Your laptop has become slow — what to check

1. 1Restart it. Not shut the lid — actually restart. Machines left running for weeks slow down.
2. 2Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) and look at the Processes tab sorted by CPU, then by Memory. Note anything sitting at the top.
3. 3Close browser tabs you're not using. Thirty tabs plus Teams will exhaust an 8GB machine on its own.
4. 4Check for pending Windows updates and install them at a convenient time.
5. 5Check free disk space — under 10% free will slow everything down.

Tell us if you see any of these

• The fan is running constantly even when idle.
• Slowness started right after a specific update or new software install.
• The disk sits at 100% in Task Manager for long periods.
• It's a mechanical hard disk rather than an SSD — a swap is usually the single best upgrade you can make.