I totally understand.... it's a comfortable POS to work with :D

Did your system do an update in the last few months? I only ask because mine did and has become PAINFULLY slow on startup. Thanks for the "fix" Microsoft!

Yeah it did an update about 3 weeks ago , probably a contributor to the slow boot time .

It's windows. It kicked my laptop's ass too and I've got 16gb ram, 1tb HD with a Core I7 processor. :mad:

I think the one three weeks ago was to fix a mess created by an "update" a few weeks prior. I think it was back in September that it updated and took forever. I think it was a full install of a newer 10 version. After that my laptop went downhill.

2010 laptop is a bit outdated.
It has a very slow CPU, low RAM, and crap hard drive.
If you want a fun project, then throw money at it, but it still have that terribly slow CPU

You don't need 500 GB SSD, you can get away with 128GB for $20

Or, you can spend $100 to $200 and get yourself a much better used laptop.
$150 gets you an i5 CPU, SSD, and 8GB ram, with Windows 10.

Not anymore. I swear, Microsoft did this on purpose. A basic install of W10 now requires more than 32GB of disk space, and uses basically 3.999GB of RAM just to be alive. They knew that there were lots of computers floating around with 4GB of RAM, which are all now basically extinct. As well, there was a whole market for small chromebook-like Windows machines with 4GB RAM and a 32GB SSD drive, very small, very fast...you can't even install W10 on them now.

I'm not much of a consumer conspiracy person, but it's pretty clear that MS had driven their main product to have requirements that put a significant portion of the computers out there out of commission.

Or, maybe, just maybe, Win10 does more than 20 year old versions of the older software. OMG! It needs more resources? Win10 needs 32GB of disk space? 4GB of RAM? The people still using a 15 year old PC with 4GB and under 32GB of disk space are not a relevant part of any market. Keep using it, wear the tinfoil hat, and enjoy your outdated stuff. No, 4GB is not enough. Is a 35HP Beetle engine also enough for today's traffic? Keep driving the Model T while the world moves forward. Microsoft has no obligation to make software that runs on decade old hardware. Do you expect your browser to run on your 40 year old Atari or Commodore computer? Do you complain that your Model T doesn't have ABS? JFC.



https://i.imgur.com/kvuzJsL.png

I will freely admit I don't fit the demographic to buy the latest gizmo available . I have three vehicles which are 10 , 18 and 19 years old . I also don't have the mindset to throw away something that works just to buy something new/shiny .

So with that mindset that is why I posted . If I can make my laptop 20 percent faster by adding $38.00 for 8GB of memory to me it is worth doing it . If another $50.00 - $60.00 for a SSD drive gains more speed it's worth it to me . That would be as far as I go .

There is always the insurance policy to go purchase new . But new is no guarantee of quality .......... the saying they don't build things like they used to sometimes rings true .

For what you are doing, and now knowing what that POS Win10 now requires... imo you're going to be just fine after adding more RAM.

I know what I would do....

Ignore somebody :D

OMG I put a 800hp crate motor into my 1968 Impala.
What do you mean I can't use my original drum brakes anymore?
What a POS engine !

The OP only drives 10 mph to church and back... his drum brakes are just fine, and 150 hp was way more than he ever needed anyways.

OP has received the advice he asked for .... and yours too ;)

Jeez are you annoying sometimes. There was a cottage market for "Chromebook killer" laptops, which was destroyed when MS made a windows 10 upgrade which made it too big to fit on 32GB eMMC drives. I had one of these in the garage, I used it to tune my Microsquirt car. There isn't tuning software for ChromeOS, so I went with a small, stupidly fast Windows option for my tuning.

Does that sound like a Model T geezer? 3 year old eMMC powered laptop, just for my garage, to tune my aftermarket EFI car? Huh? No, that sounds like someone who put together a pretty high tech solution, which was cut off at the knees by a freaking OS update.

I got an early "FREE" version of Win 10 and installed on an old laptop that was never designed for it. It was an old laptop I only used when traveling; and to try out Win 10........Without going into long detail, I got frustrated, gave that laptop away and ordered two new "Refurbished units. One laptop and a desktop. Ordered both with Win 7.

Now a few years later, I couldn't be happier. Both Dell with good anti virus software, Brave brower and Duckduckgo search engine.....Plenty of zip for what I do. Use Sleep mode and rarely reboot.

No sure how long I can go this way, but playing with Linux on one of my partions for the next chapter.....MS pissed me off long ago.........Flame on.......

Wrong.

I've upgraded half a dozen MPB's most recently a 2011 13". The SSD is a simple plug and play swap. If you don't care about all your files, internet recovery will take about 45 minutes to reload High Sierra. Otherwise time machine.

A 2011 MPB with an SSD and 8GB is blazing quick (for most tasks) with the SSD upgrade. Unless you're doing games or 4k video editing, you'd be literally throwing your money buying a new laptop.

Yea, spend $100 to still have an obsolete CPU and obsolete OS.
Great advice. He can get a better used laptop with for about the same money.

Concur.

I am religious on backing up with Time Machine and after some coaching from so folks here, did the swap to SSD after the old drive failed. Mid 12 MBP.

Could not have gone any easier. The macOS is now Mojave and it is my travel laptop. I decided in 2015 to get a MBP with a larger second display because in those days I was on the road a lot and wanted a non-travelling house computer.

Jeez, you are still annoying. Since you like to get stuck on ideas and beat them into the ground, lets talk facts.

Right now, he can go on Amazon, and but 2x4GB A-Tech memory for $32. He can them buy a Kingston 240GB SSD drive for $26. Both delivered, and at least for me, delivered this weekend.

So, for under $60 (not $100, as you keep parroting), he gets a significant kick to his laptop. The SSD drives come with software to clone the drive over, which means that he also doesn't have to deal with the LARGE annoyance of transferring all of his software/pictures/whatever over to a different laptop. That's worth $100 right there!

Finally, there are no used laptops that are $100 that would be such a significant upgrade from this as to be worth it, despite you claims. Finally, isn't basically ANY $100-150 laptop OBSOLETE, and therefore needs to be destroyed in your eyes?

So, option 1: Keep laptop, toss $60 in parts in, and be up and running by Monday morning with no changes to lifestyle.
Option 2: Buy used laptop, spend $200-250, reinstall Windows because it's a used laptop and who knows what's in there, reinstall all of his software, transfer by hand all of his documents, all while hoping he doesn't screw up. In the end, he's a week out, with a new laptop that he has to learn, which really isn't going to be any faster than the current one with some upgrades.

Good idea.

$139 gets you a T410 with 8GB, SSD, Win10 and an i7 CPU that is more than twice as fast.
Much better than what he currently has on all fronts.
Last I checked this same config was selling for $75, so prices have gone up during COVID

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T410-Intel-Core-i7-M620-2-67GHZ-8GB-RAM-128GB-SSD-Win-10-ID/293845235341?hash=item446a8a768d:g:c1IAAOSwzJZfuBp c

Is that a joke? Surely you're joking. You give me an example of a 10 YEAR OLD LAPTOP, with a smaller SSD, no power cord, unknown condition, which looks like it fell off a building, AND he'll have to do all of the software rebuilding/cleaning hat I mentioned...for more than TWICE what I'm suggesting he spends, and you think that's a good option? Isn't the ThinkPad EXACTLY as obsolete as his current computer?

Oh, let's not forget that he has a 15.6 inch monitor with a separate keypad, while your example has a 14 inch monitor and no keypad, one of those crunched up keyboards. I'm sure he'd love going over to a 14 inch monitor these days...

Update to an SSD as has been said and if you feel up to it, ditch Windows and all of its associated bloatware / phishing-ware (particularly “Edge”) and run a different OS. There are many easy-to-use Linux variants out there. It used to be the haven of the techno-geeks and you had to know your way around UNIX commands to do anything but that’s no longer the case. You can make it as geeky or not as you want now.

I despise having to use my Windows PC at work (needed for certain things). I use my MacBook Pro for just about everything that’s not required to be on that network simply because I can’t stand the increasingly clown-ish interface and feeling that the thing is constantly trying to figure out a way to sprout arms, hands and fingers to pick my pocket and get access to my bank accounts even though it’s “sensitive work only”... I trust Microsoft Edge about as far as I could throw a VW bus.