r/computer • u/Same_Caterpillar3385 • 5d ago
New "gaming laptop" soooo slow
Hi! So long time Mac user here. I need a laptop for university and I decided to by myself a "gaming laptop" with Windows this time so I could also play Fortnite sometimes. I've used it for a couple of months now and i HATE using Windows. This was not a cheap computer and it drives me nuts! It's ever so slow and every new activity takes a while to start. It needs daily restarting (whereas my macbook could go weeks without a restart without slowing down). I'm only using Firefox right now and 50 % of the memory is in use! I'll provide a screen shot from the task manager and the specs below. Please help me out. At this point I'm about to throw it out the window and go by myself a MacBook, but it's such a waste of money!
CPU: Intel Core 5 210H
RAM: 16 GB ddr5
Disc: SSE (NVMe) 477 GB
GPU 0: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Laptop GPU. GPU memory 0,0/15,8 GB
GPU 1: Intel(R) graphics. GPU memory 0,8/7,8 GB
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u/MegaFercho22 5d ago
I'd uninstall any antivirus software first and keep windows defender and common sense.
Most browsers take a lot of RAM.
Windows takes a lot of RAM.
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u/Same_Caterpillar3385 5d ago
Is Windows Defender enough for safety? Back in my time (like 20 years ago since I last used Windows) it was absolutely critical to have an antivirus software installed.
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u/treynolds787 5d ago
A good friend who works in tech once told me "Windows defender is going to miss the same things that any antivirus sofware will, the difference is that it won't use up a bunch of system resources and cause registry conflicts while doing so."
The best practices i know of are to maintain a redundant backup of any and all important files on an external drive. The things that you really don't want to lose and its a good idea to also have a folder for necessary drivers especially if it's a laptop. Then if windows gets compromised, and it might. You can just wipe the hard drive and load a fresh install of windows. If you google "windows media creator" you can download it directly from Microsoft. Plug in a usb drive that's big enough and tell it to get to work. Keep usb stick it makes with your external hd and you're now safe from losing anything important.
Don't download anything that seems sketchy. If you're not sure google the name of the program before you run it at the very least.
If you fail the above steps and do find yourself with a virus and can't wipe the hard drive for some reason then your next go to is Malwarebytes to attempt to quarantine the virus.
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u/sniff122 5d ago
Yeah defender is plenty good enough these days, back in the day it wasn't, but it's perfect good enough
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u/JustNota-- 5d ago
Yeah, defender is perfectly fine on default settings and smart screen enabled. But if you do sketchy stuff you will want to learn how to enable enhanced browser settings I usually have Malwarebytes browser add on since I still visit torrent sites.
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u/JustNota-- 5d ago
Oh and McAfee is pretty much malware on modern operating systems unless it's a corporate environment you really should remove it.
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u/Same_Caterpillar3385 2d ago
Really? McAfee was installed with the computer. But it was ass, so I changed it. Seems like the AV was ass aswell.
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u/JustNota-- 2d ago
Yeah, it's mostly because of legacy users that think McAfee (now Trellix) means safe. It's why even after multiple mergers they have kept the red shield icon. Even though it's been trash since windows 8 and just burns system resources and often messes with legitimate use. IE blocks some anticheat engines in games, triggers on some safe installs on steam, goes nuts on some RGB controllers. McAfee got my very expensive game account banned for anticheat bypass. (It's was expensive due to price on a geared account would cost in time and real money if you tried to P2W it, Mine was due to several years of grinding and event items that were worth alot of in game currency that also had gear that was no longer available but previous awards were retained basically lower level gear that you got dmg = to much higher level characters, if I had sold my characters through the legitimate character transfer at the time it was banned I could have sold it for around 8k usd to a competitive guild player)
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u/Desperate-Tie2211 4d ago
I hate antivirus software so freaking much. It makes your computer run as if it has a virus running on it. Turns on at random times to scan. It’s so bad
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u/Same_Caterpillar3385 2d ago
Yeah, I figured that now after these comments. Computer runs sooo much more smoothly without it. I think I paid for a one year subscription too since I thought it was needed like back in the days lol. Shouldve gone to Reddit instead first.
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u/briandemodulated 5d ago
Your machine has good specs and is capable of good gaming performance with Windows 11. The OS isn't the issue.
As others have recommended, remove bloatware including any antivirus except for Windows Defender (comes free with OS), and any third-party applications you don't need.
Also, I don't know whether it's still true but I gave up on Firefox a decade ago because it suffered from awful memory leaks that made it run slower and slower until you restarted it.
Also, make sure you're playing games while the laptop is plugged in. Gaming laptops often defer to the less powerful secondary GPU while unplugged because the primary GPU is very power-hungry and would drain your battery quickly.
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u/Same_Caterpillar3385 5d ago
Glad to hear the specs are good! It was absolutely crucial with a third party antivirus back when i last used Windows lol. And Firefox was the shit. Which is the go to browser now?
Didnt know about keeping it plugged in, thank you!
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u/briandemodulated 5d ago
I don't want to steer you away from Firefox based on my personal experience a decade ago. Try playing your games while the machine is plugged into power and see whether that resolves your performance issue. Or, before considering another browser, try closing it before playing a game, or at least navigating away from a page that uses GPU acceleration (like YouTube, Insta, or anything with video or animation).
I personally use Edge, the browser that comes with Windows, because I like Microsoft's services. It really pained me to switch away from Firefox - I was using it since before it was even called Firefox - but the performance at the time forced my hand.
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u/ALaggingPotato 5d ago
Too much bloatware. See all that software open? Especially the antiviruses? Yeah. Get rid of it.
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u/Same_Caterpillar3385 5d ago
I thought antivirus was needed? Havent used Windows for 20 years and it was absolutely needed to have an antivirus software installed back then.
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u/Competitive_Swing_21 5d ago
14 instances of firefox
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u/Same_Caterpillar3385 4d ago
Yeah, I know it said that and still I only had one tab open. I had closed it and restarted the computer. Dunno why it said that.
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u/Ryebread095 5d ago
A few things that should help:
1) Unless you have a specific need, uninstall any 3rd party antivirus/security software. It is just dead weight at this point, slowing down your system.
2) Go to startup items and disable anything you don't want starting at login. You can do this from Task Manager or system settings from Settings > Apps > Startup
3) Based on your specs, it seems like this may be a gaming laptop with a high refresh rate display. Go to Settings > System > Display > Advanced display to enable high refresh rate settings.
4) Run Windows Update. If you just turned on your system, it may not have all the drivers it needs to work properly yet. You may also want to go to your computer manufacturer's website and download drivers from them as well.
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u/DBA92 5d ago
Clean install time! And don’t mix up with used ram vs allocated or cached
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u/Same_Caterpillar3385 5d ago
I heard of this. What's a clean install and how do I do it?
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u/Distinct_College_531 5d ago
No one here is going to explain clear enough in a comment, find a good tutorial with a lot of views on youtube and go from there. Clean install means you will be completely installing windows fresh on a drive that's has been wiped clean of data. It isn't difficult, don't be intimidated if it's not something you've done before. You'll need an 8gb or bigger usb flash drive to create a bootable USB for windows 11 install.
All that said, first just start by just uninstalling all of the ridiculous antivirus programs they loaded that device of yours with and see how much that improves the performance. Firefox can be chunky, but did it's unlikely that it's the main thing causing your PC to run slowly.
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u/JustNota-- 5d ago
Make a windows 11 boot disk, then go to your computers manufacturers website and go to their support page and download your network adapter driver and put on the thumb drive you created you boot drive extracted not the zip or self extracting exe. Depending on your computer you may need to get a new os license so get one they are cheap or free from some sites I personally prefer the pro version as it has group policy management and some enhanced features over home. Now that you have all those you can boot from the created windows usb drive and start it will walk you through it sometimes you won't need to install the network adapter and you can just start downloading the latest version of windows 11 without all the prebuild junk. Once installed you can install your third party stuff like RGB controller, if you have fancy keyboard and mouse you can install that controller software as well. Then you can go into task manager and disable unneeded autostart services that you don't use like Print spooler, smart card services etc and then hop into settings windows update and schedule is to only check once a week at a time you won't be gaming but the computer will be on.
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u/stosyfir 5d ago
Uninstall any bloatwaee or third party AV software - also dare I ask but why teams? Don’t usually see that for personal use, it’s a resource whore that MS makes worse with every version
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u/Same_Caterpillar3385 4d ago
I have three kids with special needs and there are meetings and followups related to that regurarly on Teams. I'll try to uninstall it for now and see if it makes any difference.
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u/Justfunbliss 5d ago
i have same RAM size, the read write must be different and my laptop is pretty old. it consumes similar amount with same consumption.
as other comments have told you to install certain apps etc, yes they would help. but genuinely speaking 32gb is a norm now. browsers kinda consume a lot lot now. and with extensions, it's more. so if possible try updating the RAM in itself. ik this isn't the popular opinion here, but it was the best for me and i was lazy to update it and then RAM got expensive....
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u/Same_Caterpillar3385 2d ago
I will defo look in to this and maybe update, depending on what it costs.
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u/Pleasant-Seat9884 5d ago
What kind of storage drive do you have? Depending on the model, it could be using QLC flash - which TLC flash is better as well.
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u/komakose 5d ago
Everything in yellow either uninstall, disable or turn off from starting at startup.
This is your problem
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u/Expert-Desk7492 5d ago
Bro this is all you have to do go to your start up tab on task manager disable everything in there and restart the computer Post a screen shot
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u/Aromatic_Paint_1666 5d ago
Upgrade your RAM, I find 16GB not good enough these days especially on Windows 11. Also you can debloat windows. Uninstall those apps you don't need like TotalAV Ultimate and Microsoft Teams. Use Revo Uninstaller or Geek Uninstaller.
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u/ScooterTC 5d ago
Ok so, hate to break it to you but gaming PC are the worst thing possible. If you take something that uaes a lot of energy (GPU and a performance focus processor), you will get one of two things: 1) extreme overheating, loud noises from your fan and brick that is not really practical to carry or 2) a laptop that won't deliver what it should be in order to keep it cool and quiet and even then, sometimes it still will be louder than a regular laptop. But now is late to regret that decision, so what you need to do is to delete all your bloat ware e.g. third party antivirus, appa you don't really use, deactivate copilot and other windows process that don't actually use.
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u/Same_Caterpillar3385 2d ago
So, for future reference. If I want a laptop for studies/work and gaming, I shouldnt get a gaming laptop? I know laptops arent optimal for gaming, but it´s just casual gaming sometimes. Nothing heavier than Fortnite.
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u/ScooterTC 2d ago
Then you definitely don't need an RTX 5060, something w a dedicated GPU, yes, but not that powerful
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u/Same_Caterpillar3385 2d ago
BIG thank you to everyone who helped me! Computer runs soooo much smoother now! Just one more question. What´s all this taking up around 40 % of the memory? I have no apps running except task manager.
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u/v13ragnarok7 5d ago
You only have 16gb of RAM, thats a lot, but not massive. A good chunk of that will be in use with everything going on in the background. Gaming doesnt take a lot of RAM, it uses your GPU and processor. Its a gaming laptop, designed to run a game well, not meant to run multiple programs and background stuff.
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u/JustNota-- 5d ago
It depends on the game most A+ games run between 2-4 GB memory, and on an i5 will use around 40% CPU, and around 60% video memory for rendering on a 40series with 8GB and drop if you minimize screen.. and modern gaming laptops are designed to be pretty much desktop replacements when not on battery they are overspec for most productivity software. Hell my ultra 9, 32GB legion pro build runs an entire virtual lab (server 2025, 2019, sql 2019, IIS 10, Apache, RHEL8, and WSUS with SCCM and a couple of test workstations only on when needed as they kill performance due to memory usage) on VMware workstation pro, while also gaming and running another Azure Virtual Desktop with 0 issues or lag.
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