HP Laptop Support
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HP Support

Before we get started talking about how to fix your HP laptop, let me tell you a little story about my last run-in with HP Support. I called the good people at HP over the phone, and after only about 15 minutes, got them to agree that my computer needed assistance. They sent me a box for me to ship my laptop with. Between the time I mailed the laptop to them and the time I got it back, 9 days passed.

I was eager to see what the tech support people had done to fix a problem I was having with my touchscreen features. I was severely disappointed to find out that the only thing the tech support at HP had done was reformat my hard drive and send it back to me with Vista re-installed, my user credentials taken off, and my PC name now being “Test-PC” (something I still haven’t been able to fix on my network). But, I was most disappointed in the fact that it took them 9 days to do something that would have taken me only a few hours to do.

First, let me start off by saying that those HP programs that came installed on your PC are not “necessary and critical” for the laptop to run well. This may come as a shock, but most of the pre-loaded programs placed by HP on your laptop are not only completely “not critical”, but they also run in the background consuming precious memory.

So, first step? Get rid of all the unnecessary HP software. If there is a program that you use and know that it isn’t wasting resources, go ahead and keep it - but get rid of the rest of the HP programs whose function you don’t know. What it boils down to is that getting rid of these programs keeps your hard drive and RAM free from so many superfluous programs.

Now that you have the extra HP programs off your Hard Drive - direct your attention to my “Slow Computer Help” Article to help with system speed issues.

Next,I highly recommend that you check that all your drivers are in order. As ridiculous as that may sound to the more hardcore modders out there, more often than not, your problem is caused by driver incompatibility (as in the case of running graphics intense software like games). Also, check to make sure the latest updates are installed through Windows update - as Microsoft is always working to get Windows running better than it currently does.

Now that you have all your drivers and updates in order, make sure that you are not running any non-essential programs in the background. For this, you want to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and click on “Task Manager.” Once in the Task Manager window, take a look through the “Processes” Tab. In that tab, make sure that no strange applications are running.

If all this is done and your computer still isn’t back to normal - you may want to consider formatting your Hard Drive. As usual, if you format the drive, make sure that you have a backup copy of Windows to reinstall and that you know what you’re doing. As a last, last resort, you can call the tech support people at HP - after all, if your problem wasn’t resolved by reformatting, then maybe you need tech support to intervene.