Incredibly slow laptop

[tinpanalley]

A friend asked for advice for a laptop in her price range that was better than what she had gotten in the past. The big tech shop near us provided onyl a few options but it was a gift and she had to buy it there so I dug around and found her a Lenovo G70-35. This may be a Europe-only model.

In any event, she's had it for less than a month and it runs like a single core machine from 2007. I've never seen a slower laptop in my life. Anything from opening control panel to launching a browser or even file explorer happens with a 3-4 second delay, sometimes more. It seems to stall on everything. My 3 year old Lenovo runs faster and I've upgraded it twice from Win7 to 8.1 and now to 10 and never added RAM. This simply makes no sense. This is the spec sheet from the actual store, which is in French but relatively easy to decipher. Just in case, though I've translated some of the more important ones...

Processor : AMD E1 6010
RAM : 4 Gb
Storage : 1 TB
Screen 17.3"
Optical drive VD-R/RW
OS: Windows 10

• Memory card reader (SD, MMC)
• GPU: AMD Radeon R2
• Webcam res: 720p
• Bluetooth: Yes
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Ports: 2 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.0, audio, Ethernet, VGA, HDMI
• Battery: Lithium-ion 4 cell

I tried things myself based on the help I've had here before. We killed anything in startup that didn't need to be there (TONS of crapware on this thing) but it didn't change things much. What I'm wondering is if just freshly reinstalling Windows 10 from the media creation tool wouldn't help by installing a Win10 free of all the crap. Would that help at all? Is it the 4GB of RAM?
Thanks for ANY help! I feel terrible because I told her to get this thing. She only needs it for productivity but even THAT is proving challenging.

 

[redzo]

You could use Windows Task manager to hunt down for high CPU and disk usage programs, but it's probably the super slow CPU to blame here.

Even if it's full of bloatware you can just open add remove programs and uninstall those. Uninstall everything not related to device driver packs! Some lenovo laptops are insanely bloated. After resetting one W 8.1 bing edition lenovo notebook to its factory settings, it took me about a few hours to cherry pick and search from a list of tens of programs found in "add remove programs" and uninstall them one by one.

Some other thought,
A 10w tdp slow AMD E1 6010 dropped inside a ~ 3kg heavy 17.3" case. This is some weird ass combo.

 

[tinpanalley]

You could use Windows Task manager to hunt down for high CPU and disk usage programs, but it's probably the super slow CPU to blame here.

Ok, but today even super slow should be enough for internet and Office, no? I mean in my case, my computers are suitably powerful because I could be at any moment running Premiere Pro, Sound Forge, playing with enormous video and audio files, have Outlook open, and browsing and I understand that needs a certain CPU. But for her demands, even just playing with Windows in a basic way, it seems even a several years old CPU should be able to handle things, or am I wrong?

Uninstall everything not related to device driver packs!

How do I verify that things are directly connected to driver packs?

 

[redzo]

Ok, but today even super slow should be enough for internet and Office, no? I mean in my case, my computers are suitably powerful because I could be at any moment running Premiere Pro, Sound Forge, playing with enormous video and audio files, have Outlook open, and browsing and I understand that needs a certain CPU. But for her demands, even just playing with Windows in a basic way, it seems even a several years old CPU should be able to handle things, or am I wrong?
How do I verify that things are directly connected to driver packs?

Not in my opinion. This is highly subjective and some other forum member may state the opposite,
but I try to stay away from products like celeron NXXX or other very castrated modern low power cpu's. They do not age well and a future upgrade is an issue with a lot of notebooks packing those(soldered RAM, for example)

You've got nothing to worry about this. If you mess it up and uninstall some drivers, you could just visit lenovo's website and install them back on.
You gonna have to google everything by the app's name...

 

[tinpanalley]

You've got nothing to worry about this. If you mess it up and uninstall some drivers, you could just visit lenovo's website and install them back on.
You gonna have to google everything by the app's name...

Ok. Anything else that can be done to speed this thing up? I tried to tell my friend to focus more on CPU and power but she was only concerned with a 17" screen. Nothing I could do to talk her out of it.

 

[redzo]

Ok. Anything else that can be done to speed this thing up? I tried to tell my friend to focus more on CPU and power but she was only concerned with a 17" screen. Nothing I could do to talk her out of it.

Not much you could do other than getting rid of all the bloatware.

 

[tinpanalley]

Not much you could do other than getting rid of all the bloatware.

So, you think reinstalling Windows couldn't really be useful at all? Same effect as uninstalling things? THere's no chance this commercial Windows 10 install was embedded with bloatware beyond just installed programs?

 

[redzo]

There's no way one could be sure of this.
Of course, installing windows from a clean/unaltered Microsoft install media/image is the safest way to install Windows.

 

[JWade]

two things that will definitely make it useable, definitely upgrade the ram to 8gb, its a 1.35ghz dual core. the 8gb will make a difference, it does in a Celeron system I have that is 1.4ghz. also upgrade to a ssd and do a clean re-install then upgrade to windows 10

 

[Beer4Me]

Get rid of the 5400 rpm 1 TB 2.5" hdd and get SSD. Problem solved.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

Throw an SSD in there and do a fresh install of Windows 10. The E1-6010 is slower than some Intel Atom CPUs, so nothing is going to help there, but increasing the i/o speed (and decreasing access time, which is where you're really suffering) will help the most.

I am not sure 8GiB of RAM is either necessary or helpful, though.

Finally, consider Linux on the machine if it is supported

 

[redzo]

It's my understanding that this is/was supposed to be a very cheap laptop.
In this context, purchasing additional parts does not make any sense.

 

[Kenmitch]

It's my understanding that this is/was supposed to be a very cheap laptop.
In this context, purchasing additional parts does not make any sense.

Other than possibly returning it and picking up something else there really isn't anything he can do. A clean install of windows may help somewhat I guess.

Throwing in a cheap SSD drive would be the best option it looks like. Not like SSD's are really expensive these days. Something around 128GB shouldn't be a deal breaker. If more storage is needed then the original HDD can just be repurposed with a USB enclosure if needed.

SSD won't magically make the CPU faster but it'll at least eliminate any bottlenecks from the HDD. Should be much more responsive and useable in the end.

 

[kenzz]

............ In any event, she's had it for less than a month and it runs like a single core machine from 2007. I've never seen a slower laptop in my life. Anything from opening control panel to launching a browser or even file explorer happens with a 3-4 second delay, sometimes more. It seems to stall on everything. ............

My own views ... a cheap laptop with dual core Celeron N2840, 2GB of ram and 32GB eMMC with compressed OS of win10 works OK ... none of that sort of lag that you describe.

The dual core N2840 is a bit better than the dual core AMD E1-6010 ... but difference in performance should not be noticeable particularly as you have 4GB of ram instead of the 2GB with the N2840. The eMMC will be faster than your HDD but again, with compressed OS win10 on the eMMC, the difference in performance should not be as noticeable as you describe.

My suggestions (quite possibly you know all this stuff already) .....
1. The AMD E1-6010, 4GB of ram and 5400 rpm HDD should be definitely OK for 'productivity' stuff. Even bloatware should not be a problem with that amount of ram particularly if you've stopped it loading at start.

2. Are you using the bloatware anti-virus such as mcafee or norton. Sometimes that slows stuff badly. Win Defender with win10 is now reasonable and, for me, is all that's necessary and reduces risk of slow performance.

3. Perhaps your friend has inadvertently downloaded malware which then multiplies and considerably slows things. A friend complained to me his laptop was very slow and said it was impossible that he had downloaded malware ... however, with a quick scan with the free Malwarebytes, I found 387 items of malware.

2. As others have said, turn on Task Manager. That gives you live status of CPU, Memory and Disk.

3. Even with the bloatware, memory usage shown in Task Manager should be less than 50% before loading other software. If usage is higher then maybe there's a fault with the ram.

4. Possibly Task Manager will show CPU usage is nearing 100% when launching software. If so, check the processes using the high %'s. Maybe malware or I've seen background windows processes go crazy before e.g. Antimalware Service Executable which may use an unreasonably high %.

5. Possibly the laptop is faulty. Perhaps download one of the free items of software that check PC components and performance; one example is Sandra from SiSoftware.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm going to be frank with you. You bought the wrong laptop. That processor is a slug.

I once owned a C-60 or C-70 based Acer 11.6" Netbook. I liked it, when i got it. Or course, it had 4Gb of RAM, and Windows 7 64-bit, and I put an SSD into it right away, with a clean install of Windows. That was several years ago, and the computer was purchased on clearance, so it was already probably more than a year old.

Anyways, it was kind of slow. But bearable with the SSD and the clean install. I liked it because it was lightweight, had good battery life, and was very portable.

But as the years went on, it was no longer powerful enough, say, for both Skype video calls and web browsing at the same time.

Unfortunately, it died an untimely death.

So now I'm using a Lenovo IdeaPad 100S, the 11.6" model. It's got a Bay Trail Atom Z3735F quad-core, 2GB RAM (fixed) and 32GB eMMC (fixed). But thankfuly, no bloatware, and it runs pretty good.

The problem with yours is that the CPU is horribly out of date, and should not even be sold today. You got suckered. A relative's Vista-era 2.0Ghz single-core Celeron CPU laptop, is likely faster, at most things.

Next time, bring someone who knows laptops with you, and try not to let women buy laptops "because they're pretty" or "because it has a big screen". Specs are important.

Edit: See if they also have a similar model laptop with an A6/A8-6310/6410. Those are higher-clocked quad-cores, in the same socket, and are much more palatable. (I own a Lenovo with a 6310, decent enough speed, even if it doesn't have the battery life of my Atom.)

 

[kenzz]

To put this in context ... the issue is that "Anything from opening control panel to launching a browser or even file explorer happens with a 3-4 second delay, sometimes more." I've got an 8 year old netbook with a single core Atom N270, 2GB of ram and win10 installed. On start up the CPU goes to 99% while sorting out windows services etc ... but once it's done that then maybe 2 to 3 secs to open Chrome and opening stuff like control panel, file explorer, wordpad, paint etc is almost instant. Usable for basic word processing, spreadsheets, videos and most browsing e.g. browsing this anandtech site is fine but youtube struggles. The AMD E1-6010 is far, far better than the Atom N270 but performance on this laptop looks to be worse with 3 to 4 sec lags ... it seems to me there's something wrong with this particular laptop ... either malware and/or faulty hardware and/or software installation.

 

[mikeymikec]

Get rid of the 5400 rpm 1 TB 2.5" hdd and get SSD. Problem solved.

I installed an SSD in an AMD E-350 machine in the last couple of years. Admittedly I didn't get to see it before the drive replacement (as the HDD had died), but its performance was not impressive after installing a decent SSD in it (the same one I use across loads of other machines and performs like lightning in those).

Basic, average uses of computers tend to work best with a CPU that has strong single-threaded performance. This, and the OP's CPU isn't that processor.

While I'm sure that an SSD will *help* the situation, it won't make a slow computer into a fast one.

One thing that I can think of checking on the OP's machine is that the processor is cranking up to its full speed under load; sometimes idiotic OEMs set poor performance processors to only 50% in Windows Power options (max CPU setting) because they think it will increase the battery's running time. Getting rid of bloatware will help a bit too.

The second thing that the OP might want to try is to put the laptop into hibernate mode rather than shutting it down when it isn't in use; it'll cut the startup and settle-down delay, though admittedly on a modern version of Windows, not by a great deal (works wonders on Vista). Every little helps though.

I have a customer who has a laptop with an AMD E1 processor in. I've got rid of all the possible crap off of it, but it still starts any piece of software like an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Given how weak the foundation of the system is, I'd probably bite the bullet and try to get a return.

 

[tinpanalley]

Given how weak the foundation of the system is, I'd probably bite the bullet and try to get a return.

We're past the date when my friend can get an exchange or refund. But we're going to try to talk to a manager or their customer service team anyway.
Now there is one other interesting thing to note which I feel gives her a bit of an argument with respect to getting an exchange.. Lenovo has never approved this laptop for Windows 10 upgradability. And yet, it comes with Windows 10 out of the box. I know Windows10 isn't causing the problem but does anyone think she has a leg to stand on taking the list of Lenovo's approved upgrade systems on their site and arguing that she was sold something which the manufacturer doesn't actually support? Or am I naive and this is common practice with OEMs?

 

[Zodiark1593]

We're past the date when my friend can get an exchange or refund. But we're going to try to talk to a manager or their customer service team anyway.
Now there is one other interesting thing to note which I feel gives her a bit of an argument with respect to getting an exchange.. Lenovo has never approved this laptop for Windows 10 upgradability. And yet, it comes with Windows 10 out of the box. I know Windows10 isn't causing the problem but does anyone think she has a leg to stand on taking the list of Lenovo's approved upgrade systems on their site and arguing that she was sold something which the manufacturer doesn't actually support? Or am I naive and this is common practice with OEMs?

My laptop which was sold through the end of 2010 did not once recieve a graphics driver update. Since the laptop had switchable graphics (pre-enduro), I was (and still am) SOL on reference updates from AMD. Basically, gpu drivers are from 2010 fml

That said, the laptop still lives, but point being looking to non-Apple OEMs for support is, at best, a long test of patience.

 

[Grzegorz D.]

@tinpanalley, could you tell how the story of this laptop has ended? Maybe there was any way to fix it? I'm using the same Lenovo model now and it also causes a lot of performance problems. It works slow as hell and I really dont't know what to do with it.

 

[pjmssn]

I had the same issue with a Dell Inspiron 11.6", it is using a low power Celeron processor. It was so slow it was barely usable. Opening the windows task manager showed the the disk (500GB hard drive 5400 RPM) was at 100% pretty much the whole time. I replaced it with a ssd drive (128GB) and the thing is and feels super fast now. It was day and night, like getting a new computer!
I also later increased the RAM to 8GB, but did not see any noticeable gain in performance, besides being able to do more multi-tasking.
I do not know why those cheap 5400 RPM drives are still used, they are definitely a bottleneck for most inexpensive laptops.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

I do not know why those cheap 5400 RPM drives are still used, they are definitely a bottleneck for most inexpensive laptops.

You answered your own question. Money and Markets. 1TB Spinner bought in bulk probably costs the OEM $40. Maybe less. Even a 128GB SSD is probably going to cost them $50-60. When margins on ultra-budget laptops like this are often around 2-3%, you've eaten your entire margin on the SSD and then some, unless you raise the price, which buyers in this market don't do. They look at the numbers. "This is the cheapest one" is likely the statement heard more often than anything else when you see people shopping for computers in Big Box store. They have no idea what the difference is between an SSD and an HDD, just that one is an 1/8th of a TB, and the other offers one whole TB.

It's unfortunate, but this isn't the manufacturers fault. Consumers have gotten exactly what they asked for by consistently pressing the race to the bottom price above all else. If consumers aren't willing to pay more, then the manufacturers can't really offer more.

 

[whm1974]

I wouldn't buy an AMD based laptop until the Raven Ridge APUs come out. Or for that matter one that uses a low end CPU.

Life is way too short to deal with slow hardware.

 

[Torn Mind]

The average passmark of that CPU is 835. The single core performance is about half of that. The GPU is fine enough for 1080p, but that is about it.

Then add a slow hard drive, and the slow load times are perfectly explainable. Slow disk and slow CPU=slow responsiveness.

Your Lenovo probably has a big core Ivy Bridge chugging along in it. Her lappy is an evolution of the "cat cores" AMD developed starting with the E350.

Like many shoppers of computers, you only had the spec sheet and age to make a purchase. But the missing component is how much a computer can per (billions) of clock cycles. Two CPUs at the same clock speed can have greatly different performance because the instructions per clock are different, and such data is only approximated by benchmarks. Never mind that the E1-6010 has a horribly low clockspeed as well.

For performance on a budget, off lease business laptops with Intel Turbo Boost(i5s and i7s) is the way to go.

Understand that the non-savvy user will not frequent light, basic sites. They will be going to popular sites like Amazon. A real world benchmark could be something like a browser can have Yahoo!, Gmail, Amazon, youtube video running, and a IM program running in the background without being crippled by the slightest hiccup. Maybe add Instagram and Tumblr to really push things.