Are i5s really THIS slow?

I own a Sony F series laptop but not the traditional build.
I customized to only have an i5-2430m and 4Gb of ram along with a Nvidia 540m.
i own a very old desktop..I think from 06 or 07 with an 3 GHz Core 2 Duo so I thought I would just get he i5 cause ti must be much faster than the Core 2 Duo even though it is clocked a little lower.

That was not the case. Just opening up a game and scrolling down a webpage I notice quite a bit of lag. Is this a problem with the i5 or the laptop software ...etc?

 

You will have to be more specific, what game or games were you playing? and were there many web pages you opened?

The possible reasons for the lag you experienced are MANY, virus/malware, cpu/gpu throttling, running low on RAM, just to name a few...... You need to provide more information to us who can help to pinpoint the root of the problem.

 

I tried a notebook with a Intel i3 330 and its more than enough for daily tasks, and i also tried gaming with it since it also has a ATI Radeon HD 5470m.
I would think a i5 2430m would beat the crap out of it.

But you have come to the right place.
We notebook users help eachother out.

 

I don't think I would have any virueses as I just got this computer yesterday afternoon and the game was League of Legends. The cursor becomes very laggy at times and switching tabs on firefox sometimes has a 1 second delay. Scrolling is also quite blocky with my mouse ON this page

 

Ok... things to keep in mind with new laptops:

1. If you received a laptop with a pre-installed OS, then it's very likely the laptop manufacturer also put on a LOAD of bloatware (trial based software and other you never will use or need).
Word of advice: get rid of it and remove any and all startup services you never need and leave only the Antivirus one (along with the touchpad).
2. Antivirus coming from the manufacturer can cause system lag (be sure to check which one you got). Recommendation: replace it with a fast, efficient and non-resource heavy one (there are free ones that can do this just fine).
3. Laptops, unless they were customized by the consumer (in this case, you) are usually sold with 5400rpm HDD's - this can impact performance in laptops a lot as desktop based HDD's are usually 7200rpm, and I think that those can be faster than laptop 7200rpm drives.
4. Drivers coming with OS's can sometimes be outdated. Make sure to upgrade your gpu drivers.

 

Would adding more ram help with the speed?

 

I don't think so.
While adding more RAM is of course preferable, most situations where it would be noticeable would be in programs that use large amounts of memory and for multitasking (having more than one program open at the same time).

Seeing how most games and plenty of programs are for the most part limited to 2GB RAM even in the age of 64bit software... internet browsers could occupy large amounts of RAM.

I see the sony F series laptop you mentioned.
Which HDD did it come with?
A 5400rpm one or a 7200rpm?

Either way, I strongly suggest you remove the Sony Vaio related software from your computer (except the drivers of course) and disable any/all startup services that aren't necessary.

It's entirely likely your OS is experiencing an increased slowdown due to the amount of programs running in the background.
But keep in mind that a 5400rpm hdd (if you have it) will is the likeliest root cause of slow opening of programs, games, loading times, etc... because the HDD is responsible for the speed at which they are opened, used, etc.

Removing the bloatware would be the first step... alternatively, you could do a clean Win 7 SP1 install (you can download legally Win 7 with SP1 slipstreamed from the Internet).
You can install the edition that came with your laptop (probably Home Premium) and use the OEM key on the back to register it (keep in mind that the key is interchangeable between versions such as x86 and x64, but the edition - in this case Home Premium - must be the same).
This would essentially provide you with a clean-install and effectively streamline functions... but if you have a slow HDD, it will continue to be a bottleneck - though it probably won't have current programs constantly getting in the way (which should ease some of the functions).

You could get yourself a faster HDD (7200rpm one), or an SSD (80 or 120GB one) to use in place of your current HDD (which you could re-purpose for external storage via a usb enclosure, or you could use a CADDY to yank out the optical drive and use current HDD in it's place as a second unit while connecting the optical drive via USB externally).

 

first, do a clean install of windows 7.

take it from there.

 

I've got the i5-2340M in my V131 and there is certainly no lag when scrolling webpages. The laptop is also extremely responsive with 7200RPM drive. Speaking in terms of benchmarks, the chip actually equals or outperforms the Desktop Core 2 Quad Q6600 (released in 2007) quad core in many benchmarks.

It has to be something else.

 

I'm guessing you have Optimus enabled? Look into that and possibly update your graphics drivers... that is a BIG reason that the mouse cursor is usually laggy from my experience.

A Sandy Bridge i5 should show up almost anything from 06-07. IMO, something is wrong with the configuration somewhere.

Also, even though it's a GT-540m, you may want to see what kinds of resolutions your games are at. That card is a good one, but it's not quite powerful enough for 1080p gaming with medium to high details... it just can't handle it.

 

^^^
what he said. since its a new computer it could be downloading and installing a bunch of garbage that is set to auto update and is doing that now. also ive noticed firefox has been really crappy lately and actually started to use IE and chrome with better results.

 

It has a 5400 rpm Harddrive.

 

A 5400RPM drive is not going to cause mouse lag or scrolling problems in a web browser unless the drive is defective. There has to be something else going on.

Try running some benchmarks (e.g. the Win 7 experience index) to see if you can pinpoint what is slowing you down.

 

I don't know.. maybe power saver mode?

Which browser are you using?

 

actually, if the hdd is constantly working on something, then yes, mouse lag and scrolling issues could happen.
5400 rpm drive can be a problem because the time needed to process something will inherently be longer.

But, in this instance the issues the OP is faced with is also down to the problem of long loading times (which is a HDD bottleneck).
Other problems could easily be caused by the bloatware.

As I said before, either clean out the Sony bloatware, or do a clean Win 7 install.

 

stuff like this never is a cpu issue. a cpu does, even a very slow one, 2 - 4 billion instructions per second. if something gets ff to do something as long, that's not the cpu's fault. that's a software issue. virus, buggy driver, what ever.

the only thing that is slow in the timeranges you actually notice is the harddrive. and buggy/evil software.

 

Check the HDD light on your laptop to see if it's being constantly used. Check task manager to see if the CPU or memory is being maxed out. Check CPU-Z and GPU-Z to see if there is any throttling. For games, it's usually the GPU that's the limiting factor.