Why is Windows Laptop Slow? Know How To Fix It!

While laptops are one of the best options for day-to-day browsing activities, it’s very frustrating when they suddenly slow down or lag while using heavy applications.

Fortunately, there are multiple things you can do to improve your laptop’s speed, such as exiting power Saver mode if enabled, switching to a different OS or increasing RAM and storage. Through this article, you will learn major reasons why your laptop slows down and how to speed it up.

What Causes Windows Laptops to Slow Down All Of A Sudden?

When your Windows laptops slow down or start lagging while using heavy applications, it may be due to a lot of reasons, such as outdated OS, hundreds of temporary files, multiple start-up programs and many more.

To bring your laptop back to its original speed and performance, you need to determine the real issue causing the problem, perform the possible fixes and then check whether there is any improvement. Below, we have listed some common reasons your laptop might have slowed down suddenly.

• Infected with Malware – If you can see pop-up ads on your laptop or application, causing them to crash, your laptop might have been affected by malware. Usually, laptops or computers get infected by this malicious software while installing applications from unsafe websites, downloading cracked applications or reading emails from unknown senders.

• Using Power Saver Mode – Windows Laptops offer Power Saver Mode, which allows you to get the best battery life by automatically balancing your hardware’s performance with energy usage. Check whether it’s enabled or not.

• Multiple unwanted start-up programs – One of the common reasons why your laptop is slowing down is that you have too many start-up programs that load up when you power on the laptop. These programs continue to run in the background until you turn off your laptop, thus consuming the resources and slowing down your device.

Also, read Why Laptop Overheats While Gaming

How To Fix Windows Laptops Being Slowed Down?

Most of the problems that cause your laptop to slow down can easily be fixed at home just by following some steps or using an external application. If you want to fix your problem, follow the steps below.

1) Make sure you have not enabled Power Saver Mode on your laptop. Windows laptops usually have three battery modes: Power Saver, Better Performance and Best Performance. Using the Power Saver mode allows you to get a long battery life but significantly decreases the performance and speed.

• To check whether you have enabled this mode, left-click on your battery icon in the Taskbar. If it has the slider on the Power Mode, slide to the other two modes depending on the performance you need.

2) Run a virus scan using Microsoft Safety Scanner. It will help you detect whether your laptop is infected by malware. If your computer is infected by any malware, a huge amount of resources will be unnecessarily consumed, thus reducing your computer’s speed significantly. If you don’t know how to do a quick scan, you can follow the steps given below.

• Step 1: Open Settings and search “Virus and Threat Protection”. Select the first option from the results.

• Step 2: Run “Quick Scan”.

• Step 3: Check whether the virus scan warns you about any software or applications that may contain malware. If so, uninstall it or delete it.

3) If your laptop slows down, one of the common things you can do is close all the unnecessary programs running in the background. Ensure you don’t close any system applications otherwise, your laptop may crash or stop working. Closing these programs will help you to avoid the useless consumption of resources which will speed up your device.

• To close these programs, you can use your Task Manager.
• Open it up by hitting Ctrl + Alt + Delete on your keyboard and selecting Task Manager.
• Use the Process Tab in the top left corner to determine which programs consume the most memory and CPU.
• If any application is not of your use, click End Task in the bottom right corner of your screen by selecting the program.

4) Ensure your operating system is updated. Microsoft releases new security updates and bug fixes every week for Windows. If you don’t update your Windows OS, you might miss out on new drivers or software patches, resulting in a slowdown of your laptop.

• To find out whether your Windows OS is fully updated or not, Open Settings > Select Update and Security > Check for Updates. If there are any updates, make sure you download and install them.

Closing Words

If you cannot find any improvement in your laptop’s speed and performance, even after trying out all the possible fixes, you should consider taking your laptop to a service centre or a professional. Sometimes, a laptop may slow down due to an unusual process that a normal user can’t easily detect. Taking your laptop to a professional will help it to get a full check-up, allowing you to find the reason behind the slow down.

FAQs

1) How Do I Find Out Which Application Is Slowing My Laptop?

A) Open Task Manager by pressing Windows + X on your keyboard and selecting Task Manager from the drop-down list. Find the programs that consume the most CPU and memory. And, if those applications are not important, use End Task to force shut them down.

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