Slower new computer than older computer

[deekay]

Can someone answer this: Why is my new laptop slower than my old one?.. might need to return--what should I look for then?

New:
Toshiba Black 15.6" Satellite C55D-A5120 Laptop PC with AMD Quad-Core E2-3800 Processor, 4GB Memory, 500GB Hard Drive and Windows 8.1

Old: Dell Intel(R) CPU; [email protected] GHz; 1.66 GHz, 1.50 GB RAM, Windows XP

[Geek-9pm]

You mean that out of the box it is visibly slower?
Hard to believe.
Yeas, contact the vendor ASAP.
I say vendor, because in many places you get more immediate results if you complain to the vendor. The vendor may have a refund or return policy.
Even if you really love the machine, your love is in vain if the machine does not deliver the promise. It is not your job to do Q.C. for the company.

[Allan]

Define slow - EXACTLY what is the problem?

[deekay]

It is slower out of the box, yes.  I set it up and began to use the apps and check things out and everything took a while too load.  I have a much faster loading with everything on my old laptop.

So starting is slow, and every time I open anything, it is slower than my old laptop.

[Allan]

The fact that it boots to Windows slower is no big deal - it's what happens after it boots that counts. And let's try to quantify how slowly apps open - a few seconds or does there seem to be a real problem? And once open, does everything then work okay?

[patio]

One thing you may want to get control over is startup items...

DLoad and install StartupCPL from Mike Lin...
It's a tiny app that creates a Startup icon in Control Panel.

Go through each tab and uncheck any items not needed at startup...Do NOT uncheck something if you don't know what they are...
Changes take place upon re-boot.

[deekay]

After it boots up everything is slower to open.  On my old computer opening items takes a few seconds.  On the new one, everything takes maybe 10 seconds or longer.  I'm estimating here as I've boxed up the new computer already.  But there is a noticeable and distinctly longer time for things to load--I expected things to load at least as fast if not faster. 

[deekay]

Oh, and everything seems to work okay after opening, except delays.

[Allan]

Download Autoruns for Windows: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
No installation required.
Simply unzip the Autoruns.zip file, and double click on the autoruns.exe file to run the program.
Go File>Save, and save it as AutoRuns.txt to a known location.
You must select Text from drop-down menu as a file type

Attach the file to your next reply.

[deekay]

Thanks for helping me with this.  Here is the autoruns file for the new computer.

[recovering disk space, attachment deleted by admin]

[Allan]

1) Follow these instructions to disable Windows Defender: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/21962-windows-defender-turn-off-windows-8-a.html

2) Open msconfig and on the General tab choose "selective startup" (uncheck all three items) and reboot. Does the problem still occur? If not, start adding items back to msconfig one or two at a time, rebooting after each change, until the problem reappears and you'll have identified the offending process. This is clearly a time consuming procedure, but it is the best way to determine if some process loading with the system is the cause of your problem.

After you've isolated the cause, do not use msconfig to permanently disable the process. Instead, if it is a service go to START - RUN and type: services.msc (then press enter) and disable the service OR, if it a program, you can download & run a simple app such as Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel (http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml) to enable, disable, or otherwise manage startup programs.