Laptop Showing It's Age

So I've had this laptop for around 4 or 5 years now (not really that long imo) and it's starting to show it's age. I've noticed it running things a bit slower and having problem running certain programs. As far as I know it's clean of any virus or malware. I don't game much anymore, but on occasion I like to cut loose and play a little fallout or dragon age. My laptop is an MSI GX-630 series. I haven't had a desktop for about 6 years now so now that uncle sam's giving me back a good 400 dollars I've put some though into getting a new one. Like I've said maybe I don't need one, maybe someone more technically savvy than me could clean it out and start this laptop fresh, but I am thinking about it at least.

Here's a model that caught my eye for being a nice computer and being able to do a bit of average gaming (still not sure if I really want that or not) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227392&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=5367341&SID=skim18202X753938Xc18da059838d511abe1094c0f40e29a7

But I've also been thinking about maybe saving up a bit more and upgrading to a macbook or a macbook air.

Now I know my post was a bit long winded, but based on that background info does anyone have some advice for me? I've never owned a mac and I'm not all that tech savvy.

This one currently runs with windows vista. I'm noticing that my c drive (OS Install) is pretty much full to bursting and I don't really know what I can get rid of from my program files to make it not so. Could this be slowing it down?

alleycat said:

Have you considered getting an external drive to store some of your files? You can get a very large external now for less than $100. It would also be good to have in the future.

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The thing is I'm not really sure why my C drive is so full. I don't really have a lot of stuff on this computer. The games I've previously mentioned are always uninstalled after they aren't used for awhile and I've formatted itunes so that my music is stored in the D drive. Maybe there's some huge stash of useless junk that I just can't find "shrug". But that is a thought.

alleycat said:

Have you checked Task Manager or (if you have it) Process Explorer to see what's using most of your CPU and memory?

You may have some things running in the background you don't need.

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Yeah. Not that many processes running. A few that I don't know what they are as in mostly tkhhgj techno things, but nothing that sticks out to me as bad. Maybe it's just slowing from wear? I've only recently started noticing it and popped in some games to test it and noticed them not running as well as before.

alleycat said:

Have you run a cleaner, such as ATF or CCleaner?

Also, have you cleaned your registry since you've had the computer?

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I used to have CCleaner actually. I think that I have cleaned the registry, but perhaps I could re-download CCleaner and give that a try. Thanks for all the helpfulness .

I've just ran CCleaner, hopefully that will help. As for the TaskManager. Most of the memory usage seems to come from Chrome and Internet Explorer, followed by a few that I can't really tell what they are, but I think they are important so I don't touchy .
EDIT: Giving Process Explorer a DL.

P.S.

I can't really understand what Process Explorer is trying to tell me about these programs...hehe.

Good news! After running CCLeaner my C drive now has 11gb out of the 43 available rather than about 3.

it said around 8k mb and yes I also had it clean my registry. Yeah.. I meant explorer..I assumed it was IE..."facepalm".

alleycat said:

Don't kill Explorer or you'll have a nice blue screen to look at until you reboot. ;-)

I'm surprised CC didn't clean out more that just 8 mb. Have you been manually cleaning out your temporary and cache files?

Are you familiar with using msconfig?

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I may have read that wrong, but I believe it said something along the lines of 8,000 mb. I try to run disk cleaner often, but I haven't done a defrag in awhile. Msconfig sounds familiar, but I can't recall the last time I've done something with it.

alleycat said:

Just get familiar with PE. You're going to want to leave most of the processes alone, but you may see some that you want to temporary suspend. Right-click on the process and select suspend. Right-click and select resume if you want to restart the process.

Also, you can set the priority of a processes in either Task Manager or PE. Again, you want to leave most of the processes alone, but you might want to set the priority high on Chrome or a game when you're running them.

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Thanks a ton. Hopefully this will clear things up and have this running a bit more smoothly. I may still invest in a desktop or save up for a mac (a lot of people on here seem to love these), but it's good to know there are still a few things I can do to improve my current laptop. I might take archerjoe's advice and try to upgrade to Windows 7 as well.

Well I'm currently in college working on a double major of History and Education. So in about a year I should "hopefully" either be teaching or maybe a sort of museum job (bit sketchy on what you can do with a B.A. in History besides teach) so I don't think my type of computer will matter that much. I'm currently using Libre Office for writing be it novels or for school.