I bought a laptop one year ago, an HP G62, I always have been happy with that machine, powerful and perfectly suited for my habits (a lot of web surfing, of HD video, …). But for a few months I felt that my computer was slowing down. I’ve been looking for solutions to keep the machine at its top.

Heat: First, I realized that, as many HP laptops, my G62 had some serious overheating problems. I’ve been playing some games, and playing a lot of 1080p videos and my computer had some serious overheating moments. At its worst moments, my computer couldn’t accomplish some simple tasks, it was simply too hot. This can make real damages to a laptop, it’s simply killing it. It is absolutely necessary to try to keep your computer on a clean surface, and moreover to keep the area where its fan is doing its job clear. I bought two Belkin’s cooling pads, a “cooling lounge” for bed/out of my desk duties and a “laptop cooling hub” for my desk, it helped a lot to keep the fan (GPU) area fresh, clean and free of obstacles. My computer’s performances were suddenly better.

Clean start: Another solution is of course to reinstall your OS. With time, your OS is slowing down as it is overloaded with unnecessary softwares, drivers, datas, … Every software and files that you added on your HDD has left something. Reinstall your or OS, or even better format you HDD, to get back to your new-like computer.

Optimize your Hard Drive Disk: With time, your HDD is getting fuller and fuller. Moreover, the stocked data is getting fragmented on your HDD. The HDD has to work harder to get to your data, and to accomplish tasks. Reducing the degree of fragmentation of stocked data is increasing dramatically your computer’s performances. To do that, you can use the built-in Windows tool or use a third part software, O&O Defrag for instance.

Antivirus – and other protections: It may be shocking to some people, but i don’t use any antivirus or firewall, etc. I know this is stupid, but I hate having programs running in the background all the time. Anyway, it is absolutely necessary to use something to detect viruses and trojans. I’ve been recently using Bitdefender Quickscan, a free web based virus detector service, it works like a charm. It helped me realize that some trojans were slowing down my machine. Firewalls and anti-fishing programs are also vital to keep your computer clean and efficient. It is too bad this load of software is slowing down your system too… but the damages a virus or a trojan can do are worst.

Keep your system updated and light: I seriously think that a computer loaded with a bunch of softwares and files is meant to be slow. Of course,  500 GB HDDs, or 1 TB+ HDDs are meant to be filed with a huge amount of data, but more files and softwares there are, more your computer is getting slower. Especially if those softwares are launched with Windows, and if your HDD is not optimized. I try to erase what I don’t use, organize my data and get rid of unnecessary softwares (especially web related crap).

With all that, my G62 is back on track, almost like when it was brand new. For a laptop, hardware upgrades are so difficult to accomplish (hardware limitations/pricey parts) that you better have to work on keeping your computer optimized.