Laptop (Extreme) Slow Down

[SamHale]

Hi,

Hoping someone can help.

Basically, I've had an Acer Aspire laptop for approximately 7 years. It came with XP Home, which I kept for a few years, I then updated to Vista approximately 1.5 years ago. For the past 6 months or so, it's been going incredibly slow, almost down to stopping point. I've heard with Vista, after having it installed for 2 years (ish), you're highly recommended to reformat/reinstall everything. So yesterday, I got hold of an old XP disc, reformatted the entire laptop, and installed XP. However, the problem is still occuring. I am yet to even load any software on. I'm not suprised if it's on it's last legs, and there's not much I can do. Just wondered if anyone had any thoughts.

Extra info -

It came with 1gb of RAM, which I upgraded to 2gb after approximately 2 years.

This occurs after the laptop has been on for approximately 20-30 minutes.

If I put the laptop into sleep (pressing the off button once), leaving it for as little as 5 seconds, and then turn back on, it can run fine, at full speed, for another 5-10 minutes.

Appreciate your time.

Sam.

 

[gbaughma]

Hmmm.....

Well.....

1) You could be having hard drive read errors
2) The processor could be down-shifting to a lower speed to save power

Personally, I'd lean towards #1 first... 7 years is a while for a laptop hard drive. Try running something to completely scan the drive for errors (SpinRite comes to mind)



Just my 2¢

"What the captain doesn't realize is that we've secretly replaced his Dilithium Crystals with new Folger's Crystals."

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[xit]

you mention that this occurs after 20-30 mins., could it be heat related? Might need to open it up and check for obstructions, just a thought.

xit

 

[goombawaho]

It certainly sounds like hardware since you eliminated malware and windows problems by an install of XP.

Run manufacturer's hard drive utility just to check HDD status. The ultimate boot cd has most of those on it and in a bootable package. It also has the memory test below.

Run memory test.

There are also some processor and motherboard tests on there if you want to try them.