Speed Boost on Laptop - Is it possible?

whaddadeal on 26/10/2017 - 17:56
Last edited 26/10/2017 - 21:32

Hey guys,

Edit: Solved…
Chrome works a whole lot better than firefox. I didnt think they could be so slow in comparison. Tsk tsk Firefox.

To other commenters, thanks for your time! You can always trust the ozbargain community to get to the bottom of something

So I've gotten my hands on one of Ozbargain's favourite deal of a computer - The Lenovo e470 found below:
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/330841
(i just looked up the laptop and realised its dropped a couple hundred during that deal - Bought mine for $950 :( )

So the problem:

I find browsing on firefox to be quite slow. Particularly the latency. The computer's specs seem to be pretty good to handle browsing fluidly, but im real world use, it is not.
I have a 2012 macbook air with an Intel i5 chip set that is significantly zippier/snappier. Though I do browse using Safari, I still didnt think there'd be such a big difference. I was expecting 0 lag browsing with the Lenovo.

Is there any way I can achieve the same level of snappiness and fluidity in browsing as my macbook air?

Some considerations:

  • I output my monitor to a 2k Screen via HDMI. Although when browsing just on the laptop without the monitor, I still experience lag.
  • It seems to be a CPU bottleneck if anything. RAM never goes over the 5GB/8GB level. Will overclocking make any differences?
  • The SSD form in the MBA are those slim ones, so different to the one in the Lenovo. Is this the bottleneck?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Phancy

Computing

Comments

  • oscargamer on 26/10/2017 - 18:03
    +1

    i am no computer guru, but latency is not a problem of the computer, rather the internet connection….

    • whaddadeal on 26/10/2017 - 18:19

      ahh I think I did a noob-move and used the wrong word.

      The problem actually is theres a delay for whatever or so microseconds, sometimes when typing, sometimes when switching between tabs.

      Actually as I write this, I experience almost 1 second lag in typing and seeing it on the monitory.

      • oscargamer on 26/10/2017 - 18:54
        +1

        if you can't explain your issue correctly/accurately…then how the xxxx are we supposed to give any useful advice?

      • [Deactivated] on 26/10/2017 - 18:58

        Maybe its the igpu..

        • oscargamer on 26/10/2017 - 19:01

          again……i'm no guru, but how would that affect what the OP is experiencing?

  • Hazzard on 26/10/2017 - 18:21
    +1

    It seems to be a CPU bottleneck if anything…

    Out of curiosity, how did you come to this conclusion? Does the CPU activity in the task manager max out when browsing? Have you tried a different browser?

  • garetz on 26/10/2017 - 18:30
    +1

    Ibm notebooks comes with alot of bloatware, which slows your whole system down, find a program that detects and removes it all, or do a clean installation, should fix your issue.

  • dazweeja on 26/10/2017 - 18:32
    +1

    Open up Task Manager when latency is occurring. Click on CPU to sort processes from high to low. Antivirus, Windows Search Indexer, and Windows Updater are big culprits in my experience.

  • outlander on 26/10/2017 - 18:44
    +1

    Try noscript. Those latency issues are often to do with javascript, I don't know why. I have the same issues, and noscript helps alot. It's got nothing to do with physical stuff like cpu or ram, unless those or the connectors are damaged.

  • [Deactivated] on 26/10/2017 - 18:46
    +1

    Other than bloatware and antivirus software, the biggest unnecessary cause of slowness is the Microsoft .NET framework service. Switching that to manual can speed your computer up, depending on your needs.

  • airal3rt on 26/10/2017 - 18:48
    +1

    Do a clean installation of the OS, these laptops come preloaded with so much bloatware that it's exceedingly difficult to eliminate it all without a fresh install.

    Another possibility is the power saving features could be underclocking and undervolting the CPU, resulting in the micro delays. Tweak the power/peformance settings to see if that resolves the issue.

  • fenric on 26/10/2017 - 18:51
    +1

    Firefox can be pretty clunky. I love it and use it as my primary browser, but I accept its clunkyness.
    Hangs and slowdowns are very common, and usually improve after firefox is restarted (quite often you have to end process in task manager).
    Try doing your same browsing style on chrome or edge (as annoying as it is) and see if you get the same result.
    The more tabs you have open, the more likely you are to get slowdown also (I currently have around 100 open..but I am a strange individual)

    • whaddadeal on 26/10/2017 - 21:09

      Hi Fenric, I tried chrome and voila, a lot better. So simple, i guess i had the impression that firefox werent that behind the curve that the difference would be due to the coding.

      I tried disabling no-script as a replyer mentioned above. It worked but there are quite a few sites like FB that I use that has some sort of mandatory script.

      Thanks for your help ! Legend

  • hmac on 26/10/2017 - 19:40
    +1

    Have you tried going into "Choose a power plan" and selecting something like "High Performance" rather than "Balanced" or "Power Saver"

    Definitely gives a speed boost.

    Also, do you have an ssd or hdd? If it is a hdd, look at Task Manager and what is the Disk Usage percentage?

  • [Deactivated] on 26/10/2017 - 19:43
    +1

    Windows VS OSX bro

  • o53djz7qTPY4der on 26/10/2017 - 20:23
    +1

    Step 1: Install Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Lubuntu.
    Step 2: Install Chromium.

    Alternatively, install Chromium on Windows. But, as others said, there is heaps of bloatware which is possibly the cause of the problem.

    As a side note, IME FF runs like junk on OSX - Safari, however, was designed for OSX.

    • Diji1 on 26/10/2017 - 21:25
      +1

      Firefox runs like junk everywhere.

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