Dell Inspiron Laptop Bogging Down

[reubenray]

I have had this about four years and every time it does an update it bogs everything down for hours. This started about six months ago. I have paused my updates to keep this from happening, but eventually it updates. I just got it back up and running about five hours an update was done. Even now it is running slow.

Any ideas on what is causing this and how to fix it?

 

[TheKrell]

I'll take a wag at this. Two wags.

1. The updates are becoming gargantuan. They are less like an update of a few utilities and more like a service pack.
2. Various things, and most often browsers, suck up more and more memory. How much does your Dell have?

 

[reubenray]

Is this what

I'll take a wag at this. Two wags.

1. The updates are becoming gargantuan. They are less like an update of a few utilities and more like a service pack.
2. Various things, and most often browsers, suck up more and more memory. How much does your Dell have?

Is this what you are asking about?

Installed Ram - 12.0 GB (11.9 GB usable)

 

[TheKrell]

Is this what you are asking about?

Installed Ram - 12.0 GB (11.9 GB usable)

Yes; that's it.

My work computer was painfully slow with 8GB and it's current bloatware. Now that it has 16GB, it's zippy again. My daughter is a gamer and already has 16GB. She's running out of memory all of a sudden just playing Minecraft.

Some apps are just memory hogs like you wouldn't believe.

 

[reubenray]

Yes; that's it.

My work computer was painfully slow with 8GB and it's current bloatware. Now that it has 16GB, it's zippy again. My daughter is a gamer and already has 16GB. She's running out of memory all of a sudden just playing Minecraft.

Some apps are just memory hogs like you wouldn't believe.

How would I open up more memory? I don't play any games on the laptop. Task manager is showing 40% of memory is being used right now.

 

[EarDemon]

Does the laptop have a mechanical HDD or SSD? If HDD dump it and put in an SSD, depending on the model, Latitudes from 2018 should have an M.2 slot for an NVMe SSD. Have you tried formatting the drive and perform a clean install of Windows? I would never run Windows 10 or 11 on a mechanical drive, 12 GB of RAM will be fine for Office/Web/Email type stuff.

Step 1 - Buy SSD
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Step 2 - Create Windows 10 bootable USB install media using Media Creation Tool and install on new SSD

Download Windows 10

 

[EarDemon]

I'll take a wag at this. Two wags.

1. The updates are becoming gargantuan. They are less like an update of a few utilities and more like a service pack.
2. Various things, and most often browsers, suck up more and more memory. How much does your Dell have?

While you could say the semi annual Feature updates to Windows 10 are similar to Service Packs, the past few 20H2, 21H1 and 21H2 have been relatively minor. The upcoming 22H2 for 10 is supposed to be minor as well. While I always do clean installs on my own personal and work computers, I had a couple computers at work for end users that were still on 21H1, it took less than 5 minutes to force the download and install to 21H2 on these devices. All computers have SSDs and 8 GB of RAM or more.

You are correct, browsers are a big memory hog these days. The more tabs you have open, the more dumb extensions your run the more RAM they hog. A couple years about we upgraded our ERP and CRM and our ERP went from being accessed with a light weight client application to becoming web based and instead of using the Outlook plug-in for CRM, which lacks some key functionality, we now access CRM via web browser. Users who are in ERP and CRM all day long and have 20 - 30 or more tabs open between the two have had issues. I maxed out those users PC with the most RAM they can support. At our HQ, they updated their PDM, which has always been web based, but the new version is very heavy. The Engineers have Dell Precision and HP Z workstations with Xeons and 32 GB of RAM, so they are good...for now....

 

[primestar31]

How would I open up more memory? I don't play any games on the laptop. Task manager is showing 40% of memory is being used right now.

From Dells website, download and install the "SupportAssist" program, and run it. It can fix things, and/or tell you if there's an issue.

 

[EarDemon]

Support Assist is nothing but a glorified updater utility and general nuisance. When I would buy Dell's for work, it is the first the I would remove if I didn't do a clean install. It checked for BIOS and Driver updates, which you can do yourself by going to dell.com/support and the Troubleshooter is nearly as useless as the one built into Windows.

It is honestly a complete an utter waste of time to troubleshoot issues like this when a clean install of Windows on an SSD takes 5 - 7 minutes, if that on even marginal hardware.

 

[reubenray]

From Dells website, download and install the "SupportAssist" program, and run it. It can fix things, and/or tell you if there's an issue.

At one point today this actually ran and it found no issues.

From Dells website, download and install the "SupportAssist" program, and run it. It can fix things, and/or tell you if there's an issue.

I did this last night and this morning. It downloaded and installed a few drivers. I could not find out if there were any issues or not.

 

[reubenray]

Support Assist is nothing but a glorified updater utility and general nuisance. When I would buy Dell's for work, it is the first the I would remove if I didn't do a clean install. It checked for BIOS and Driver updates, which you can do yourself by going to dell.com/support and the Troubleshooter is nearly as useless as the one built into Windows.

It is honestly a complete an utter waste of time to troubleshoot issues like this when a clean install of Windows on an SSD takes 5 - 7 minutes, if that on even marginal hardware.

I did run Support Assist, but I don't know if it found any issues. I did find out the laptop was bought in December of 2018. Due to this continuing issue I have been thinking about getting another one this Christmas. I looked at the Prime Day deals, but I did not see anything.

 

[EarDemon]

You can always run the preboot diagnostic utility by pressing F12 while on the Dell splash screen to run a diagnostic check on the hardware and see if it detects anything.

Depending on the specs, a laptop from 2018 is not that bad. Spending $100 (or less) on an SSD, if the computer doesn’t have one and reinstalling Windows will do wonders.

Prime Day is the most overrated thing ever. While there are a few decent deals out there, most of the stuff is either Amazon’s own spying devices to further suck you into their ecosystem (get half off a spying speaker so we can monitor you and so you can subscribe to Amazon Music for $10 a month for the rest of your life), pervious generation products or cheap junk that’s outdated and underpowered.

Did you happen to edit the title of the thread? I could have sworn it said Latitude not Inspiration last night

 

[reubenray]

You can always run the preboot diagnostic utility by pressing F12 while on the Dell splash screen to run a diagnostic check on the hardware and see if it detects anything.

Depending on the specs, a laptop from 2018 is not that bad. Spending $100 (or less) on an SSD, if the computer doesn’t have one and reinstalling Windows will do wonders.

Prime Day is the most overrated thing ever. While there are a few decent deals out there, most of the stuff is either Amazon’s own spying devices to further suck you into their ecosystem (get half off a spying speaker so we can monitor you and so you can subscribe to Amazon Music for $10 a month for the rest of your life), pervious generation products or cheap junk that’s outdated and underpowered.

Did you happen to edit the title of the thread? I could have sworn it said Latitude not Inspiration last night

I did not edit the title.

The laptop works great until there is an update. It then bogs down for day or two before it works great again. It has a 1 TB HDD with 817 gb of free space.

 

[EarDemon]

After a decade of ordering, issuing and repairing Latitudes, I must have inserted that into my own head

Again, I would dump the HDD in a NY minute. I have 7 out of ~150 computers left with mechanical drives, the performance to the end user is beyond noticeable. I don't notice it much anymore since I've been using SSDs exclusively since 2012. That combined with the fact you probably have a remanence of at least 7 previous versions of Windows 10, 1803, 1809, 1903, 1909, 2003, 20H2, and 21H1 is not doing you any favors either.

 

[harshness]

I agree with EarDemon. It is probably your hard drive that is killing you there. I had to replace the HDD in a desktop recently as it was taking several minutes to boot and updates would take a long time. Moving it to an SSD allows it to boot in under a minute.

The cheap solution would be to do updates when you're not using the laptop. Make sure it is plugged in to its charger, force an update from the System "menu" and walk away.

 

[reubenray]

I am leaning toward getting a new laptop and let my wife have this one to watch exercise videos on. How are the Lenovo IdeaPad's? Costco has several in my price range. They have 12 GB of Ram and 512 GB SSD. One is 12th generation i7 and the other one is 11th generation i7. They are $200 apart.

 

[TheKrell]

Prime Day is the most overrated thing ever. While there are a few decent deals out there, most of the stuff is either Amazon’s own spying devices to further suck you into their ecosystem (get half off a spying speaker so we can monitor you and so you can subscribe to Amazon Music for $10 a month for the rest of your life), pervious generation products or cheap junk that’s outdated and underpowered.

I hear you. I only bought a 3-pack of Energizer plug-in rechargeable combo flashlights and emergency lights, and giving 2 away to friends.

As for the "previous generation" comment, I'm pretty deep into the Echo smart speaker ecosystem. And I eschew the 4th gen Echoes (all types) because IMHO the sound is WORSE than the 3rd gen speakers.

The 4th gen Echoes are spherical (making them harder to place), have fabric right up to the buttons on the top (which is a skin oil and dust magnet), and the speakers inside are mounted at an angle, preventing any bass reinforcement from the table it's sitting on. This is a stupid design IMHO.

I also refuse to pay $10 for Amazon Music. I am paying $5/mo for SiriusXM for my car, and this allows 1 stream. But that so-called 1-stream actually is many because I can stream to any number of Echoes, on any SiriusXM channel, simultaneously as long as they are on my account. It doesn't even matter that my Echo here at work is streaming through my phone's hot spot, while the rest are at home. At one point I rented an apartment with another Echo there. So the "1 stream" can go to 3 different IP addresses, as long as they are all Echoes. I can't start up a PC player, though, or that will kill all those streams to my Echoes.

By the way, they had some 3rd gen Dots available for $18 during Prime Days. I was strong and did not buy another.

Again, I would dump the HDD in a NY minute. I have 7 out of ~150 computers left with mechanical drives, the performance to the end user is beyond noticeable. I don't notice it much anymore since I've been using SSDs exclusively since 2012. That combined with the fact you probably have a remanence of at least 7 previous versions of Windows 10, 1803, 1809, 1903, 1909, 2003, 20H2, and 21H1 is not doing you any favors either

The SSD is a good idea, but an HDD should not take all day updating regardless.

Perhaps the HDD is going bad. Or else 12GB is no longer enough as I originally thought. Which is cheaper to replace?

 

[EarDemon]

My personal opinions are strong.

Lenovo is obviously doing something right because they are the #1 PC manufacture, and the ThinkPad line they acquired from IBM has a strong following but I will never ever ever buy anything of theirs because they are a chinese company. I refuse to do business with companies that are based in china. While I am fully aware that Dell and HP devices are manufactured in china, at least they were born here and are headquartered here. I also would never ever ever buy a consumer grade laptop where repair and upgrading components is difficult to impossible and BIOS updates are an afterthought . And those mirror-like high gloss displays that are typically found on consumer laptops are annoying.

 

[EarDemon]

Supposedly Amazon had the 65” Sony A80J OLED TV for $1300, a $700+ discount. That was last year’s model, I am interested in getting an A80K, this year’s model. I didn’t think twice about buying the deeply discounted A80J. 1) I don’t want a left over, no matter the savings 2) I’m not supporting Amazon, no matter the savings. I have no problem spending $21 or 2200 on the current A80K from somewhere other than Amazon.

When the Windows 10 Feature Updates were much larger and more significant, going back to 1511, 1607, 1703, I would have users with HDDs reboot their computers for whatever reason, and then the update would install and they would be down for hours in the middle of the work day. Laptop users who had 5400 RPM drives were impacted with most. The same or similar spec’d computers with SSDs would take minutes.

For the RAM, would have to know the current configuration and number of slots, and max amount the motherboard can support. I can't stand when you order a computer with 8 GB of RAM and they give you two 4 GB sticks, instead of one 8 GB. That's why I maxed mine out with 64 GB of DDR4 ECC from the factory. 12 GB of RAM sounds like an 8 GB + 4 GB stick, or more than likely would need an 8 GB stick of DDR3 or DDR4. So whatever that costs versus an SSD. 2.5" SATA drives from reputable manufactures are very inexpensive these days and NVMe drives are falling fast. My 1 TB WD Black 750 was $250 is 2020, it's replacement the SN850 is about half that. My 7 year old work laptop is maxed out at 16 GB and I never had any issues and I'm running a few VMs for testing purposes.

 

[reubenray]

On another forum someone asked if my hard drive runs at 100%. When I notice it is bogging down I check task manager and it is running at 100%. This is when I check to see if an update is ongoing and 99% of the time it is. Right now after 24 hours of issues and my hard drive is running about 12%.