Laptop Slowdown

[sgtnrs11]

Hey all, about a year ago I purchased a dell XPS 17. When I got it, it ran very fast and hiccup free. However, over the last year I have seen it get slower and slower. I feel like even games I play on it are not running at all as they should be. The model I have has a nvidia 550 as well as a i7 processor and 8 gigs of ram. The latest counterstrike game currently in beta runs with framerate issues at the lowest settings. No only this, but surfing the internet seems extremely slow and things crash often.
I run Norton as an anti virus, but i feel as though I have still managed to get a few viruses that are slowing things down immensely. One of my buddies told me however, hat if i wipe my computer and put it to factory settings, it will run like new again. Is this true? Could I wipe everything off my laptop and have it start fresh again? Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thank You

 

[sgtnrs11]

No help? bump

 

[jmacavali]

First, I'd start with Malwarebytes Antimalware - a free malware/spyware scanner (Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - CNET Download.com)

Then I'd try CCleaner - this free program will clean up junk/temp/unused/unneeded files (CCleaner - CNET Download.com)

Then I'd make sure that you don't have anything running during startup that doesn't need to be.


It is true that wiping the hard drive will restore everything back to factory settings and it will run like new again. However, that's a last resort in my opinion because all your data will need to be backed up somewhere and all your software will need re-installed. Plus you'll have a bunch of updates and stuff like flash player/java/etc to re-install. Try these other steps first and see if it helps.