Laptop Factory Reset And How To Have A Faster Laptop

[Marceline]

Nowadays, I basically only use my laptop for editing/uploading videos and writing. I'm currently using an Alienware laptop. I don't even know the specs, I'm really dumb when it comes to computer hardware stuff. This laptop was actually a hand me down from a friend, so it is a bit older. Well, anyway, it's been running really slow. I try clearing out the RAM, but that doesn't really seem to help much. I have an antivirus program that my friend who gave it to me installed, and I've run scans but it doesn't seem like I have a virus. It's getting to the point where it's taking HOURS to render/convert videos and since I do a fair amount of editing to my videos it's turned into an absolute nightmare to edit and it's hindering my productivity.

Well, I also have an older Acer laptop that I don't use, because it was having the same issues that I'm currently facing with my current one. I was wondering, could I possibly do a complete factory reset on it? I was going to test it out on the Acer before doing it on my current one. However, I do have a good bit of files I'd want to back up, so before I go through all that trouble I wanted to know if a factory reset would actually work and make the laptop faster. Is there any other tips I could use to make my laptop faster?

Eventually I do plan on buying a much better laptop. Debating on the Acer Predator Helios 300 or 500, or the Dell XPS 15. But, until I decide to make that plunge, I need a laptop that doesn't want to make me pull my hair out in frustration whenever I try to work on it.

 

[SMuser69]

Maybe?!! Without know the laptop specs you can't be sure. Do you know if your laptop has an SSD because if it doesn't you'll definitely see performance improvements there.

If you are running into issues where you want to factory reset often you might want to partition your drive into a C and D drive where your D drive holds the data and C drive only runs the OS. That way when you use win10 reset it will just delete the C drive leaving your data on D safe every time.

Not knowing how old the Alienware actually is I wouldn't toss out the idea of putting some money into it for a SSD upgrade. Also you can already pull the SSD out later and use it somewhere else.

 

[Deleted member 37064]

Do you know the model number of both your Acer and the Alienware laptops? If so, could possible pull up quick specs on it in terms of CPU, memory, disk and upgrade options.

Some of the things you can do prior to a reset is apply the updates for the OS, as well as update anything such as flash, etc. But, if you really only use it for editing videos, it might be worthwhile to remove a lot of the stuff you don't use so as to help free up resources and see how that goes. It might be anything from too many programs running on startup to not having enough disk space to write temporarily write files while it's rendering.

For the eventual upgrade, I have a Dell XP15 and the performance is spot on. Can't speak to the Acer though.

 

[jekster]

If its a traditional spinning type hard driver then running a defrag, clearing out all the temporary file locations, updating drivers, making sure windows updates are all good will go a long way to helping make the machine run a bit smoother.

 

[SaffronBurke]

Get an external hard drive and store all of your files there. Only keep videos on the computer when you're actively working on them, then pop them over to the external. Having too much of your storage in use will really bog down your machine.

 

[DFT]

You mentioned they're older machines - dust bunnies are merciless creatures that attack at any opportunity.

If the inlet screen, heatsink or fan itself are compromised the machines can be thermally throttling to keep the hardware and your household safe at the cost of performance. Deep cleaning a laptop is usually a huge pain, though the Alienware usually offer much easier disassembly if necessary.

Compressed air is handy, but can drive the dust further in and blowing it across the fan can over-rev them and damage the bushing. Same is true of using a vacuum cleaner indelicately. Vac has the upside of actually removing the offending lint instead of just blowing it around though. Consult a tear down guide for the specific model if you're going deep, but for external cleaning a vac pulling directly over the inlet screen(s) on the bottom is the way to start. Don't hover over the fan or you can over-rev it this way, a quick pass with the hose should suffice. Then do the same over the exhaust vent (do it second so you don't pull dust in the inlet). If the inside of the heatsink is packed up a teardown will be required though. If the fan is still moving a strong stream of air you're ok, if the fans are spinning and barely anything is coming out it's likely as that picture shows.

 

[Deleted member 37064]

You mentioned they're older machines - dust bunnies are merciless creatures that attack at any opportunity.

If the inlet screen, heatsink or fan itself are compromised the machines can be thermally throttling to keep the hardware and your household safe at the cost of performance. Deep cleaning a laptop is usually a huge pain, though the Alienware usually offer much easier disassembly if necessary.

Compressed air is handy, but can drive the dust further in and blowing it across the fan can over-rev them and damage the bushing. Same is true of using a vacuum cleaner indelicately. Vac has the upside of actually removing the offending lint instead of just blowing it around though. Consult a tear down guide for the specific model if you're going deep, but for external cleaning a vac pulling directly over the inlet screen(s) on the bottom is the way to start. Don't hover over the fan or you can over-rev it this way, a quick pass with the hose should suffice. Then do the same over the exhaust vent (do it second so you don't pull dust in the inlet). If the inside of the heatsink is packed up a teardown will be required though. If the fan is still moving a strong stream of air you're ok, if the fans are spinning and barely anything is coming out it's likely as that picture shows.

Cleaning the dust out of a laptop, or any device, is fairly easy to do with some care such as not focusing on the fan and over spinning it. That being said, my preferred method is to do a quick vacuum of the air inlet ports to get anything that's potentially blocking the openings. From there, I'll put the vacuum to the exhaust ports and work on getting as much free as I can.

Next, vacuum nozzle back to the inlet ports, and do short bursts of compressed air inward at the exhaust ports. The idea here is that anything blown into the computer while running may get pushed backwards and broken loose, letting the vacuum try and suck it out with the air pushing on it. After this, I put the vacuum nozzle on the exhaust ports, and then do shorts bursts of compressed air into the inlet. This is to help push anything out, via the designed air flow, that may have broken loose but not gotten out.

Finally, I just do a quick vacuum on both ports again. Then, any easily opened spots such as removing the memory cover, battery, and if the HDD and DVD/BluRay drive are easy to take out I will hit with a vacuum as well. Mostly just to get any dust that settled into there out of the way and not cause potential hot spots. The keyboard can sometimes be a pain to remove, and beyond the capability of many people, so I usually don't bother unless I have a feeling it's really nasty in the chassis. Most of the time, battery, HDD and CDRom drive bays are a simple unlock and flip/slide a lever and it's out.

On the note of cooling, make sure you're laptop is sitting on a hard surface while doing the video editing. Don't have it on your lap, or on a pillow as it will block air ports. When I have my laptop docked on the desk, I have it sitting on a laptop cooler.

 

[baileyhawke]

The amount of RAM and speed of RAM you have may also have an effect, along with HDD vs. SSD storage differences. I'm not sure if it works with Win10--I'm still using Win8 out of a mix of stubbornness and laziness--but you can download Speccy and get a look at how much memory you're working with, as well as temperatures for your CPU, and like... allocation % of your memory. So like if your RAM's being stressed at close to 100% when you try to complete tasks, then yeah that may be bottlenecking you. Closing out everything nonessential while you render might be necessary, like for me and my 8GB of RAM I have to kill the browser when I edit stuff.

 

[Marceline]

Thank you so much for all the tips, everyone!

For specs,
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz
Installed RAM: 4.00 GB
System type: 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

That's for the Alienware, I still need to boot up my old Acer. But, I don't think those specs are all that good either, haha.

Also, I really really think that I need to clean it. I'll probably get one of those compressed air cans and be really careful with it. My fan gets so obnoxiously loud at times, like, if my laptop is running and I'm filming it can't be in the room with me or it will be easily heard on film kind of loud.

 

[jekster]

You would get a significant improvement in performance by getting an extra 4GB of RAM (at least) to get that machine up to 8GB. More than 8 will help to a certain extent, but if you plan to keep using that machine for a while, finding a way to get that extra RAM will help massively.

 

[Deleted member 37064]

Thank you so much for all the tips, everyone!

For specs,
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz
Installed RAM: 4.00 GB
System type: 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

That's for the Alienware, I still need to boot up my old Acer. But, I don't think those specs are all that good either, haha.

Also, I really really think that I need to clean it. I'll probably get one of those compressed air cans and be really careful with it. My fan gets so obnoxiously loud at times, like, if my laptop is running and I'm filming it can't be in the room with me or it will be easily heard on film kind of loud.

See if you can look at the bottom of your Alienware for a specific model number. If you don't see it there, you might be able to find it in "properties" of system (control panel, or right click on my computer and properties there). This will let you search how much memory you can upgrade your system to. My guess is 8GB. But, might be as much as 16GB, as I think you have a Gen2 or Gen3 i7 processor. Even going to 8GB of ram will help your system immensely.

If you have a vacuum, you can try and get any of the openings with that first to try and get some of the dust out so you can use it for a bit. The compressed air will help get further in though.

 

[DJ_Pioneer]

See if you can look at the bottom of your Alienware for a specific model number. If you don't see it there, you might be able to find it in "properties" of system (control panel, or right click on my computer and properties there). This will let you search how much memory you can upgrade your system to. My guess is 8GB. But, might be as much as 16GB, as I think you have a Gen2 or Gen3 i7 processor. Even going to 8GB of ram will help your system immensely.

If you have a vacuum, you can try and get any of the openings with that first to try and get some of the dust out so you can use it for a bit. The compressed air will help get further in though.

It is a Gen 2 Sandy Bridge Processor laptops usually have only tow memory slots so I think what is going do be found in this one is two 2 GB DDR3 memory sticks so a memory upgrade would mean replacing those two with two 4 GB or 8 GB DDR3 memory sticks. However I don't think it is worth investing money on upgrading an eight year old system. it is consumer grade electronics so the laptop going to die eventually.

Cleaning out the computer of any dust is going to be helpful the reason for the slow down is probably due to thermal throttling because if the computer can't be cooled efficiently it won't be able to hit the maximum possible turbo clocks for the CPU which should be 3.3, 3.2 or 3.0 GHz. Never use vacuum cleaners when cleaning computers they generate static electricity and if you are unlucky it can damage components. Get compressed air in a can instead and use it for blowing out the dust, once the dust is removed from the device the work area can and should be vacuumed.

 

[Whatman]

Laptops are trash and a waste of money unless you really need the mobility.

Just build a desktop with a Ryzen CPU; their high core counts are good for video editing.

 

[Deleted member 37064]

It is a Gen 2 Sandy Bridge Processor laptops usually have only tow memory slots so I think what is going do be found in this one is two 2 GB DDR3 memory sticks so a memory upgrade would mean replacing those two with two 4 GB or 8 GB DDR3 memory sticks. However I don't think it is worth investing money on upgrading an eight year old system. it is consumer grade electronics so the laptop going to die eventually.

I'd say it's up to her and her needs as to upgrading. If it's a $50 upgrade, and she has to wait a couple of months before getting a replacement, I'd say it's a decent investment.

Cleaning out the computer of any dust is going to be helpful the reason for the slow down is probably due to thermal throttling because if the computer can't be cooled efficiently it won't be able to hit the maximum possible turbo clocks for the CPU which should be 3.3, 3.2 or 3.0 GHz. Never use vacuum cleaners when cleaning computers they generate static electricity and if you are unlucky it can damage components. Get compressed air in a can instead and use it for blowing out the dust, once the dust is removed from the device the work area can and should be vacuumed.

I've never once had a vaccuum cause issues when cleaning the way I mentioned over the years of cleaning out computers (laptops and desktops). Yes, static electricity can be an issue, same as when installing RAM or working on a computer. Done correctly, one can mitigate the chances of static electricity occurring. The reason for the vaccuum is so that dust isn't blown all over, creating a bigger issue such as being sucked into other electronics or making a mess of the room. It's the same issue I have with bagless vacuums and emptying them. Give me a bagged vacuum any day.

 

[DJ_Pioneer]

I've never once had a vaccuum cause issues when cleaning the way I mentioned over the years of cleaning out computers (laptops and desktops). Yes, static electricity can be an issue, same as when installing RAM or working on a computer. Done correctly, one can mitigate the chances of static electricity occurring. The reason for the vaccuum is so that dust isn't blown all over, creating a bigger issue such as being sucked into other electronics or making a mess of the room. It's the same issue I have with bagless vacuums and emptying them. Give me a bagged vacuum any day.

And I haven't killed anything with static either. However I think we should be careful with giving advice that could potentially kill or damage a computer especially when it is easy to avoid and when someone uses it for work. As for dust getting everywhere since it is a laptop so it can be easily carried into another room that doesn't have sensitive electronics or even outside to be cleaned out.

 

[Emberblaze]

Excuse my ignorance if I'm wrong (because I actually have no idea). But if she added more ram couldn't she pop that out when this computer dies and put it into the new one?

 

[SMuser69]

Excuse my ignorance if I'm wrong (because I actually have no idea). But if she added more ram couldn't she pop that out when this computer dies and put it into the new one?

The processor looks like a 2nd gen intel which means it's most likely DDR3. I'm pretty sure at this point DDR4 is the defacto standard for even the lower line laptops. Also considering DDR5 is already available by the time she's ready to cannibalize everything stock in her old laptop will be obsolete.

 

[DJ_Pioneer]

Excuse my ignorance if I'm wrong (because I actually have no idea). But if she added more ram couldn't she pop that out when this computer dies and put it into the new one?

Unfortunately not since DDR 4 is what is being used in computers nowadays and DDR 5 is going to be available for end users next year.

 

[Emberblaze]

Damn. That sucks.

 

[Deleted member 37064]

Damn. That sucks.

It does. But, it's just how computers work. Some items such as a hard drive may have a longer reuse time than other items like ram, etc. But, in many cases, it's better to just go with a full upgrade instead.

The reason why I even hinted at checking into memory upgrades on the Alienware is that she didn't specify how long it was before she was going to upgrade. I kind of took it as she might be a while out yet, so the $50 for a couple 4GB sticks of RAM is a reasonable price for a small upgrade. Sure, it'd be pretty much a throwaway. But, if she can edit videos quicker, with less frustration and make some money from it, then it wouldn't be a total waste.

Sometimes people forget that not everyone has the ability to drop $500+ on an expense and a small investment can ease some pain points.

 

[Emberblaze]

It does. But, it's just how computers work. Some items such as a hard drive may have a longer reuse time than other items like ram, etc. But, in many cases, it's better to just go with a full upgrade instead.

The reason why I even hinted at checking into memory upgrades on the Alienware is that she didn't specify how long it was before she was going to upgrade. I kind of took it as she might be a while out yet, so the $50 for a couple 4GB sticks of RAM is a reasonable price for a small upgrade. Sure, it'd be pretty much a throwaway. But, if she can edit videos quicker, with less frustration and make some money from it, then it wouldn't be a total waste.

Sometimes people forget that not everyone has the ability to drop $500+ on an expense and a small investment can ease some pain points.

And you have to look at time saved too. Is a slow laptop limiting her ability to make money? Would making it faster free up more time and therefore make her more money? How long will it take to make that 50 dollars back in terms of added productivity? So it might be worth it even if the entire computer will be replaced in 6 months.

Would it be worth it for a personal computer? Maybe not, but for a work device it might be.

And that 50 bucks might mean this computer lasts long enough that she can buy a really nice computer that will last a long time vs buying a computer that just cuts it and is obsolete again in a year

 

[CatOwned]

The OP's original question about doing a clear reinstall of the OS doesn't seem like a bad idea. It would be a pain in the ass, but also would get rid of a ton of crap and speed the machine up considerably.

 

[BeautifulContradiction]

A RAM upgrade would probably help, and it should be cheap enough to justify the benefits.

If you do decide to get a new notebook, one of the options that some boutique sellers offer is uninstalling bloatware. I'd probably staying away from the acer gaming series, but if you're looking at gaming notebooks for the more powerful hardware I'd suggest Sager or MSI.

What I would also suggest doing is to get one of these and have the bloatware uninstalled, then install all of your needed software. You can then create a disk image (think of like a restore point), so if anything goes wrong, you can just reset your PC to exactly how it was when you created the image.

 

[KingMarti]

If you have never done it, a fresh install would probably be a good idea, just make sure you have all the drivers you need before doing it.

Maybe?!! Without know the laptop specs you can't be sure. Do you know if your laptop has an SSD because if it doesn't you'll definitely see performance improvements there.

If you are running into issues where you want to factory reset often you might want to partition your drive into a C and D drive where your D drive holds the data and C drive only runs the OS. That way when you use win10 reset it will just delete the C drive leaving your data on D safe every time.

Not knowing how old the Alienware actually is I wouldn't toss out the idea of putting some money into it for a SSD upgrade. Also you can already pull the SSD out later and use it somewhere else.

An SSD wont really help with video rendering speeds, more just the boot time and application load times,

Thank you so much for all the tips, everyone!

For specs,
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz
Installed RAM: 4.00 GB
System type: 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

That's for the Alienware, I still need to boot up my old Acer. But, I don't think those specs are all that good either, haha.

Also, I really really think that I need to clean it. I'll probably get one of those compressed air cans and be really careful with it. My fan gets so obnoxiously loud at times, like, if my laptop is running and I'm filming it can't be in the room with me or it will be easily heard on film kind of loud.

Do you know the model number of it? most alienware laptops will have a dedicated graphics card, if it has then you want to make sure that you are using it when rendering out your videos and that should give you much better rendering times.

Excuse my ignorance if I'm wrong (because I actually have no idea). But if she added more ram couldn't she pop that out when this computer dies and put it into the new one?

A ram upgrade would be a huge help in video editing, rendering video uses a lot of ram, the benefit of it being an older system is that DDR3 SODIMM modules are pretty cheap now. For the next upgrade she probably wont be able to re-use the ram, but alienware computers tend to have a good resale value so more memory will make it a more attractive purchase if she decides to sell it to recoup some of the money spent on the new one and could then even upgrade the ram on the new on.

Eg/ My laptop uses DDR3 ram, I have 12gb, when im encoding videos the memory usage usually gets up to around 80%

I would defiantly recommend cleaning it out if it's never been done, if your not comfortable doing it yourself a local pc repair store would probably do it for you pretty cheap, they may even be able to replace the thermal paste on the cpu and gpu as given it's quite old it could probably do with replacing by now.

If you wanted to get as much life out of the current system as possible then I would go for the following:

Upgrade the RAM to 16gb, video editing is ram hungry, you might scrape by with 8gb but DDR3 is cheap enough where 16gb isnt going to brake the bank and it would be a noticeable difference over 8gb. (if your not using the acer laptop, and it's around the same age (+ or - a few years) you might be able to get a free ram upgrade by using the acer for spare parts.

Upgrade to an SSD from the internal hard drive (make sure you get a decent size, the small sizes are cheap but they become a real pain in the ass) and you can always take the drive out if you sell the laptop and put it in an external case or in the new laptop if it's better than whats in there.

Clean the dust out the best way to do this is going to be to pop the bottom off the laptop, and go at it with some compressed air, I would also take the fan out if it's pretty bad in there and clean the fan blades. If you take it to a store to have it done, it would be worth asking them about re applying the thermal paste (it becomes less efficient over time)

Another option you could look at would be optimizing windows, theres a bunch of guides online on how to disable a bunch of un needed windows services that are always running in the background like cortana and xbox game services. (The problem with these is that windows likes to turn them back on with every update meaning it's a constant pain in the ass)

Before making any upgrades though, I would recommend looking at where the issues are, if you load up task manager, click on more details, it will show you the usage % of cpu, ram, hard disk, network and gpu. focus on the numbers that are highest first so given that you only have 4gb of ram I am assuming thats going to be pretty high, so then you install more ram, the usage % should come down, then move on to the next highest used item. (if the highest used item is CPU and you have brought everything else down as far as you can and it's still not running fast enough for you then it's time to upgrade the machine instead of parts)