I recently bought a budget office laptop primarily for watching movies and chatting with friends on Discord. I initially had no issues running low-spec games like Isaac and Stardew, and using DaVinci Resolve for video editing. However, in the last few days, everything has slowed down significantly. The lag is constant in games and DaVinci Resolve has become nearly unusable. I thought it might be due to large video files or a cluttered media pool, but the lag seems to affect everything. My laptop heats up in the middle when I use these programs. I'm wondering if it's a storage issue or something else. Any help would be appreciated!
2 Answers
It's definitely unusual for a laptop to start slowing down after a month, especially if it was running fine before. Heat is a big red flag. If the laptop lacks active cooling, it can throttle performance to prevent overheating. Ensure you’re not overloading it with too many programs at once and check if there's any dust obstructing air vents. Sometimes restarting can help too, but it sounds like you might hit a limit with this model for what you're trying to do.
It sounds like your laptop's storage might be the main issue here. From what I've read, HP's budget models like yours often come with UFS storage that's not as efficient as true SSDs, especially when it comes to tasks like video editing. These models can struggle with higher load apps, and if it lacks proper cooling, it's bound to slow down and heat up under pressure. You might want to consider optimizing your storage or even upgrading if you're looking to edit videos effectively.
That makes sense! I noticed it would run smoothly one moment and then just tank in performance the next. Maybe I should clear out some files or look into lighter software?
I've found cleaning the vents helps a lot! If you haven’t done that yet, it could be worth a try. Keeping it cool might improve performance.