There are many reasons why laptops get slow. In my experience, the most common reason is malware on the laptop. What is malware? Malware can be many things but most commonly it's viruses or worms.
The most common malware is actually completely legal, in fact, you probably agreed to install it when you were installing another program. This malware is tracking what you do with your computer, what sites you visit, what you read, what you watch on youtube. Most importantly, for the companies buying it, where you spend your money. It compiles this information and then sends it to whoever wrote it and usually, they sell the information to ad companies. Think Google.
In my experience, these types of programs or malware depending on your view, are what slows your laptop down. Now for a smaller group of laptops, maybe 15% to 20% there are actual viruses/worms/trojans on their laptops. These programs do much the same thing as the other malware programs, collect information, but the writers of these programs use that information for more devious purposes. They may be looking just to sell it, think passwords, credit card information, and logins for personal sites like banks for instance. Sometimes hackers collect this information so they can attempt to guess/hack your bank account login. Unfortunately, most computer guys know that users (that's you) almost always use the same password for the majority of their accounts. If not the same one then usually with just small changes but at the very least it can show them a trend with how you make passwords.
Now last in the malware that slows your computer down, is a relatively new type. It's called Cryptojacking malware. Have you ever heard of bitcoin? I'm sure you have it's been in the news a lot the last year or so. Well, Cryptojacking malware uses your computer to make bitcoin, and if they get enough computers all doing this they actually make a good payday. (Hence why they even do it) Unfortunately, if your little web surfing laptop is trying to make bitcoin, it's not going to have any resources left to do anything you want it to do, like that report your boss wants by 5 pm. Bah, who are we kidding that report is going to be late your favorite YouTuber just released another video.
Now another reason your laptop may have slowed down since you got it, could be related to the hardware inside it. Now it's pretty rare that a newer laptop, say a year or two, is going to slow down because of worn out or faulty hardware, but it does happen. More likely though you got a "killer" deal on it at Walmart/Best Buy for Black Friday. The reason you got that deal is that your "new" laptop is actually about 4 or 5 years old and Walmart/Best Buy bought it from some supplier at a huge discount because of its age. We know they didn't mention that when they told you it was state of the art.
Finally, the last, and the least common reason I experience for a laptop slowing down. The "memory" is full. Usually, when people say this they mean the Hard Drive is full and because of the way Windows and IOS work if your hard drive is mostly or completely full your Laptop or Desktop will slow to a crawl.
The Fix for your slow laptop!
The most common fix.
I know you're thinking "Finally he got to it!". Well, the good news is if your laptop is slow and it's not old or cheap. It's probably Malware slowing it down, some more good news is, this can be fixed by downloading a good Antivirus. Expect to pay $50 to $90 to get a good one, now I won't go into the best antivirus in this post, but I did here, follow my recommendations in that previous post and you won't go wrong. If you already have a favorite, most of the brand names will get you down the right road, please just don't use Norton, it might work but it will probably slow your computer to a crawl.
I'm special, Antivirus didn't fix it.
So your hardware is the reason your laptop is slow huh? Well, I've got good news and bad news, I can fix it, that's the good news. The bad news? It won't be cheap. In fact, while I would love to fix it for you there's a good chance you will be better off with a new one. I will charge anywhere from $300 to $600 to set you up with new memory and a slick new state-of-the-art SSD drive and it will feel like greased lightning (hrm showing my age?) What, you think that's expensive, well there are probably some cheap computer/IT guys out there that can do it for you real cheap. How good of a deal did you get on that laptop? How's that working for you? The sad state of affairs with computers is this, you get what you pay for, that includes the guy who works on it.
Now, where was I? Oh, that's right, so you spend $600 on a refresh, but what about the parts in your laptop I can't replace? They're still old right, unless you are really into that specific laptop you can get yourself a decent laptop, with a 3 or 4 year warranty for $1200 easy. you are already halfway there with the repairs right? Just trust me, spend the money, get yourself a good laptop with a stellar warranty.
Wait you still want to give me your money? Well okay, I never say no to a good thing twice.
I can get you that nice new laptop and make sure it gets to you set up just like you want it and with a good quality Antivirus. Oh and yes the ones you get from me come with the same warranty. :)
Check out our contact page here and let's talk.