Help with ancient laptop

[toomuchlikemyusername]

Hello wise ones.

I have a pretty old laptop - maybe 6+ years. I don't use it for a lot, a bit of browsing, some word processing stuff. It kind of serves a purpose but by heck, it's slow. You can literally hear the insides of it whirring and clicking as it creaks it's way towards whatever thing it is that I want to open/look at.
I've tried some googling for fixes but given that I have no tech brains cells at all I am quickly out of my depth and overwhelmed.

Can anyone hold the hand of this IT challenged person and offer some very simple advice as to what I might do to help speed it up or to decide it's a lost cause.
Broadband works fine and at good speeds on other devices in the house so I don't think that is the issue.
This could be painful so please keep it very, very simple....
Many thanks in anticipation.

Can you do a defrag? That speeds them up sometimes?

And delete any software type stuff you don’t use.

www.dummies.com/computers/for-seniors-how-to-defragment-your-computer-hard-drive/

Mine has the same problems and is ancient 9yrs+ I await the answers to your question before I have to invest in a new laptop.

Its difficult isn't it. I suspect your laptop needs replacing, but before you do that -
First of all tidy up your Mail box. Delete all your old emails from your Inbox and Sent Box. Then delete from your Deleted Items. Then make sure you don't have too many saved in Folders.
Next tidy up your internet browsing history. There will be a button somewhere that says History. In there look for a button that says Clear History. Click that.
Other than that I can't help. Good luck!

Thank you all. I will start with these ideas. I will report back!

just another thought, go to youtube and ask the same question. You will see a number of vids offering advise such as this one:-
You dont have to do all the suggestions, just the ones your happy with. Good Luck

i) run a full virus & spyware scan (windows 10 has one pre-installed, run Windows Security in your programs list; else get free Antivirus / Spyware software from either www.avast.com or www.avg.com).

(NB it is important that you only have one Antivirus solution installed, and that it has been updated prior to a scan).

ii) Error Check the hard drive (right click on C:drive, select Properties, select tools, select Error Checking, click Check)

iii) Download the free version of CCleaner from www.ccleaner.com/ - once installed, (a) Run the EasyClean function, then (b) click on Registry, Scan For Issues, then Fix Selected Issues, (c) Click on Tools, Uninstall and then uninstall any software you don't use any more.

iv) Defragment the hard drive by either (a) Running windows Defragment utility (right click on C:drive, select Properties, select tools, select Optimise), OR (b) you can install the free version of Defraggler from www.ccleaner.com/defraggler and then run this (nb this option will be quicker).

v) Optional - Go to System Tools in your Programs list, Right Click on Command Prompt, Click on Run as Administrator. When the Black window appears enter the command "sfc /scannow" (without the quatation marks), this opens and runs the Windows System File Checker tool, which Checks & Repairs (if necessary), all the Protected System Files.

Hope this helps.

P.S. The other way to speed up an old laptop is by (i) adding more RAM & (ii) by replacing the old hard disk with a SSD (Solid State Drive). If you want to explore either of these options, then run the free system scan at uk.crucial.com/

PPS the final way to get better use from an old laptop is to replace Windows with a light, user friendly version of linux. I'd recommend zorinos.com/ which aims to be as much like Windows as possible (nb make sure you download the Lite version for an old computer, also make sure you download the right version 32 or 64 bit - (when you run CCleaner (as above) at the very top of the page it will say whether your system is a 32bit or a 64 bit machine).

If your machine is Windows 7 the above will be a very good idea as Microsoft are going to stop issuing Windows 7 updates in the New Year, so your computer would thereafter become vulnerable if you continued to use Windows 7.

Sorry, turned into a bit of an essay - I'm a bit of a geek!

With a clanky older laptop, I would think about the drastic option of replacing that struggling hard drive with an SSD.

It depends if you can get inside the case. If you turn your laptop upside down and can see little screw holes and a very small hard drive symbol, you are in luck.

Ok it is fiddly: you’ll need some cash, patience, some time and willingness to learn. But it really is not hard. And the results are fantastic. Look out for a laptop SSD kit to help you out.

Ask someone with a PC to clone your drive to an SSD, it’s easy to do with plenty of online guides.

Just buy an SSD big enough, prices are fairly low these days so it shouldn’t be expensive.

I replaced the hard drive in my parents 2009 MacBook with an SSD and it went from 10 min boot and barely useable to faster than new!

They had a 250GB drive and I replaced it with a 500 as that was all I had spare. Another 250GB would have been fine and cost about £50.

Thank you for the recent replies on this. I'll run through them in a quiet moment, probably over the weekend and report back. I really appreciate the input.