HP Laptop Running Slow in Windows 11/10
HP is a common computer brand that has gained much popularity. This company produces many excellent laptops but not all of them run fast. You may have complained about your slow HP laptop time after time no matter whether you are using Windows 10 or Windows 11.
Like laptops from other brands, HP laptops can get slow over time and impact the system’s performance. Sometimes you spend much time starting up and loading the Windows operating system, the apps run slowly, crashes happen, etc. Even sometimes HP laptop running slow and freezing appears.
Why is my HP laptop so slow? If you intend to seek out reasons for the HP laptop slow issue, it is a bit difficult to some extent. But the possible causes include unnecessary apps in the background or on startup, insufficient RAM and hard drive space, potential viruses in the system, laptop overheating, hardware malfunction, and more.
Don’t worry when running into the issue of HP laptop running slow in Windows and you can go to find multiple useful solutions to this issue in the following part.
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How to Fix a Slow HP Laptop in Windows 11/10
Use HP PC Hardware Diagnostics
Sometimes your HP laptop slows down due to hardware issues. If one of the components goes wrong, the issue of HP laptop running slow and freezing happens now and then. Although you can continue using the machine, it is annoying since this could decrease efficiency. You should run a hardware diagnostic to find and fix issues or quickly get a repair.
To do this thing, you can use the dedicated tool from HP – HP PC Hardware Diagnostics. It is pre-installed on new HP computers. If you cannot find it on your PC, you can manually download and install it. This tool can help identify, isolate, and diagnose hardware issues.
Step 1: Download and install HP PC Hardware Diagnostics on your Windows 11/10 PC via Microsoft Store. Or, use the direct download link from HP and double-click on the .exe file to install it.
Step 2: Launch HP PC Hardware Diagnostics Windows to its main interface. Click System Tests and click the Run button to start the test.
Step 3: After finishing the tests, you can see the results. If there is a faulty component, troubleshoot the issue by following the on-screen instructions.
If you want to know many details about this hardware diagnostic tool, refer to our previous post - HP Hardware Diagnostics Download/Install/Use: Here’s a Full Guide.
If your hardware runs well, move to the next methods (related to software) to solve HP laptop running slow in Windows 11/10.
Run Performance Tune Check
This way is mentioned on an HP website that can be used to optimize your PC and improve PC performance. To run this tune check, HP Support Assistant version 8.5 & later is required. Just go to download and install this tool on your Windows PC. Then, launch it and click Performance Tune-up Check under Troubleshooting and fixes.
Disable Startup Items
Too many programs on startup could be responsible for HP laptop running slow. When running your laptop, these apps may automatically open. Besides, these apps could impact the PC’s speed and efficiency since they take up many system resources. Thus, make sure you have disabled some unnecessary apps on startup.
Step 1: Open Task Manager on your laptop.
Step 2: Navigate to the Startup tab, select the startup item, and click Disable. Repeat this step for all the items that you want to disable.
Clean up Your Hard Drive
HP laptop running slow may be triggered by the full disk space. Once your hard drive is filled with many files, Windows needs to take much time to get the data of any running program from that hard disk. According to HP, once the storage capacity starts to veer into the range of 90%, the computer may be up to 50% slower compared to its original speed.
It is time to free up disk space including junk files, temporary files, application cache data, unnecessary files, and more. There are multiple ways to clean up your hard drive by freeing up space – uninstall unnecessary apps, run Disk Cleanup, delete unnecessary files, save new files to another location, and more. See our previous post to know more details – 10 Ways to Free up Disk Space in Windows 10/11 [Guide].
Check for Windows Updates
Missing important Windows updates could lead to the issue – HP laptop slow. The machine needs updates to run some new programs since they tend to upgrade automatically as time goes on. Once updates are missing, some apps may not be compatible and this lets the computer run hard, leading to its slow speed and even freezing.
This is a good chance to check for Windows updates and install them on your laptop.
Step 1: Press Win and I to open the Settings app in Windows 11/10.
Step 2: Go to Update & Security > Windows Update and check for updates. In Windows 11, directly go to Windows Update to check for available updates. Once some available updates are detected, download and install them.
Fix Windows Registry
Sometimes HP laptop running slow and freezing may be caused by Windows Registry issues. After installing or uninstalling any apps, Windows Registry may get arsy-varsy. You may see an error and the HP laptop gets slow all of a sudden.
In this case, it is necessary to fix Windows Registry. Although this sounds a bit complicated, you can easily do this thing and just find methods from our previous post – A Guide on How to Fix Broken Registry Items via Five Methods.
Check for Viruses and Malware
Viruses and malware are well known for causing PC crashes and stealing your data. Beyond that, potential viruses, malicious software, adware, spyware, etc. could run in the background in your computer, which takes up many precious resources of CPU and RAM, causing HP laptop slow speed. If you encounter a sudden crash or inexplicable slowdown, your HP laptop may be the victim of a malicious virus.
How to speed up an HP laptop in this situation? Running a full scan every once in a while is a good option. Windows 11/10 has an inbuilt antivirus program named Windows Security, also known as Windows Defender. See how to run a full scan with this tool.
Step 1: In Windows 11/10, type Windows Security into the search box and click the result to open this app.
Step 2: Tap on Virus & threat protection, then you can find the default scan is Quick scan. Just click Scan options, choose Full scan, and click Scan now. This could help check all files and running apps on your hard drive, so it takes longer than one hour.
When your HP laptop runs slow, you can do some software fixes. In addition, you can try some hardware-related methods. See the following two workarounds – upgrade RAM and hard drive. When your laptop is too old, a hardware upgrade is a good way if you don’t want to cost much money to get a new laptop.
Upgrade RAM
You may see signs of slowing if you have a heavily used laptop after a few years, which may be due to the constantly active RAM. RAM, short for random-access memory, is a form of computer memory used to store temporary data. If the memory in your HP laptop is too little, you may fail to run many apps smoothly and the running speed may slow down.
To fix the slow HP laptop, you can choose to add RAM or upgrade RAM to a larger capacity. This is a smart way to speed up the machine if you use your HP laptop to play big games or edit videos/pictures. How much RAM you need depends on what you want to do with your computer. Of course, the more RAM, the faster the PC can run.
If you are a game player, you can refer to this post - How Much RAM Do I Need for Gaming? A Simple Guide for You!
How to add RAM or upgrade RAM? In our previous posts, you can find some details:
- How to Add RAM to a Laptop? See the Simple Guide Now!
- How To Upgrade Or Replace The RAM On Your Computer
Upgrade HDD to SSD
Perhaps your HP laptop runs slow on an HDD. As is well-known, an SSD runs faster than an HDD when starting up your system. Nowadays most modern laptops come with an SSD as the system disk. For old HP laptops, they use a traditional hard drive to install Windows.
If you are tired of waiting much time to boot up the machine, why not upgrade your hard drive to an SSD to enjoy the quick boot speed and running speed of apps?
How to upgrade HDD to SSD to fix HP laptop running slow in Windows 10/11? You can migrate the entire system disk to an SSD via disk cloning without reinstalling Windows. To do this work, the professional hard drive cloning software – MiniTool ShadowMaker could help you a lot.
It offers you a feature called Clone Disk that is designed to clone the entire hard drive to another hard drive – everything including system files, settings, apps, registries, personal files, folders, and more is moved to the second disk. After finishing the cloning, you can directly use the cloned hard drive to boot your computer.
To upgrade your hard drive to an SSD via a clone, click the following button to get MiniTool ShadowMaker and then double-click on the downloaded .exe file to install it on your laptop.
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Step 1: Connect your SSD to your laptop.
Step 2: After launching MiniTool ShadowMaker Trial Edition, click Keep Trial.
Step 3: Under the Tools tab, click Clone Disk to continue.
Step 4: Choose the system disk as the source disk and select your SSD as the target disk.
Make sure no important data is saved to the SSD. Otherwise, the cloning process will erase it.
Step 5: After the selection, start the cloning process. This could take some time based on the data size.
Later, shut down your HP laptop, remove the HDD, and put the SSD into its original place. Then, you can boot the machine from the SSD at a fast speed. When running some apps, the speed is also fast.
Related post: How to Clone a Hard Drive to SSD in Windows 11/10/8/7
Other Tips to Fix HP Laptop Running Slow Windows 11/10
- Don’t use too many applications at one time
- Cool down your laptop if it is overheating
- Pay attention to websites filled with flash ads
- Maintain good heat dissipation
- Check the system limit before running large third-party programs
In addition, there are some related articles regarding improving PC performance:
- How to Speed up Windows 11 and Improve Its Performance
- How to Make Windows 11 Faster for Good Performance (14 Tips)
- How to Speed up Older Laptop to Make It Run Like New? (9+ Ways)
The End
Why is your HP slow so slow and even freezing? How to fix a slow HP laptop in Windows 11/10 or what to do if your HP laptop is running slow? After reading this post, you can find that many ways are worth a try. Just try one or some based on your actual situation.
If you figure out any other workarounds on HP laptop running slow on startup or when using and want to share them with us, inform us in the following comment. Thanks.
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Vera is an editor of the MiniTool Team since 2016 who has more than 7 years’ writing experiences in the field of technical articles. Her articles mainly focus on disk & partition management, PC data recovery, video conversion, as well as PC backup & restore, helping users to solve some errors and issues when using their computers. In her spare times, she likes shopping, playing games and reading some articles.