5 hot tips on how to make your notebook faster

We occasionally receive the following question: "My old laptop has become very slow, what can I do about it?"

Remove the dust

Dust accumulates even in the cleanest homes. In laptops and PCs, it can affect system performance, especially when it collects in one of the fans. It clogs not only the ventilation slots but also the fan blades, thus reducing the amount of air moved.

Components such as the processor, RAM, and, in PCs, the graphics card, occasionally generate significant amounts of heat under heavy load. Without effective heat dissipation via the fan, this heat can lead to overheating. If one of these components overheats, the laptop or computer may shut down unexpectedly.

Removing dust from the ventilation slots, for example with a brush or compressed air, is the first step. If you also want to clean the CPU or graphics card coolers, you should be familiar with the hardware, as mistakes during removal or installation can damage the components. Be sure to consult the user manual provided online by the respective manufacturer before you begin.

Check the RAM and hard drive

There are some proven methods to release the handbrake on your RAM and hard drive and get your notebook or PC into the fast lane.

One such measure is "cleaning up" your hard drive: With tools like the free CCleaner, you can detect useless system bottlenecks, such as temporary files, and carefully remove them from your hard drive. The accompanying Registry Cleaner allows you to scan the registry for outdated or faulty entries and clean them up. The backup function lets you undo individual optimizations. After removing the "junk data," you should defragment your hard drive.

Uninstall programs or apps that are no longer needed.

Check your Control Panel or Settings to see which programs you rarely or never use anymore, and uninstall them if necessary. However, be careful with programs you're unfamiliar with, as they might be pre-installed driver packages or system programs required for your laptop or PC to function.

Important: To uninstall, be sure to use the operating system's installation routine to ensure the applications are removed as completely as possible. Simply deleting program folders will not work. If you've forgotten your Windows 11 password, no problem, you can find a password reset here. Instructions for Windows 11 password recovery.

Use only up-to-date antivirus software.

Users used to complain that antivirus software slowed down their systems. However, with increasing laptop and PC performance and more advanced antivirus solutions, this problem no longer exists.

However, for security reasons, make sure that your protection programs are up to date and always work with the latest virus definitions.

Even if you want to be absolutely sure: Do not use more than one antivirus software, because different virus protection programs running side by side can hinder each other more than they help.

Reinstall or refresh Windows

You use your laptop or PC intensively every day for browsing and working – and after a while, you no longer measure its startup time in seconds, but in minutes. Frequent installation and uninstallation of programs, updates, and drivers have left their mark on the operating system and slowed it down. Friends recommend tuning tools, but these don't really help. Now it's time for a clean installation of Windows, a Windows repair, or a refresh of the installation.

Caution: If you have no experience installing a Windows operating system, you should first find out more, e.g. in relevant internet forums or on the Microsoft website.

Please note: Reinstalling Windows will erase not only all data on the system partition, but also all settings and personal data. Therefore, back up all your data first, proceed systematically, and make sure you are fully informed before you begin. A Windows repair or refresh might be a less drastic option, as these methods preserve your personal files.

If these measures no longer help

If your notebook is too old, these measures unfortunately won't help. In these cases, we recommend buying an inexpensive, used, and refurbished notebook that's like new.

These laptops are trade fair and lease returns, demonstration models, and warehouse returns, which we professionally refurbish and resell. We also offer very new used devices that the manufacturer used for testing. Below you will find some very interesting models.

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