for the slow running new or old laptops
8: System might be infected with Virus
The virus is the major reason behind any system start behaving differently than its usual way of working, but this kind of issue will only come if you are not using the Anti-virus software.
If you found that automatically your browser starts appearing random popup ads or you saw some random shortcut files in a folder or desktop home screen, which you have not seen before then this needs immediate attention.
This group of malicious software can damage your overall system and here is the only way to fix it.
How to remove the malicious software from the laptop?
If you try to remove them manually you don’t even know, how many copies it has already created. So if you delete 1, after a short period of time it appears again.
So better to take help from the best antivirus software Norton 360, it goes through the deep scan of the system and identifies every single malicious software, and show them as a warning in scanning report.
So just delete them and you will be totally safe.
9: Not Restarted system for a Long time
You worked on many things and your laptop or computer keeps running assigning resources one by one to different applications and without knowing it keeps piling unnecessary processes for future use.
So if you found that your system totally hangs then the only solution is to restart the system immediately, which will at least kill all the processes which were running in the background.
But yes, this will help you to solve temporary issues but the same can happen in the future as you will start using the system for a long time.
Wrap up on Why my System is very slow?
The major reason is that the system memory is not enough to cope with multitasking, so better to close the non used programs or increase the RAM.
I have found increasing the RAM size is the ultimate solution to improve the performance of the system and if not works then might be your system config is not enough to handle that much load.
Especially when you plan HD games that look for the graphics card, if that not available then either it not support or slow down. I hope this guide has helped you a lot to fix the system or laptop lagging or slowness issue.
