The CPU (intel core 2 duo) is often running at 100% and it is freezing all the time. This seems to happen mainly when I am playing videos and crappy online flash games. I wouldn’t have thought these are particularly CPU intensive. It also maxes out when video editing but tbh I would expect that.

I defrag daily and disc cleanup every couple of weeks. I have 4GB Ram and the processor is 1.2GHz.

Is there anything I can do to make it faster?

Thanks

Are you running Vista per chance?

If you can try removing the AV software. I’ve seen it before where these eat up all the processing power and a reinstallation fixes it ( or reinstall some lighter like MSE).

Could be lots of other stuff as well though, that’s just a start

open msconfig and stop some programmes opening on startup.

I wouldn’t have thought these are particularly CPU intensive

Actually, they are. Flash is pretty demanding.

what does your resource monitor say? ( turn off auto flash ads)

and crappy online flash games

That could well be your problem right there. Many people used to complain about how their CPU’s used to max out due to all the Flash ads running on this site, fortunately not an issue anymore.
Flash is notorious for causing computers to get the fans running like mad to cool things down. As I don’t have Flash installed on my computer, only using Chrome on the rare occasion I need Flash for some obscure site, and never, ever play crappy Flash games, or games in general*, I can’t make any suggestions other than maybe shoving a load more RAM into it, or upgrading your graphics card to a faster version with a better GPU.
Or both.
*Not being snippy or anything, I’m just not interested in playing games on my computer or phone, so it’s just never been any kind of issue having Flash or not.

I’ll also point out that when a computer appears to run slow, it can be something thrashing the hard drive, not a CPU issue. Harder to detect though, as you can’t easily monitor it in task manager. If you have a HDD light though, is it flashing like mad when things are slow?

On my phone now so can’t check most things. The HDD light is the one with the couple of circles isn’t it. That is on a lot when things slow down I wasn’t sure if its just HDD or if its for the CPU too.

I take it the AV software is audio visual, what might the software be called?

It’s only 32bit windows (yes Vista) and as far as I know that only works with up to 3Gb of RAM so putting more in would be pointless, I think the graphics card is an Intel thing built into the motherboard but I’m not sure. Is that replaceable?

Edit: Just realised AV is anti virus. I have to run Sophos because of work. Can’t change that I’m afraid.

not even canvasrider/freerider2?
dunno if it’s flash,but it’s nice.

These, you need more.

http://www.malwarebytes.org

Make sure you’re running the latest version of Flash.

As someone else said, check Task Manager to see what processes are maxing the CPU.

I take it the AV software is audio visual

AV is Anti Virus

Would a graphics card solve or even help this issue? I have had a look and there seem to be a couple of DIY graphics card options but they are very heath robinson. Are there any reasonably priced external graphics cards available?

I’d save the cash and put it towards buying a newer laptop TBH, or spend it on Win7, as I found that runs well on older hardware.

Updating drivers can help so flash can use hardware acceleration. I don’t think you can do anything to upgrade the graphics card on a laptop.

Its likely to be the CPU if its only 1.2ghz. What power settings have you got? Its not on some low-power option where the CPU is running slowly is it?

Its on high performance settings. I have tried to update the graphics driver today and apparently it is up to date.

I was trying to watch some youtube vids over the weekend and couldn’t watch them in HD as it kept on jumping. I had to turn it down to 360 to make it run smoothly and then the processor was running at 90%. This never used to be a problem I could watch HD vids just fine.

I don’t think its Chrome that’s causing the problem as it seems to do it in Internet Explorer too.

I don’t really want to have to get a new laptop as this one is very small and light so is good for carrying around.

I downloaded CPUID on Friday to have a look at the temps and the CPU is running at around 70deg C. This seems pretty hot so I took the laptop apart and cleaned it all out to see if this helped. It hasn’t.

Just a thought. If I back up all my files and reset the computer to factory settings this would help matters wouldn’t it? should clear out some of the crap.

The only issue I think I may have doing this is getting it back on the server at work. I’m not sure where I stand in that regard.

clean the fluff and dust out of the fan.
seriously.
I thought my old laptop was dead – cleaned the fan out and it worked like new.

Vista is a bugger for constantly performing “maintenance” tasks in the background. Ironically, these tasks are designed to speed things up 🙂
If you google it, there’ll be lists of background tasks you can switch off to speed things up.

Either that or buy Windows 7.

I had a similar problem, turns out that I had once turned the media centre function which in turn was constantly trying to sync with windows media player. This had the effect of using up all available spare processing power and memory, leaving none for my programs to run.

Simple fix, turn this off (same place as games, I’m on my phone atm).

Then use a third party player such as VLC.

Google the above for a better step by step guide.

Stripped it all apart on Friday in the hope of cooling it down and it has lowers the temps to about 65-70 from 70-80 so helped a little but not loads.

Will have a look at these maintainance tasks and the media centre thing.

I did think of buying Windows 7 or even dropping it down to xp. I like the look and feel of vista if not the performance so don’t want to go back to xp if I can help it. It actually came with an xp disc for downgrade when new, that’s how confident Sony were that vista would perform well.

Win 7, looks like vista, but actually works.

Also, bunging in a SSD hard drive (as long as your laptop is sata) as you upgrade to win 7 makes a massive difference.

Could try installing CCleaner?

Often the system restore points build up over time and end up using loads of free space…CCleaner also has a registry utility too and is quite handy for clearing all the dirge out.

An up to date Virus utility like MSE is essential, Malwarebytes is pretty useful too.

I’d hit it with, in this order- CCLeaner, Malwarebites, Adaware, and if none of that works a clean windows install. Then, a hammer.

If only the hammer would actually fix it.

Thanks for your help guys will report back when I have done the above. Well apart from the fresh windows install and a hammer.

The only issue I think I may have doing this is getting it back on the server at work.

I’m confused about this. Why are you having to fix a work laptop?

If it’s on a domain, it’ll have to be re-added by a domain admin.

Its my computer but I use it at work for work stuff.

I would rather keep this than have a work owned computer. Its more flexible for me.

Fair enough.

Presumably they added it to the domain back when you first started using it; should be able to do that again?

Well it seems to be totally cocked up now. It was frozen for an hour earlier seemingly because of Adaware I had to pull the battery to shut it down. This isn’t looking good.