Is my laptop just not fast enough?

By Royalty
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Royalty

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Well,

This is the laptop I have: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-envy-x360-2-in-1-15-6-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-8gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-natural-silver/4221702.p?id=1219708600904&skuId=4221702

 

I feel like my laptop is just not fast enough. I mean I have an i7 and 8GB of RAM. I used to have this: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387430,00.asp

 

Here is why I feel like it's not fast enough:

YouTube videos lag whenever I try to play 720p or 1080p videos.

When I have too many programs open (for example 8 of the same programs) on both my new and old laptop, my old laptop seems to run and "feel" faster.

I haven't gamed yet with my new laptop but I'm going to try it soon. I doubt it will be as good as the old one though.

 

Any reason for this? I used to run Windows 7 on my old laptop and I have Windows 10 on my new laptop (it came with it). I just don't know how I can take full advantage of my laptop as I'm getting very frustrated with this new laptop.

 

Thanks.

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Grand Master

LUTZIFER

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The Hard Drive is slowing you down big time. I can't believe it'd even have a 5400 RPM drive in it.

Either 7200 or an SSD, preferably SSD would definitely make your laptop fly.

Other than that, everything else is great. Definitely should be able to do some hardcore gaming on that graphics card.

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Royalty

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The Hard Drive is slowing you down big time. I can't believe it'd even have a 5400 RPM drive in it.

Either 7200 or an SSD, preferably SSD would definitely make your laptop fly.

Other than that, everything else is great. Definitely should be able to do some hardcore gaming on that graphics card.

Awesome, thanks for letting me know that. I don't understand tech at all :p

 

Also, when you said, "Definitely should be able to do some hardcore gaming on that graphics card.", are you being sarcastic? What do you think about GTA V? Thanks,

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Grand Master

+Warwagon MVC

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While the SSD is definitely something you should have done yesterday, i'm not sure a the 5400 RPM drive is slowing you down as far as youtube. By that time, a lot of that should be cached in RAM. What is your Internet speed like?

All that being said, yes an SSD will show you the true potential of the laptop. Now the question becomes how easy is that laptop for swapping out the drive. After youtubing it, looks like you have to take the keyboard and palm rest off to get to the drive.

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Royalty

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While the SSD is definitely something you should have done yesterday, i'm not sure a the 5400 RPM drive is slowing you down as far as far as youtube. By that time, a lot of that should be cached in RAM. What is your Internet speed like?

All that being said, yes an SSD will show you the true potential of the laptop. Now the question becomes how easy is that laptop for swapping out the drive. After youtubing it, looks like you have to take the keyboard and palm rest off to get to the drive.

Oh. Probably a really hard task. I'm thinking of getting a better desktop anyways sometime soon. Thanks for the help though! :)

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Grand Master

+Warwagon MVC

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Oh. Probably a really hard task. I'm thinking of getting a better desktop anyways sometime soon. Thanks for the help though! :)

 

Maybe Maybe not. There was a dell insprion that was also a pain in the ass. The first time took me a while.Then I did an exact same model laptop a week later, that time I was in and out in 7 mins

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Royalty

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Maybe Maybe not. There was a dell insprion that was also a pain in the ass. The first time took me a while.Then I did an exact same model laptop a week later, that time I was in and out in 7 mins

You're talking to someone that has never built a custom built computer before. Lol.

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Grand Master

LUTZIFER

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Awesome, thanks for letting me know that. I don't understand tech at all :p

 

Also, when you said, "Definitely should be able to do some hardcore gaming on that graphics card.", are you being sarcastic? What do you think about GTA V? Thanks,

I have the NVidia 840M in mine, and I play or have played all the newest big name games, with all the graphics levels cranked, and my games run awesome.

I haven't played GTA V though, I'm into first person shooters and racing games.

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Royalty

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I have the NVidia 840M in mine, and I play or have played all the newest big name games, with all the graphics levels cranked, and my games run awesome.

I haven't played GTA V though, I'm into first person shooters and racing games.

 

Ahh I see. Thanks for the help though! :)

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Grand Master

DevTech

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Well,

This is the laptop I have: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-envy-x360-2-in-1-15-6-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-8gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-natural-silver/4221702.p?id=1219708600904&skuId=4221702

 

I feel like my laptop is just not fast enough. I mean I have an i7 and 8GB of RAM. I used to have this: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387430,00.asp

 

Here is why I feel like it's not fast enough:

YouTube videos lag whenever I try to play 720p or 1080p videos.

When I have too many programs open (for example 8 of the same programs) on both my new and old laptop, my old laptop seems to run and "feel" faster.

I haven't gamed yet with my new laptop but I'm going to try it soon. I doubt it will be as good as the old one though.

 

Any reason for this? I used to run Windows 7 on my old laptop and I have Windows 10 on my new laptop (it came with it). I just don't know how I can take full advantage of my laptop as I'm getting very frustrated with this new laptop.

 

Thanks.

 

CPU:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmark-List.2436.0.html

NEW: [downgrade] i7-5500U Dual Core (position 138) 3807

OLD: i7-2630QM Quad Core (position 92) 5039


RAM:

NEW: 8 gig single channel [downgrade]

OLD: 8 gig dual channel


Graphics:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

NEW: [upgrade] 930M (position 141) 2061 to 1920x1080

OLD: 6770 (position 207) 1328 to 1600x900


Hard drive: both crap 5400 spinning disks

So, it's not hard to see how the new laptop feels slower than the old one. You have essentially made a reasonably large downgrade to a lower spec device.

Windows 10 should be slightly more efficient than 7 but it can't make up for fundamental hardware differences. You have a lot less CPU power in the new unit with only 2 CPU cores. If you still have the old unit, just upgrade it to Windows 10 and then do a subsequent clean install onto a new SSD hard drive. On a 17" laptop the hard drive will be easy to install.

For gaming, the new GPU is faster but also has more pixels to push with the higher resolution screen so performance should be similar.

If you can return the new model, there are a lot of nice laptops these days but really, you will need to budget more money to expect to get a more powerful unit! The Dell XPS-15 for example is very capable for about $1500.

HP Envy x360 Specs:

http://support.hp.com/us-en/product/HP-ENVY-x360-m6-Convertible-PC-series/8499296/model/8788304/document/c04754353/

 

 

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Grand Master

vcfan

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are you having these issues when on battery power or ac? go to control panel ,power options, change your plan settings, advanced power settings,  processor power management, and try setting the minimum and maximum power state to 100%

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Vvo

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Your hdd may not be the issure, your cpu is the bottleneck, The i7 5500u is an ultra low powered processor with two cores. Hence, lag may occur when running tasks that require heavy rendering. For future reference you should pay close attention to the letter suffix listed after the number model (i.e 5500u, I bolded the u to show you were the letter suffix is). U is for ultralow voltage, QM is quad-core processor, and K is processor overclockable.

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Grand Master

adrynalyne

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Your hdd may not be the issure, your cpu is the bottleneck, The i7 5500u is an ultra low powered processor with two cores. Hence, lag may occur when running tasks that require heavy rendering. For future reference you should pay close attention to the letter suffix listed after the number model (i.e 5500u, I bolded the u to show you were the letter suffix is). U is for ultralow voltage, QM is quad-core processor, and K is processor overclockable.

Youtube should not lag on that laptop.

 

I don't lag on 1440p video with similar hardware.

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Grand Master

+virtorio MVC

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I know someone with an HP ENVY TS and it is (well was) unbelievably slow. Even putting in an old 7200 RPM drive I had that wasn't in use made a noticable difference. 

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Grand Master

Seahorsepip Veteran

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Could you do a test at speedtest.net and post the download and upload speed in mbps? 

I have the NVidia 840M in mine, and I play or have played all the newest big name games, with all the graphics levels cranked, and my games run awesome.

I haven't played GTA V though, I'm into first person shooters and racing games.

Give GTA V a try, it's the only shooter that I like more in third person. And it can also be played in 1st person too.

Have been playing a lot of shooters in the past but haven't gotten the time time to play any shooter recently :/ And yeah I'm also a fan of racing games and shooters, waiting for the new NFS :D

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DevTech

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Your hdd may not be the issure, your cpu is the bottleneck, The i7 5500u is an ultra low powered processor with two cores. Hence, lag may occur when running tasks that require heavy rendering. For future reference you should pay close attention to the letter suffix listed after the number model (i.e 5500u, I bolded the u to show you were the letter suffix is). U is for ultralow voltage, QM is quad-core processor, and K is processor overclockable.

Youtube should not lag on that laptop.

 

I don't lag on 1440p video with similar hardware.

 

Before it all gets confused, the Youtube thing is a "symptom" he gave of the underlying question which was why the heck does a shiney new laptop seem slower than his old beat up workhorse?

He "assumed" that something significantly more modern at the same $1000 price would take advantage of new technology. Unfortunately it's a price range full of compromises and stores are like sharks waiting to feed if you don't take the time to read and understand specs.

1. The old laptop and the new laptop both have horrible slow hard drives and will present a crappy experience in any decade of your choice.

2. The new CPU is significantly slower

3. The new GPU might be slightly faster even with the additional pixel load.

4. Both laptops should actually be able to play Youtube videos smoothly and so that one is a Red Herring re the original question. Enabling GPU acceleration for playback may be a sufficeint tweak to make that issue go away and if the objective is only to satistfy the OP's curiously and explain what has happenned then we are done.

5. I suspect he might actually desire to have a usable computer and if the OP confirms that, then various options could be considered although it seems to me it is either get a different laptop or stuff a shiney new SSD in one of the laptops.

 

 

 

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Royalty

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CPU:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmark-List.2436.0.html

NEW: [downgrade] i7-5500U Dual Core (position 138) 3807

OLD: i7-2630QM Quad Core (position 92) 5039


RAM:

NEW: 8 gig single channel [downgrade]

OLD: 8 gig dual channel


Graphics:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

NEW: [upgrade] 930M (position 141) 2061 to 1920x1080

OLD: 6770 (position 207) 1328 to 1600x900


Hard drive: both crap 5400 spinning disks

So, it's not hard to see how the new laptop feels slower than the old one. You have essentially made a reasonably large downgrade to a lower spec device.

Windows 10 should be slightly more efficient than 7 but it can't make up for fundamental hardware differences. You have a lot less CPU power in the new unit with only 2 CPU cores. If you still have the old unit, just upgrade it to Windows 10 and then do a subsequent clean install onto a new SSD hard drive. On a 17" laptop the hard drive will be easy to install.

For gaming, the new GPU is faster but also has more pixels to push with the higher resolution screen so performance should be similar.

If you can return the new model, there are a lot of nice laptops these days but really, you will need to budget more money to expect to get a more powerful unit! The Dell XPS-15 for example is very capable for about $1500.

HP Envy x360 Specs:

http://support.hp.com/us-en/product/HP-ENVY-x360-m6-Convertible-PC-series/8499296/model/8788304/document/c04754353/

 

 

Your hdd may not be the issure, your cpu is the bottleneck, The i7 5500u is an ultra low powered processor with two cores. Hence, lag may occur when running tasks that require heavy rendering. For future reference you should pay close attention to the letter suffix listed after the number model (i.e 5500u, I bolded the u to show you were the letter suffix is). U is for ultralow voltage, QM is quad-core processor, and K is processor overclockable.

I know someone with an HP ENVY TS and it is (well was) unbelievably slow. Even putting in an old 7200 RPM drive I had that wasn't in use made a noticable difference. 

Something else is slowing you down. I bet its software related. But for gaming, a laptop like this one would have been much better.

Thanks all. Can you please recommend me a better laptop than my old one and this one for around the price of $1000? Thanks.

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Grand Master

adrynalyne

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Thanks all. Can you please recommend me a better laptop than my old one and this one for around the price of $1000? Thanks.

Don't get another laptop. Nothing of what you mentioned should be bottlenecked by the hardware other than opening the apps.

Get yourself an SSD for a few hundred bucks and be done with it.

I'm with dafox on this one. It sounds like more of a software issue, but it can probably be alleviated with an SSD. An SSD will make a world of difference on startup and loading apps. It is probably the HP crap preinstalled.

 

YouTube isn't bottlenecked by any of your hardware and neither should the rest. I can reproduce your described circumstances with higher resolution and Intel graphics and not miss a beat. I do have an SSD, but that only comes to play when paging from ram and loading apps (unless your 8 apps are disk intensive).

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Royalty

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Don't get another laptop. Nothing of what you mentioned should be bottlenecked by the hardware other than opening the apps.

Get yourself an SSD for a few hundred bucks and be done with it.

I'm with dafox on this one. It sounds like more of a software issue, but it can probably be alleviated with an SSD. An SSD will make a world of difference on startup and loading apps. It is probably the HP crap preinstalled.

 

YouTube isn't bottlenecked by any of your hardware and neither should the rest. I can reproduce your described circumstances with higher resolution and Intel graphics and not miss a beat. I do have an SSD, but that only comes to play when paging from ram and loading apps (unless your 8 apps are disk intensive).

Yeah, well I"m not too worried about YouTube. I figured it was just the internet problem... (not sure though). If you can, would you recommend me a cheap but good SSD. I know cheap and good don't go well together but you know what I mean. :)

 

Thanks.

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Grand Master

adrynalyne

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Yeah, well I"m not too worried about YouTube. I figured it was just the internet problem... (not sure though). If you can, would you recommend me a cheap but good SSD. I know cheap and good don't go well together but you know what I mean. :)

 

Thanks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W02DV8166&cm_re=850_evo-_-20-147-373-_-Product

 

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kozukumi

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I have a ThinkPad T420s which is from 2011/2012. I have an i7 and 8GB RAM. Graphics is a crappy Intel HD 3000 but it plays back HTML5 1080p60 without any dropped frames on YouTube so there is something not quite right with your machine as it is newer than mine. What browser are you using? Do you have hardware acceleration enabled in the browser? Are you using HTML5 over Flash for YouTube?

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