laptop upgrade?

82rude

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I have a dell latitude 5420.Its been getting wonkier and wonkier .Get the blue circle of death lots now and sometimes takes forever to load pages.Really cant afford a new laptop so I was thinking maybe a ssd hard drive might be the answer?Ive done all the cleaning and checking I can .Thoughts ,remember im retired and really cant afford 4 to 1000 on a new one.
 

southkogs

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Have you just done a fresh install of the operating system? Sometimes just wiping out the hard drive and starting from scratch can resolve some performance issues. Adding some RAM will likely speed things up, and an SSD can add some speed too. But I would try reformatting the drive, and reinstalling the OS first.
 

82rude

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Will give it a whirl! If you don't hear from me for a while its because im either reinstalling or she just wont load properly.
 

fishrdan

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That laptop is from around 2011/12, so the CPU cooler could be clogged up with dust and dirt, killing performance as the CPU tried to keep itself cool. There's a program called CPUID HWmonitor that will tell you the processor's temp in real time, download it and run it, and see what the processor is running at. For a laptop CPU max temp is 100*C (for Intel) and should normally be running "up to" 70-80*C, get into the upper 90's and it's going to thermal throttle, and run sloooowww. If you're not scared of ripping apart the laptop, you can clean the CPU cooler, just need some small screw drivers, thermal compound and alcohol to clean off the CPU and cooler. Look at Youtube for your laptop as they probably have a tutorial on how to remove and clean the CPU cooler. I have done several, and most of the coolers were clogged up to varying degrees. I think it was Boomyal had the same problem you're having, and it was a clogged up CPU cooler.

How much RAM does the laptop have now? If you're running 32bit OS (IE: Windows 7) the max RAM is 4GB and I would have that amount. If it's a 64 bit OS, you could get away with 4GB, but I'd run 8GB. (I just checked the PC I'm on and it's using 4.2GB of RAM, and the PC isn't doing much right now...)

SSD's are nice and I have them in all the PC's/laptops at our place, but once the computer is up and running it's not like night and day. Booting, shutting down and opening programs you'll see a big difference, but general surfing the web, it's not going to do much. That hard drive (if original) is 6+- years old, and probably on borrowed time, so a good reason to swap it before it takes a dive. SSD's are kind of spendy, but get a good one if going that route, Samsung EVO 850 or one with good reviews, lots of garbage SSD's on the market. I have picked up several 500GB Western Digital WD5000LPLX 500GB "Black" hard drives off Ebay for $25-30 that were new laptop "pulls" from people who upgraded to SSD's on their new laptop...

Formatting and reloading OS can help as Southkogs mentioned, and I have seen improvements from that also.
 

82rude

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4 gigs of ram. temp is min of 48 and max of 70c.Seems to be running a bit better since I deleted firefox and went back with I.E.Its a 64bit system with windows 7.I replaced the hard drive 2 years ago I believe.Did a wack of hhd tests last night and it passes with flying colors.
 

fishrdan

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70C is fine, a bit high if the laptop isn't doing anything, but long way off thermal throttling. 4GB should suffice, but I bet if you put 8GB of RAM into the laptop is would start utilizing more (doubt this is your issue).

You may want to run something like superantispyware or malwarebytes to check for malware. I find Firefox to be more responsive than IE, only use IE if I have to...
 

boatman37

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i would get some canned air and blow out your vents and fans for starters. i would also install ccleaner and run that as well as a registry cleaner (ccleaner has that too). i use malwarebytes free version. it doesn't scan real time but its there if i ever start having issues. close anything that is open and go to your control panel and see how much memory and CPU is being used. if none of that fixes it then try a fresh install. unless you have a hardware failure there is no reason to buy a new one given yours is running a currently supported operating system. my wife and son both have 4 GB of ram in their laptops (both windows 10) and they run fine. mine has 6 GB of ram and my office laptop that i use for day trading is running 8 GB of ram. for normal web surfing 4 GB is fine. SSD's are nice but not necessary for the typical user.

make sure your anti virus is up to date. i use AVG free on all of my machines but just bought this one and my free mcafee trial just expired so i am trying windows defender and so far it has been good. i have to add though that i work in cyber security (system security engineer) so know enough not to get bad stuff in the first place but also know that the bad guys are very clever so i don't poke fun at anyone that falls for their scams.

another thing, make sure you are only running one anti virus product. i have seen people install a second thinking they will double their protection.
 

82rude

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I have all the above mentioned goodies and apps guys.I will do a through cleaning tomorrow.
 

82rude

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Took the comp apart today.She was spotless so I did a fresh install.So far so good.
 

southkogs

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... so I did a fresh install.So far so good.
It seems so counter intuitive, but I have found that's the most effective first step in improving the performance of a computer. I almost schedule it as a regular maintenance item.
 

82rude

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Comp is back to brutal.Im going to get a new harddrive in the morning.Frequent crashes and slow loading just some of the problems.Typing this on my smart tv.
 

NYBo

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Sounds like some other hardware problem , not the HDD. Try removing and re-seating the memory modules.
 

82rude

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After installing a new drive its running great.Not a fancy drive, just a Seagate 1tb hybrid drive.
 

82rude

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Best she has even been.Smooth ,fast,zero crashing,so id say the old harddrive was on its way out.Read several articles the other night that said my symptoms were classic harddrive issues that people mistake for other issues.Im happy with the results .Thanks for the suggestions people.
 

fishrdan

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If you can connect the old hard drive to a PC (or just swap it back into the laptop) run Crystal Disk to see what it says about the HDD. Crystal Disk gives a bunch of drive info, and will tell you the heath of the HDD. At least you'll be able to confirm the HDD's health.
 

82rude

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Old drive has been drilled and left sitting on a large magnet.I did download a new browser instead of ie11.Opera,im really liking it so far.
 

NYBo

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I replaced the hard drive 2 years ago I believe.Did a wack of hhd tests last night and it passes with flying colors.
Odd that the HDD went bad so quickly. I ran my laptop almost daily for about 7 years with no HDD problems at all, often running the computer 24/7. I replaced it with a SSD for the performance boost, but the HDD was still working fine.
 

82rude

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I looked at the hard drive and its a 2012!So the company that sent me my replacement hd for the original that was no good sent me a refurb! That is most likely why it didnt last long.I just added another program called touch freeze because when i was typing my text would jump all over and it was driving me nuts.Seems to work great as ive not had to retype this post 10 times in a minute.What it does is instantly disables your touchpad as you type .Wish i had of found this app years ago its been driving me around the bend for ever.
 
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