[shaheenazk]

I suggest you install Samsung 980 1TB Up to 3,500 MB/s PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2 (2280) Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (MZ-V8V1T0) which would speed up your device immensely. It would bring down boot up time by a big margin, greatly reduce file transfer time and open files and applications in the blink of an eye !

You can also upgrade your RAM to 32 GB with 16 GB RAMs in both slots. That would further speed up the laptop to some extent.

[sgmuser]

Originally Posted by inwester

Do you observe it while laptop being plugged in or on battery?

Performance on older Windows machines suffer and aren't very optimal while on battery.

Leave the machine on high performance and ignore any battery saving power settings.

Every other trick is basically mentioned here. A lot of these Windows tricks you find on the Internet or YouTube is just snake oil. Windows is a very mature software and to be honest you requirements are just probably outgrowing the specs of a very good 5 year old machine.

1. Reinstall Windows
2. Avoid Chrome at all cost. Use Brave or Duck Duck Go. I use Brave and it just works minus you will never see any intrusive ads like Chrome. Chrome is bloated. It takes up so much space. Just check in Add Remove Programs for its occupied size.
3. Double your RAM, if you have 4GB RAM increase it to 8 GB and you will see double the speed. If possible increase it to 16 GB if you are using multiple tabs/Photo/Video editing suites etc.
4. Convert your HDD to NVME HDD if it uses something else like the old type HDD or SSD. You will see at least 50% speed boost.
5. Install some clean up software. There are so many Chinese origin clean up software and please avoid them. Go through some reviews and find a good one and install. Use them once in a while/weekly etc. They clean up un-necessary junks/caches created by various software and as well Windows Temp files.
6. Uninstall apps which are available as web sites like Facebook or Instagram etc.

[JediKnight]

1. Always increase RAM in power of 2 that is 8GB,16GB,32GB etc.

2. Since the laptop is 5 year old the SDD would have got lot of bad blocks. Bad blocks decrease the internal over provisioning of the drive leading to increased write amplification. This further causes more bad blocks and wear. In other words once bad blocks cross a threshold the drive performance rapidly reduces and it goes into a self re-enforcing death spiral.

Hence replacing your SDD should improve your performance quite a bit. Also for performance NVME PCIE SSD> SCSI SSD> SATA SSD. Hence better to get the latest generation NVME PCIE SSD, but you have to see what your hardware supports.

[haribalram]

Originally Posted by GTO

Guys,

Running a 2018 Dell Latitude 7490 with Windows 10 Pro, 24 GB of RAM, a 500-gig SSD and Core i7-8650U CPU.

OS & software-wise: What are the usual best practices to speed up the computer?

Thanks in advance!

If you aren't very particular about running "Windows" as OS, you could try the ChromeOS (which powers Chromebooks).

Here is the link to how you can DIY - https://chromeenterprise.google/os/chromeosflex/

What does Chrome Flex do?
ChromeOS Flex is an alternative operating system that brings ChromeOS to virtually any outdated computer, whether it's a Mac or a Windows PC. Like ChromeOS, ChromeOS Flex is based on Chromium OS, the open source foundation for Google's desktop operating system.

I have personally tried this on an 8+ years DELL windows laptop and can vouch for the user experience & performance.

Caveats:
(1) This procedure will erase the Windows OS & data completely. Your laptop will become a Chromebook.
(2) One has to get used to the ChromeOS, which is akin to running Android running on a bigger screen. Plus, you have access to the Android playstore apps.

[ashlil]

Originally Posted by GTO

Guys,

Running a 2018 Dell Latitude 7490 with Windows 10 Pro, 24 GB of RAM, a 500-gig SSD and Core i7-8650U CPU.

What are the different ways to speed it up? Over the weekend, I tweaked my Chrome extensions, removed unnecessary stuff, uninstalled unnecessary apps etc. and the difference is massive! It's like adding 50 BHP to a 150 BHP car.

OS & software-wise: What are the usual best practices to speed up the computer?

Hardware-wise: What else can be done? Anything I can add or change?

Thanks in advance!

Hey GTO. I find Windows unbearable since I am heavy Linux user. However, for photo printing I have to boot into windows and I marvel at how slow it can be.

Recently, I downloaded free Auslogics software and used it to clean up registry and start-up programs and disk optimization. Now the windows boots and works much faster. Maybe, give it a try and see.

[RMN]

Originally Posted by ashlil

Recently, I downloaded free Auslogics software and used it to clean up registry and start-up programs and disk optimization. Now the windows boots and works much faster. Maybe, give it a try and see.

Disk optimizations aren't recommended for SSD's afaik.

@GTO, I'd recommend monitoring disk & RAM usage with all those chrome tabs open. If either of it is topping out, upgrade to a nvme SSD and add a stick for additional RAM.

Also, disable unwanted apps at startup.

[Samarth 619]

Everything about your system seems to be good enough for most purposes.

I'm using a Dell laptop, Core i5 3rd Gen 3210M, 8GB RAM system with SSD, and I'm experiencing very good operational speed. The only difference is, I'm running Windows 7.
Windows 10 is itself a big bloat, I'll never run it in stock form.

I'll only give you tips that will help in a sure shot manner:-

1. If you're thinking reinstalling, then better install any good distribution of Linux in Dual Boot with existing Win10..
Try using Linux for most of the work you do, word processors, internet browsing, etc all work great.
Windows 7 has been stopped updating but if you're ok, you can try it too.

2. Avoid Chrome & Edge. Use Firefox, Brave, Tor, etc.

3. Use a common cleaner, a good one going by recommendations, like "Cleanup" or so.

[rez]

Hello there @GTO,

Even my old 2017 dell Inspiron 15 (Pentium n3710) runs windows 10 home like a charm, it is still good for basic workloads and it doesn't even have an SSD.

And your PC features way more superior specifications than that so I don't think you need to upgrade it.

However I am curious that how often do you clean your cooling fan and thermal paste? My guess is that you are experiencing thermal throttling because of the clogged fans and dried up thermal paste.

Modern gaming laptops require a thermal paste replacement once every year and fan cleaning twice a year,

Considering your CPU is a lower TDP variant in a thin and light business machine , you can stretch this interval to once every second year for the thermal paste replacement and fan cleaning depending on the operating environment.

[condor]

Originally Posted by rez

My guess is that you are experiencing thermal throttling because of the clogged fans and dried up thermal paste..

If this is the reason for the laptop to slowdown, will the laptop have heated up when the problem is seen ? Would the bottom of the laptop (where all the power supply related parts are, be warm/hot ?

[antz.bin]

One of the best ways to improve performance of any laptop (Windows or Mac) is to reduce the heat. It frees up headroom for user tasks (instead of wasting resources on bg tasks) and doesn't thermal throttle very easily.

I switched from Chrome to Edge browser a few years ago and the switch improved my battery backup from about 5 hours to ~8-9 hours on the exact same workload. (AMD Ryzen 5 4500U based laptop). When working on this laptop in the North Indian winters with it placed on the lap, it would feel as if the laptop has been off all along, so little was the heating.

Then about 2.5 yrs back, I switched to a 9th gen i7 MBP16 which I would fondly call "the heater". I used to use Chrome / Safari on that one since those were recommended by my employer but then I prompty moved to Edge on the Macbook as well and the laptop doesn't heat anymore and I get over 5 hours of backup on it (this was about 3 hours on Chrome etc.)

The best thing about Edge is that all your extensions from Chrome web store work as is. Finally, everything runs cooler and hence faster. It also has a built in ad-blocker so (and I have Youtube Premium) so I have practically forgotten what ads look like .

It also comes with GPT4 based Bing chat integrated so it is much easier to use these AI chatbots from inside of Edge.

The above effect has been seen by many many studies across the internet and I have personally seen this cooling effect happen for years on all kinds of configurations. Try it out if you can and feel the difference yourself.

[rez]

A chip or component is said to be thermal throttling when the operating temperature OF THE CHIP is reaching the maximum limit THE CHIP can bear (in the case of laptop CPUs is generally 100-105C),after this temperature is reached the chip reduces the core frequencies and limit the power consumption resulting in lower power consumption and consequently lowering the temperature.

now if your laptop's cooling system is not functioning as intended due to clogged fans ,dry thermal paste ,incorrect application of the thermal paste etc. you are likely to face thermal throttling....

feeling warmth on the laptop body is a question at what wattage the components are running.....modern gaming laptops can get pretty hot around the keyboard and palmrest area while under load and not throttle

and also a similar laptop can throttle at idle due to the reasons mentioned above
and may not feel hot to touch

[GTO]

This thread has saved me 2-lakh rupees . Period. From behaving like a Maruti Alto 796cc, my Latitude is running like an Octavia turbo-petrol now! Big thank you for all the suggestions.

I don't get why everyone calls Chrome a resource hog. For one, it does have the most features. Second, I have like 8 productivity extensions installed from the Chrome WebStore which I cannot do without. With 70+ tabs open, this is how things were looking earlier today. I don't think it's bad at all. Plus, if & when it is needed, I can upgrade my laptop's 24 GB RAM to 36. Have tried Firefox, Edge & Opera...to me, Chrome is the best .

Before I incorporated the suggestions on this thread, my CPU or RAM (or both) used to constantly hover between 80 - 100%!

[ashvek3141]

Originally Posted by JediKnight

1. Always increase RAM in power of 2 that is 8GB,16GB,32GB etc.

Is there any specific reason to upgrade it in this fashion?

I am looking to upgrade the RAM for my lenovo Ideapad 330S (i3 7th gen) laptop. It has a 4gb RAM, looking to add 8gb in 2nd slot - Totalling up to 12 gb.

Aside, it has a 1 TB HDD, planning to add a 256 GB SDD alongside which will solely be used for apps / software.

I think the above additions should help to boost it up by a good margin.

[JediKnight]

Originally Posted by ashvek3141

Is there any specific reason to upgrade it in this fashion?

Yes this is related to how CPU addresses spaces work and would warrant a separate discussion. Increased RAM will definitely help but upgrading to power of 2 is optimal.

[iTNerd]

Originally Posted by ashvek3141

Is there any specific reason to upgrade it in this fashion?

I am looking to upgrade the RAM for my lenovo Ideapad 330S (i3 7th gen) laptop. It has a 4gb RAM, looking to add 8gb in 2nd slot - Totalling up to 12 gb.

Aside, it has a 1 TB HDD, planning to add a 256 GB SDD alongside which will solely be used for apps / software.

I think the above additions should help to boost it up by a good margin.

Let's say you have put 8 GB on the other empty RAM slot. With this scenario, of the full 12GB (4GB + 8GB) available, 8GB (4GB from the original module plus 4GB from the new one) will work in a dual-channel configuration. The remaining 4GB from the second module will also be usable but slower because this portion will run at single-channel speeds.

It is important to understand why a dual channel memory is recommended when planning to upgrade your RAM. A dual channel memory is a feature of your chipset where two memory modules act as a single unit, creating a wider and faster data path for the CPU.

So, in a nutshell, it is recommended to have similar capacity and speed of the RAM modules in the 2 RAM slots. If one of the slots has higher capacity (i.e., 8 GB), things won't run optimally, but they won't be terrible, either.