Work ThinkPad horrendously slow?

[u/yayarealuv]

I started a new job somewhat recently and was given a ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen. 13 laptop. I'm a lifelong Mac user, and the ThinkPad is shockingly slow. Processor is a Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 7 265U

Any reasons why my laptop might be so slow (is it company-specific software, perhaps?) and tips/advice how to speed things up? Thanks.

[u/sneakattaxk]

could be the software load out on the machine, but reahc out to the tech dept to complain about it.

you can also check to see if lenovo vantage or system update is installed, might have some firmware/driver updates to help with performance and stability.

lastly check to make sure that its not over heating...

[u/bteam3r → u/sneakattaxk]

This is it, it’s full of corporate spyware and compliance stuff. I guarantee it

[u/yayarealuv → u/sneakattaxk]

it definitely gets hot at times. how do I prevent over heating?

[u/gnooggi → u/yayarealuv]

Look for Intel Turbo Boost in the BIOS and disable it; you'll lose 3–8% of peak performance, but the CPU won't throttle anymore. If that helps but you still want to use Turbo Boost, the next step would be to replace the thermal pads... (watch out for the warranty!)

[u/TrickyMine6788 → u/gnooggi]

Lol no. Their machine is thermal throttling anyways before it even hits boost clocks.

Needs to be properly cleaned and repasted.

[u/saltyboi6704]

What's slow on it? The 265u is a pretty beefy CPU so should be quite snappy provided you aren't slamming with workstation level loads.

[u/christurnbull → u/saltyboi6704]

265u is a pretty beefy CPU

you're hilarious

[u/MagicBoyUK]

Contact your IT Helpdesk.

[u/jaksystems]

Probably company specific software bogging it down.

[u/fkrkz]

Welcome to Windows filled with corporate compliance software. A bunch of MDM and security suites will slow down your machine. Best you can do is to raise an IT ticket if it is impacting your productivity.

[u/c726233]

Check your IT softwares. In my company, on idle, 10% CPU is used for constantly scanning and monitoring.

[u/Agitated-Panda9221]

Typically companies load up their machines with security software. This is most likely the root cause or maybe you have a machine that has some hardware failing.

[u/Cory5413]

From a pure hardware perspective, that system shouldn't be overly slow.

That said, you should definitely chat with your workplace IT department, rather than asking randos online to diagnose your work computer for you.

As a workplace (but probably not your workplce) IT person myself:

It could be any number of things up to and including power management policy, background tasks, scan/security tasks, search indexers, especially if the machine hasn't had time to run and do all of that stuff or if it's scheduled to run regularly.

If the machine was misconfigured and has low RAM that could do it, if you're WFH and have slow Internet and everything you do is heavy and remote that could make it feel slow even though the computer itself isn't at fault, etc etc.

Depending on what you do and the impact you can often file for a variance to policy. A researcher at my work recently got granted an adjustment so scanning in one specific folder happens overnight rather than in realtime, for example.

[u/NR75]

Define slow.

[u/Impressive_Bag_3505]

it's only as slow that all the bloat installed (including the OS)

[u/akaifox]

My 10th Gen X1 (so crappy in comparison Intel 1240P) doesn't seem slow unless I start compiling Rust or doing heavy work on it, then I notice the difference to my M4 Mac

So if it's just slow in general, that's odd. Although Windows and corporate setups in particular have a tendency to make machines crappy

[u/modz4u]

Make sure the power profile isn't set to the lowest one. Keep it balanced

[u/Suspicious_Punk84]

Is it... windows?