whats wrong with my laptop? is it the technician's fault, or the manufacturers?

Question

its a hp amd sepron which means its like pentium M.
a friend got it 4 me, and since i was at work i gave it to a hardware technician2 look at it. i pickd it up on monday, and till date (1yr later) i have not bin satisfied with the laptop... its like a Pentium 1 or at best pentium 2 pc.. it hangs 4 no reason, i got no heavy programs on it..infact the heaviest programs on it are microsoft access, and yahoo msgr.
4rm task manager, the processor usage is pretty low, at 30/40% at best, and the paging file (virtual ram) is ALWAYS way beyond the half way mark...at 350MB.. my RAM is 512 sd.
i mean, there should b no reason why it hangs at startup, hangs when u run 3 programs, hangs in d middle of notin.
i have used symantec, norton, sophos, avast, and i'm now windows defender 4rm microsoft, so there could not possibly b a virus or worm
i have also run hp diagnositc programs on it, still too too slow, clumsy, and hangs. my pentium 3 desktop is faster better, etc.
is that technic at fault

i also defragmented d drive.. no show

Answer 1

You could very well have a mucked up registry due to all these security solutions you have installed and then removed and other software programs removed via add/remove. Plus, removing firewalls and anti-virus solutions via add/remove does not properly remove them, leaving behind huge portions of the program code and really messing up performance. Get this free tool:

http://www.cnet.com/downloads called CCleaner

This program is a very neat little utility which has several great features, but the best one is the Registry Cleaning Tool. When you get to CNET, in the upper right hand corner is a search box, put in ccleaner hit search or go or whatever it says to initiate the search. A new page with several related utilites will appear. Scroll down to CCleaner, click on the link and a new page with CCleaner and a download link will appear. Read the reviews and check it out for yourself before downloading. Always first read up on anything anyone reccomends yourself, before downloading it. That way you are educated about what it is and can see if it is something you want to use. I highly reccomend this tool, but you have to decide for yourself. I use it a lot, have had it installed on every one of my networked computers for well over a year now, and have never had a single problem with it. It does not use up hardly any CPU and is small taking up very little hard disk space.

It also has a disk cleaning tool, which is probably another reason you are having performance issues. A junked up hard drive will cause the syptoms you are describing. CCleaner has a tool for that too. In fact, that is the main thing it was first created for, getting rid of files and other stuff no longer needed. It has a Cookie Manager too, which enables the user to keep needed cookies while getting rid of all the rest. Cookies and temp files generated via browsing will junk up a system fast. Every time you visit a webpage it is downloaded to your system Cache where it is stored basically forever. When you point your webbrowser at the website it first checks the Cache, and if it is in it it loads it into your browser. Before loading into your browser it checks to see if the website had "new" material on it, and if so it loads that webpage, not the one in the Cache, and then downloads and stores it in the Cache too. So, you can see how quickly a hard drive can fill up with these files. Also, as you download programs, or install new ones, or get updates for your system, these items are stored in a temporary spot on the hard drive. In theory, these files are suppose to be cleared when the program is done installing, but often they are left behind to clutter up the drive it is stored on. The CCleaner gets rid of this and more. It will amaze you how much faster your system will be once it cleans this stuff out and cleans up your Registry too.

Now, about your question of "who" is responsible for these problems: Nobody. This is just a condition of how a system works. It takes management to keep a system up to speed.

Now, once you have cleaned up your hard drive and your registry, decided which cookies you want to keep and gotten rid of the rest, (Keep the ones for the websites you visit and use an ID and User name and password with, like here at Yahoo) as they are needed to help you sign in, etc. Once you have done all of this, which will take a very short time actually, ;-) then do a defrag on your hard drive.

As you use your computer, your files get fragmented which slows down the system. Go into your My Computer, right click and select Manage. A dialog box will open, scroll to the Storage section and under that you will find Defrag. Click on this and a wizard will walk you through defraging your drive. This will put your files and folders back together making your system quicker to respond to requests.

Good luck and have a great day.

Answer 2

It may need formating......with everything you did to check up on it. If it was mine I'd run 'crapcleaner' on it is a free program and it really does a nice job of cleaning up the hard drive, then I'd un-hook from the net close all programs and defrag the hard drive. When the defrag is complete I'd re-boot before I hooking onto the net so my virus software will be working then hook it up and pray. If things are no better then I would take it to a trusted tech and discuss the problem. Make a list of everything you have done to fix the problem so the tech can see that you are knowlegable and not waste time telling you to do things you've already done. The Pentium M is a pretty good chip I know many people who have them and not had any speed problems.

Answer 3

Sempron? That's like a Celeron - a pentium with it's legs cut off IMHO. Yep, pentium 2 at best in my experience.
Hanging up can be a problem with overheating. You can try to measure the output temp of the exhaust with a thermometer. Use one that can go up to 150 degrees F though. I have some laptops that put out over 100 degrees F and the MB is only spec'ed for 95 degrees F max. If it is running hot, you might try a cooling pad for laptops.

Answer 4

Working with a slow computer can be time consuming as programs/ applications take a long time to start. This problem is more pronounced in computers which have been used for 6 or more months. More information at http://fixit.in/slowcomputer.html

Answer 5

Quit frustrating yourself and start over. Format and re-install the operating system.

If it still has issues after a FRESH install, then you have hardware problem(s)...

Answer 6

i would recommend only 1 thing at this time. reload windows on ur laptop. do not give it to that same tech again. if u dont know how to do it. have someone else do it. i can do it for u...