Viewing 32 posts - 1 through 32 (of 32 total)
  • Why… is… my… laptop… so…. slow
  • michaelmcc
    Free Member

    Fairly new laptop (<2 months), trying to watch the Redbull joyride from Crankworx Whistler on the Redbull website and the screen is so jumpy, It’s pretty much unwatchable. It plays stuff fine with no jumps when its downloaded, but streaming stuff seems pretty bad. Ive downloaded a few films and box sets, says I have 154 GB free out of 454 GB, whatever that means. It has an Intel something or other inside it. I don’t know much about laptops but its a basic Toshiba one (Satellite C50). I just expected it to work better than this seeing as its fairly new.

    Are cheap laptops just crap like this? Or should it be better.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Midget goat porn.

    Next.

    scaredypants
    Full Member

    It plays stuff fine with no jumps when its downloaded, but streaming stuff seems pretty bad

    unless you can stream OK on some other computer in your house, I’m doubting that it’s the laptop’s fault at all

    (broadband being throttled ? wifi not up to it ? (that one could be the laptop’s fault I suppose)

    edit: wot flash said

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    I find the redbull streaming to be problematic.

    cp
    Full Member

    As above, doesn’t sound like a laptop problem

    piemonster
    Full Member

    Midget goat porn.

    Next.

    Well, my laptop is fine. So there might be more to it!

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Piemonster, is yours midgets with goats, or just midget goats? This makes all the difference.

    RoterStern
    Free Member

    My second son has got a Toshiba laptop and it’s equally slow in all departments. I think it has something to do with all the extra crap that comes with Toshiba computers. I haven’t been able to make it better and I’ve been meaning to give it to our IT bod for a long time but keep forgetting.

    lightman
    Free Member

    I find I cant stream Redbull stuff on HD, I have to reduce the quality too 540 or it does as you said, my mate has the same issue too.
    Just about any other site is fine though.

    woodster
    Full Member

    What you want is to monitor things like RAM usage and CPU temperature to see what’s happening. I have a couple of little apps on my Mac which put this info in the task bar, but I don’t know what the windows equivalents are. I find Red Bull’s website is so RAM intensive that I often have to close everything else to have some remaining free. It often runs better off the Pinkbike website where they just have the video feed and none of the other crap.

    michaelmcc
    Free Member

    I have to reduce the quality too 540

    I have it at 240!

    So might be the Redbull site? If its a case of cheap laptops being crap, then I’ll save up for a better one.

    johndoh
    Free Member

    AVG on it?

    michaelmcc
    Free Member

    AVG?

    makecoldplayhistory
    Free Member

    I have the same laptop. It was bought to replace an aging netbook. It’s not the main computer (or even main laptop) I use and knew Iwas buying a budget machine.

    With a clean Win 10 install (done the afternoon I bought it), it’s been great. No complaints whatsoever. Redbull TV is very stuttery though. That’s sitting 5m away from a new router and 20Mb/s connection.

    dknwhy
    Full Member

    I often just watch the red bull vids via YouTube. Seems less problematic.

    michaelmcc
    Free Member

    So I’ll try install Windows 10? That might solve part of it? Yeah I just wanted to watch some of Crankworx. Might try finding it on a different website.

    richmars
    Full Member

    So I’ll try install Windows 10?

    From the posts above the problem is more likely the source of the video, not your laptop.

    kayla1
    Free Member

    I find that Redbull TV works better if I make the video full screen rather than try to watch it in the large window on their pages with all the other gubbins going on. I hope that makes sense, I don’t know how else to word it!

    edit- my laptop’s a sub-£300 three year old Windows 7 Dell something-or-other.

    torsoinalake
    Free Member

    What graphics card, and how much RAM in it?

    Reason I ask is the GPU (processor on the graphics card) probably uses system RAM instead of having it’s own. So it may be struggling to download, decode and render HD video all at the same time.

    If it is Windows 8, hit the windows key, type ‘task manager’ (without the quotes) and hit enter. Click on the performance tab, then spark up Redbull.tv and watch the graphs as it plays video. It might give you an idea where the bottleneck is.

    johndoh
    Free Member

    AVG?

    The anti-virus checker – it is appalling and can slow machines down terribly.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    I also find on our older laptop, that being really fussy about what is installed is key to a faster machine. I dumped all the kids games that they install to play for a week (lego games are terrible memory hogs, and do not uninstall properly), itunes (it leaves all sorts running in the background, so make sure you dump Apple and all the plugins thoroughly) and all the bloatware the computer came with. Go through with a tooth comb and uninstall as much as you can…

    gofasterstripes
    Free Member

    If desperate you could always do a system resore to rewind to as-new?

    You’ll need to download all the updates and such though after.

    I suggest: Reboot. When rebooted and logged-in, wait 5-10 minutes then:

    CTRL+ALT+Delete > Resource Monitor

    Leave

    Task Manager / Performance
    and Resource Monitor / Overview

    On screen, and after a minute or two take a screenshot which should capture some information about how much background stuff the machine is doing.

    Upload a pic [can use tinypic.com if you don’t already know how].

    EG:

    Let’s see if we can help.

    jon1973
    Free Member

    Midget goat porn

    Less fat than midget cow porn and just as good.

    Edukator
    Free Member

    Would this be a good time to start a Windows 10 thread as that’s how the OP is going to try and solve his problems? I’ve just installed it and have a few questions. For example, should I ignore or update in response to the AMD prompt?

    The good news is that the machine has survived and seems to be working.

    Cougar
    Full Member
    Edukator
    Free Member

    Thanks

    flashpaul
    Free Member

    All windows laptops are slow
    Never had a fast one even HP elite books with ssd’s

    Buy a macbook if you want something fast

    Waderider
    Free Member

    For speed you don’t need to buy a Mac – that is the answer only if you have money and no inclination for sorting things yourself and understanding how things work.

    I bought a Toshiba laptop recently and right enough it was full of crapware. Just use remove programs, google each programs name as you go to see if it is junk or not. Clue – any program with ‘Toshiba’ in the name is nearly certainly crap, and don’t remove your ability to do a system recovery.

    I also dual booted with linux, which is of course the ultimate answer….

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    OP would suggest you try streaming into your phone and see if that runs smoothly. Also run a speediest on your broadband. I would also suggest you try connecting the computer to the router with an Ethernet cable. If the latter helps then you may want to try changing the channel setting on the wifi as perhaps you have interference from other routers.

    eric20
    Free Member

    The only solution is to install a fresh window again.

    Cougar
    Full Member

    All windows laptops are slow

    Don’t talk nonsense.

    The only solution is to install a fresh window again.

    And you.

    There’s a lot of random “advice” being bandied around here with very little to go on. I’d like more detail:

    1) Has it always been the same, or has it got worse since new?

    2) Is it just Red Bull or is it all streaming?

    3) What are you using to play the stream? Web browser? Which one?

    4) Is anything else affected, is it slow generally?

    5) What’s the spec of the laptop, do you have a link to the model you bought?

    6) Are you on a wireless connection? Have you tried it cabled up?

    7) Any other devices in the house? Are they also affected?

    8) What’s it think your broadband speed and latency is? Run the test here: http://www.speedtest.net/

    9) Are you seeing any other symptoms? Random pop-up windows or other strangeness?

    torsoinalake
    Free Member

    Well, yes. But it would appear the OP’s laptop is so slow, he has disappeared from the thread.

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