Member Avatar for sunnyx

hello experts,

i have a HP Elitebook 8460p, 4 GB RAM, HD intel graphics 3000

everything on the laptop ran smoothly and very good, until 2 weeks ago it started to lag really badly. I tried everything, i have latest driver updates, no maleware, spyware or virus on the laptop, i ran diskcleaners, i cleaned the fan, i defragmented etc. etc, nothing helped, do you have any ideas what else i could try ?

thank you in advance

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by sarahwilliams25

Dani AI

Generated

Short diagnostic summary and a focused troubleshooting path that builds on ’s drive‑health suggestion and ’s Task Manager tip, while adding deeper checks beyond basic scans and defrag.

Start by narrowing the scope (software vs hardware). Boot the machine into Safe Mode or run a Linux live USB session for a few minutes; if lag disappears in Safe Mode but returns in normal boot, the cause is likely software/driver/startup-related. If lag persists from a live USB, hardware (disk, RAM, CPU thermal/ throttling) is the prime suspect.

Practical next steps, in order of cost/time:

  • Capture live resource data with Resource Monitor (resmon.exe) or Process Explorer to see disk queue length, I/O waits and thread-level CPU use.
  • Inspect Event Viewer for repeated Disk, Kernel-Power or WHEA errors.
  • Run a full memory test (memtest86+) overnight to rule out RAM errors.
  • Check disk surface/SMART with the drive maker’s diagnostic tool; if bad sectors appear, back up immediately. Use a file-system scan such as:
    chkdsk C: /f /r
sfc /scannow
  • Observe CPU frequency under load (throttling indicates cooling/thermal-paste issues). Reseating thermal paste is a last resort or take to a service shop.

A clean boot (msconfig) helps isolate startup services; registry cleaners rarely fix general slowness and can cause harm — prefer targeted fixes. If hardware limits are found (old HDD or 4 GB RAM on a modern workload), an SSD plus additional RAM is the most effective long-term improvement for an EliteBook 8460p. Always back up user data before low-level disk operations or hardware work.

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Member Avatar for rubberman

Some viruses / malware are VERY hard to find, and may not be detected by your tools. Another possibility is that the drive is starting to fail, and a lot of the lag is due to the system re-reading disc sectors until they get them successfully. Most modern system drives have a thing called S.M.A.R.T. - this is software that runs on the drives themselves and monitors them for bad sectors, overheating, etc. Here is a link to a list of such tools. You will probably want to look at the drive SMART data next.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_S.M.A.R.T._tools

Member Avatar for rch1231

Hello,

My question would be where is it lagging? Is it when accessing the internet or when you are simply running normal applications. And you mentioned running disk cleaners have you checked out any of the registry cleaners (like CCleaner or Gleary utilities). It could be that some of the entries in the registry are corrupted or point to files no longer there and that really confuses windows.

Member Avatar for sarahwilliams25

Check in taks manager to see which application uses too much CPU and unintall it.

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