Route44 offers important questions!
Please answer them. He also has a lot of wisdom to share!
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Based on the specs, I am guessing your system is over a year old.
(But similarly equipped systems are still on the market.)
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Regardless of the specific answers to the questions asked by Route44
the following may be generally helpful...
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First another question...
How much are you willing/able to spend to improve your performance?
(I am guessing that at 8gb your memory is maxed. You said Lenovo. Model would help.)
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In any case, this is an economy system you are running.
There is not a lot you can do to improve performance of any laptop...
at least not more than marginally...
least of all " good solutions to cheap easy better ways to get better specs".
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Still the following
may be helpful.
First... if you have no budget, then here are some freebies that may help.
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1. Degraded performance may be the result of a
cluttered desktop.
YES it does make a difference. Limit your desktop clutter to only shortcut icons. Save all documents etc in an appropriate folder. It really DOES make a difference. Even creating folders on your desktop for storing files will not get around this issue.
(Store them in a subfolder of MyDocuments, or your equivalent. Videos to video folder etc)
2. Degraded performance may be the result of other accumulated clutter, and/or programs starting at startup that should load only on demand.
a) Use
CrapCleaner to get the clutter out.
b) Type
msconfig (in the search programs and files box). Use it carefully, in order to identify, stop, and then disable from startup any programs that you do not need to load automatically on boot. Make sure you do NOT disable a program that must load at boot! Don't guess. If you need help, then ask.
c) Note: I do
NOT recommend any Registry Cleaner or Editor for your expressed concerns. Avoid them. WAY too easy to get into trouble... more so than MSCONFIG!
3. Degraded performance may result from a fragmented drive or from a drive with too little free space.
Move files that do not need to be on the internal drive to an external storage solution: Cloud, home-network, or usb drives all work.
THEN defrag the drive. DO NOT DO A DEFRAG ANY SSD. (But I doubt you have one or you would have said so; true?)
4. Use
programs that are less resource intensive.
These are freeware, and powerful, though less resource intensive.
For example,
a) use
GIMP as a photoshop alternative,
b)
Firefox or Chrome as an Explorer alternative.
c)
NOTE... if you open a lot of tabs with your browser, you will rapidly use up your memory. Windows is notorious for not release memory cleanly. So... long durations of web-browsing may eventually require a reboot to get back to a more normal allocation of resources.
5. Use
Speedfan or HWInfo64 to analyze your temps and cpu speed. If you are getting temperature spikes, or if your cpu is throttling down, (Usually both will happen), then you may have a cooling issue. It may be due to clogged fan or vents from a dirty environment, or it may be due to using the laptop improperly (eg on a soft surface, thus blocking the vents on the botton of the computer).
Fixes requiring some budget...
a) The least expensive thing that MAY help (if #5 indicated a problem) is to get a cooling pad, such as
this one by cooler master (I have this one and like it, a lot).
b) ONLY IF A COOLING PROBLEM IS FOUND... Unless you have system building experience, and are comfortable "cracking the case", then
I would not advise that you do so. If you are not comfortable doing so, then find a shop that can "
blow out the dustbunnies" - and as long as they have the case open, have them
clean the old thermal paste, and reseat the heatpipe/cooler/fan assembly with new thermal paste. Having a shop do this work will present you with a bill.
Ask up front for their charge for doing this work.
c) If you have a bit more to spend...
Swap out your hard drive (hdd) for an ssd. I would recommend either a 120 or 240 gb drive,
(I especially like Samsung, but I am not afraid of any of the majors. This is a good deal presently.) AND an external drive (such as this one for example). Use the internal ssd for your OS and maybe for programs. Use the external for documents, pictures, music, videos etc. This will give much better boot times, AND should give longer battery life. But don't expect it to start running like Alienware. "It ain't gonna happen".
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Your hardware list is not the same as "performance benchmarks."
This Site offers some actual benchmarks,
if not of your "Lenovo" at least of the hardware the Lenovo uses.
Tom'sGuide offers a similar overall opinion.
Even the Core i5-4210u and the Intel HD 4400 would be preferable, but from your question, I assume you are not shopping for a replacement laptop, just fixes for this one.
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for cpu...
similarly priced laptops using intel, use i3-4010U or i5-4210U,
which the
cpuboss website rates at least marginally better.
Overall, the A6-6310 should be sufficient for all daily workloads
like Office, Internet browsing and multimedia.
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for gpu...
if you are looking at gaming?
"That is a series called "Beema" which are low end APUs for inexpensive laptops."
The graphics performance is comparable to
Intel's HD Graphics 4200 or a dedicated Radeon HD 7470M .
Only a few current games (as of 2014) are playable in low settings,
but older and less demanding titles may be fine.
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You can also go to "Start", Right Click on "Computer, and Click "Properties".
You will see a utility that says "View Basic Information About Your Computer"
Near the center of this utility, is a section called "system",
the third line of which is "rating".
By clicking on the "Windows Experience Index" Link
you can learn more about the specific strengths and weaknesses of your system.
On my system, the weakest link is the graphics.
Nothing I can do about it, except change computers.
On my system, the strongest are my memory (maxed) and my primary drive (an ssd).
Go ahead and explore this page and the links it offers.
You will learn a few things.
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If you want to run
benchmarking software,
SiSoftware's Sandra might be something to explore.
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Beyond this... we need for you to address the questions raised by Route44!
HTH
