Before replacing a slow laptop, find out why it is slow. In many laptops a few years old the processor is still perfectly capable, and the delay you feel is the machine waiting on an old mechanical hard drive or running out of memory.
Is it the drive or the memory?
On Windows, press Ctrl, Shift and Esc together to open Task Manager, then open the Performance tab.
- Disk sitting at 100 per cent while you are doing very little, and the drive is listed as "HDD": the mechanical hard drive is the bottleneck. Replacing it with an SSD is the biggest single improvement you can make to an older laptop.
- Memory above about 85 per cent with only a browser and a couple of programs open: it needs more memory (RAM).
- Both look fine and it is still slow: look at heat, startup programs and malware instead. Our reinstall guide covers when a clean start helps.
On a Mac, open Activity Monitor and look at the Memory tab. The Memory Pressure graph staying yellow or red means it is short of memory.
What can be upgraded, and what cannot
- A 2.5 inch hard drive can be swapped for an SSD of the same shape.
- An M.2 slot takes a small stick-shaped SSD. There are two kinds, SATA and NVMe. They look alike, and a slot does not always accept both.
- Memory in slots can be added to or replaced. The type has to match the laptop (DDR3, DDR4 and DDR5 do not mix), and every laptop has a maximum it will accept.
- Soldered parts cannot be upgraded. Many thin laptops have their memory soldered to the board, and on recent MacBooks both memory and storage are soldered. If yours is one of these, we will say so rather than sell you a part that cannot be fitted.
Free things to try first
- Clear space. A drive that is nearly full is slow whatever kind it is.
- In Task Manager, open Startup apps and switch off what you do not need at startup.
- Run a malware scan.
- If the fan is loud and the base is hot, the laptop may be slowing itself down to cool off. That is a cooling problem, not a drive or memory problem.
Keeping your files and programs
There are two ways to move to a new drive. Cloning copies the old drive exactly, so Windows, your programs and your files come across as they are. A fresh install puts a clean copy of Windows on the new drive and your files are copied over afterwards. It is cleaner, but programs have to be installed again.
If the old drive is already failing, cloning can carry its errors across, so a fresh install is the safer choice. Tell us which matters more to you: everything exactly as it was, or a clean start.
What an upgrade involves
We check what your exact model accepts, including the slot type and the maximum memory, before anything is ordered. We then fit the part, clone or install the system, and check that the laptop sees the full capacity and runs properly before it goes back to you.
What to tell us
- The make and exact model
- What is slow: starting up, opening programs, or everything
- What Task Manager shows for disk and memory, if you looked
- Whether you want everything kept as it is, or a clean start
See everything else we fix on our laptop repair Brisbane page.
5% off every repair, or a 5% price beat
No competitor quote needed for the discount: every laptop upgrade booked with CQ Electronics in Brisbane comes with an automatic 5% discount off the quoted price. And if you find a genuine lower price for the same job elsewhere, we will beat it by 5%. The price beat can't be combined with the 5% off, so you get one or the other.
Laptop too slow to use?
CQ Electronics fits SSD and memory upgrades for laptops in Brisbane, for every make that can take them. 5% off every repair, automatically applied to your quote.
Request a quote →