Slow Slow Slow

Lenovo Think Pad, L440, intelcore i5G/260, win10pro. Things are very slow around here. Some pages load very slowly if at all. The circle just spins and spins.
Some pictures will not display. I do get the little tiny image and If I click on that then the picture will appear.
I have been using Opera, and of course Edge comes on the machine but I don't use it. I downloaded Brave.
The pictures appear now, but it is still slow at times, and that java script is off BS drives me nuts. \S0:

1) Do I have a virus? I ran Malwarebytes, Malwarebytes rootkit finder, and the built in Microsoft defender or what ever it is called these days. Everything was clean.

2) Is my old modem (which is also a router) bad? How do I test? I did a ping test last night and the fastest I got was 100.

3) Is it the latest Windows update? If so how do I get rid of it?

If this should be in Hardware, send it there.

Thanks

 

Back up your important data to an external drive, then format and clean install Win10.
Runs nice on my Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU N3700 @ 1.60GHz
4.00 GB RAM.
You must give the old registry a clean start.....you will only chase your tail any other way!

 

Yes, a clean reinstall will cure all ills. But depending on how much you customize your OS, it can take hours/days/weeks to research and recustomize all over again. In my case, I view clean reinstall as a last resort - although sometimes, you simply have to.

IF it's been a long while - or you've never done it before - then I would recommend a good cleaning with Ccleaner (cleaning for both junk and registry) and Glarysoft. Many here seem to like Privazer. I visit my folks about once a year and a good clean results in a noticeable speed up.

Secondly, take a look at what apps are started automatically upon boot up and see if you really need them. The more apps (esp.'heavy' ones), the more sluggish your computer. I would try these before doing a clean reinstall.

 

Without wanting you to purchase anything to get the improvements you might wish for I would like to uncover the elephant in the room. Namely the speeds of SSD's against HDD mechanical drives. I heard that 1TB Crucial SSD's were going for around £70...

Found this quote 'Go and get the SSD as it makes a big improvement in system responsiveness.'

Good luck with the puzzle.
s.

 

Your doing something wrong, a cloud based backup is grand to restore from.....a clean install should never be a last resort, more like a go to, but this does allow us to have a computer help forum.
I do it for fun on a boring saturday afternoon.
My systems run fast.

You must always have everything backed up!