Speeding Up/repairing Windows 7 Pc

I broke out the old Windows 7 Home Premium laptop I have. As before, it runs very slow. The RAM runs at 80%+ all the time and the CPU runs at 100% almost all the time. How do I fix this? I've run SFC and DISM.exe successfully on my Windows 10 laptop when it has these issues, but not sure if they would work on Windows 7. Are they similar commands for 7? I only use the Windows 7 laptop to play a game that doesn't work on Windows 10, but am considering giving the 7 PC away. I certainly can't do that if the thing doesn't work properly. Any suggestions/recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

System Information:

HP Presario CQ62 Notebook PC
Windows 7 Home Premium
Intel Celeron CPU 900 @ 2.20 GHz 2.19 GHz
Memory 2.00 GB (very low, I know)
64-bit operating system

 

Sometimes just turning a system on frequently will help, or turning it on an hour before you want to use it. When a system has not been on in a while it goes through all of its "house keeping" - checking for updates, scanning for viruses. Sometimes a fresh Windows install will help.
Yeah, adding memory and an SSD helps too, but what is the return on that investment?

 

The CPU isn't worth the upgrades. Major bottleneck. It's got Pentium 4 grade power.

 

I would like to partially retract that statement. It could run light duty Linux. It might be worth one "upgrade", lol.

 

What are the specs on your current W10 machine? I've used VM rather successfully to help people play old games. Like Race Driver: GRID for the demolition derby. Trust me, it's fun. Game not compatible with W10, though.

 

I have worked on one of those, they were considered slow back in 2010 when they came out. If it were me, and I wanted to keep using it, I would buy a small SSD, (newegg), and do a fresh install on it, and upgrade the ram, (ebay), you need more ram bad.
If you dont want to spend money, I would still do a fresh install of its OS. Do not install anything that might use resources, you have none to spare. If it does not see the internet, I would even turn off antivirus, and firewall, keep it as bare bones as you can get it. Defrag the hard-drive, even after a fresh install.
That is my 2 cents.

 

[QUOTE="Defrag the hard-drive, even after a fresh install.
[/QUOTE]
Let me make clear, only defrag your original spinning disk HD. Do not defrag SSD's. They do not require defrag'n, and will only decrease it lifespan. So turn off defrag in settings.

 

I purchased and installed 4 GB of RAM after I was told my system could not handle more than that, but for some reason my Pain-in-the-you-know-what Windows 7 isn't recognizing the upgrade. I double and triple checked that the units were installed properly and they are. I'm not all that familiar with Windows 7, as I went from XP to Windows 8 when 8 became available. What could be causing the system to not recognize the upgrade?

 

How much ram is showing up?
BTW, on board graphics will use some of the ram, so it may not show all 4GB's.

 

2 GB, which is what it had before

 

Shite. Are you looking at what the system board sees in BIOS, or what Windows sees? Id est, where are your readings coming from?

 

Good question. Since Windows 7 is practically Greek to me, as I went directly from XP to 8, I don't know how to read the BIOS. I opened Control Panel and looked at System details. It told me installed RAM was 2 GB.

 

The key to tap at startup could be F1, F2, F10, F12, or possibly Delete. When you push the power button, tap the key to enter BIOS.