My laptop is slow — first three things to try
Most slowness is one of three things: too many tabs, an app eating CPU, or a long-overdue restart.
- When did you last fully shut down (not just close the lid)? More than 7 days = restart now. Win+X → Shut down or sign out → Restart.
- Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager. Sort by CPU. If a single app is sitting above 30% with nothing visible happening, right-click → End task.
- Browser tabs are the silent killer — if you have more than 30 open, close everything you don’t need today.
- Check disk space — Settings → System → Storage. Below 10 GB free will visibly slow the machine.
- Run Windows Update once — sometimes a stuck update is the cause.
- Still slow after all that? Time for a hardware check — email Warren.
Still stuck after those?
You’ve done the right thing by trying. Send whedo.it a quick note — what you tried, what you saw — and a senior pair of eyes will be on it the same business day.