M15x Just Plain Slow

hi,

When i bought the laptop second hand around mid august last year for a stunning price of $550 on ebay (winning bid). It seemed fine from the photo's etc person selling it said "coming from a lady user, but minimal knowledge on computer other than gaming. Runs all games fine"

at this point i thought it was ideal and trustworthy and it has a 5850M which is a pretty decent GPU even for 2014/15

When it arrived i was in heaven aha, was in almost near new condition........

Powered it on and it was fine but meh wanted a fresh install just to make sure everything was fine. I then installed windows 7 64x from the DISCS that came with it (unsure on what version as it was a while ago)

it ran fine for about a week and was just getting the BSOD..... HMM i tried searching for the error but no results........

i ran a DBANNER on the HDD and erased everything and installed windows 8.1, Never had a problem with BOSD other than overclocking which is common, But even from the fresh install wayback with windows 7 it just seems slow, like running games at High-ultra and MINT FPS around the 60-70 mark but just everyday tasks like browsing through my documents so slow, even starting up programs like VLC media Player take nearly a minute to load, while on my HP it loads the same stuff up like more than 3x quicker and it's lower spec'd

it has like a AMD A4 CPU
4 GB RAM
500GB HDD while my alienware has the same speed just larger in size (750GB)

im thinking it's my HardDrive..... might replace it for an SSD but only if my problem can't be fixed

Really a stab in the dark as i am a 16 year old with alot less experience than say a 30 year old who works in the IT industry, so really any suggestions and comments are greatly appreciated

 

It could be two things. HDD or PSU. Disconnect PSU and try then, if it's fixed then PSU is faulty. If not then HDD is faulty. HDD has very large performance impact on computer and not everyone knows that. It can work without errors but very very slow so it suggests it's near end of its life. You should borrow HDD from someone or just buy from shop, try, then return it.

Also make sure you've installed all chipset drivers etc etc because sometimes it gives that bad performance.

EDIT:: Ah I almost forgot. Go to the BIOS and look for Energy-saving related options, check if they're disabled or set to Maximum performance.

 

Thanks for your quick response @

I forgot to add when connecting my power brick/PSU it increases the performance by a fair amount but is still slow, and i will try that thanks

 

Also when i look at Task manager and SPECCY it says 100% if my HDD is being used when i look at the Processes they are all mostly 0.1-0.8 and some 1.6 but why is 100% being used?

 

What are full specs? For general running/loading of software RAM is the key 4gb is not enough imo depending on whats going on in background.

Try get 8gb.

Uninstall all unnecessary software, allow this to scan and remove leftovers.
http://www.iobit.com/advanceduninstaller.php

Use ccleaner to clean registry and temporary files.
http://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

Defrag
http://filehippo.com/download_defraggler/

Run malware bytes.
http://filehippo.com/download_malwarebytes_anti_malware/

What Antivirus do you use some are heavy on resources.

Disconnecting your PSU will probably put it in power saving mode which down-clocks the CPU to save power. Right click on the batter icon lower right and change settings to high performance but your battery will drain quicker.

 

An SSD will help also even a hybrid drive.

 

thanks mate, my Alienware has 8Gb of RAM as my HP has 4GB and the HP runs alot quicker and with the same programs in the background

 

I know a decent ssd is night and day in an m15x, try do a health check with.. http://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/get/active_smart,1.html
or http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

Honestly after a long period of time systems need a refresh with either a new install or factory recovery, i prefer a fresh install as it avoids the bloatware. I can upload a AW W7 Ultimate ISO if u need it.

 

the hdd using 100% could be a driver related issue, check for a newer chipset driver or reinstall the original driver for the laptop.
and while you are at it, best to update all the drivers.
if you don't have the drivers you can get them from the dell site or just pop me a email and I will zip them up and send you them.
depending on which OS you are using.

 

This points to the disk. try to scan with http://www.dposoft.net/hdd.html to see if the hdd is having trouble magnetizing

 

Download and run combofix from bleeping computers and malwarebytes.org

100% utilization is usually hardware flaking out, spyware/malware or some rogue program that hot installed with sone type of background service running.

And definatly hit f12 at startup and run diagnostics if you haven't yet.