7 Quick Techniques to Speed up a Slow or Freezing Asus Laptop

Are you using an Asus laptop? There is nothing more frustrating than when your laptop starts to lag, e.g. running slow on startup, keeping hanging up, especially when you need it to get the work done.

You may be puzzled about why an Asus laptop could run so slow, so you asked around and many times you received the same answer again and again — reinstall Windows 10.

Reinstalling system sounds simple and reasonable. Does it really help speed things up? Maybe, but it can be super time-consuming.

Rather than buying a brand new notebook or desktop PC, check out these seven quick yet effective solutions and make your Asus laptop faster.

Please note: you don’t have to take them all, and it’s very unlikely you’ll be able to do so. We’re just sharing some of the most effective fixes that can really give your ASUS a speed boost.

1. Replace your hard drive with an SSD

Old hard disk drives (HDDs) will run slower over time, and they tend to be faulty without proper care, causing unnecessary data loss headaches. We’ve seen friends suffering from that. Solid-state drives (SSDs), are now very popular because of many advantages over HDDs. Best of all, they work amazingly fast once installed.

How to do? First off, check Crucial.com (or go to Amazon.com). Find your Asus laptop model and purchase an SSD. It will take 3-5 days to be delivered. Then get the right screwdriver ready as you’ll need it to open your laptop. Watch this video for how to install:

Pro tip: make sure you back up all your data before getting started!

2. Get a cooling pad/mat to avoid overheating

Do you often use your laptop for gaming? Then you should consider getting a cooling device. Often, your PC runs slow because it heats up quickly, the situation will then gradually evolve into overheating. When that happens, applications become unresponsive, even worse the whole system crashes.

How to fix? It’s also simple. A cooling mat (or pad) helps draw extra heat away from your laptop, protect CPU from being damaged. A decent one usually costs around $30, according to the price range from Amazon. Note: slight heat-up is normal for any laptops, only consider this solution when your Asus overheats and affects its overall performance.

3. Clean up hard drive to free more disk space

If your hard drive becomes almost full (say, 85% space used), it’s going to drag down your notebook’s overall laptop performance. Also, with an increasing usage, a hard disk drive is likely to become fragmented making data storing inefficient.

How to clean up Asus hard drive? The easiest way is to use this tool called CleanMyPC, which offers a number of utilities to automatically detect system junk, unused files​, etc. and remove them all with one click.

If you are a computer person, you can also do this manually though it would take more time and efforts. The first thing you can do is to run Disk Cleanup and perform disk defragmentation. Next, transfer those big files (such as videos, photos, etc.) to an external hard drive — this also serves as a backup. In addition, don’t forget to clear web browser junks and plugins that are Gigabytes in size. Last but never least, uninstall programs you rarely use. In short, clean as much as you can to ease the hard drive in return for a performance increase.

4. Lighten startup to speed up boot time

Some new Asus models may come with some pre-installed programs out of the box — they are notoriously also called bloatware. Basically they are useless yet the behavior of such pre-installing is unethical (in our opinion). Usually those apps have been added to the startup list, slowing down your boot time. Meanwhile, new applications you installed later on might also secretly add themselves to auto-start program list.

To lighten your startup items, remove those bloatware and disable applications (or services) you don’t use that often. This article details a step by step tutorial no matter you run under Windows XP, 7, or latest Windows 10.

5. Scan virus/malware with a good security software

It’s no secret that Windows are prone to virus infection, and many other types of malicious software (such as Adware which injects online advertising into your web browser). They don’t always cause huge damage to your system, but often slow down your computer with “shady” tactics.

The best way to detect and remove such malware is by using a good security software like Bitdefender Antivirus Plus. Run a full scan of your system on a regular basis, e.g. weekly. There are many other security software alternatives as well, but pay attention to the one you choose, many are heavy in nature thus consuming more resources (CPUs, RAM, etc). Make sure you install a good one and have proper settings.

6. Fix third-party software issues to avoid freezing

If your laptop freezes only when you use third-party software programs (for example, Adobe Photoshop), it’s possible that the software itself has issues. Also, lack of updated device drivers (for example, video drivers) can also slow down your computer.

What to do? Open the problematic software, check if it has a new version, if yes then go ahead and update the program. For device driver issues, you might need to manually remove and reinstall related drivers. We recommend following the steps in the YouTube video (below) and it should automatically fix the issue. You can also check out the device manufacturer’s official website to download or get related information. But the process will be more time-consuming, and riskier if related drivers are updated incorrectly.

7. Have a good using habit and take good care of your Asus

Many times, it’s not because your laptop is running slow but it’s you’re expecting too much from a laptop. Multitasking, consciously or unconsciously, is the “mistake” you could be making. A computer has limited system resources (CPUs, memory, disk space) and life. If you are used to open many heavy software at the same time, chances are your PC is going to run slower and freeze more often.

The best solution? Adjust using behavior and be kind to your laptop. Finish viewing a web page? Close the tab. Want to play games? No problem, but make sure you exit all other running applications. Don’t need a fancy feature? Disable it or turn it off.

Anyway, you get it, as long as it’s related to using system resources. Think twice. Your Asus laptop will pay you back.

Wrapping up

There are the seven best tips and tricks to tune up an Asus laptop. Are there any other solutions? For sure. Because reasons that cause performance issues can include many ranging from hardware to software.

Do you find the above tuneup techniques useful? Have you tried some of them? Do they work to make your laptop a bit faster? Leave a comment below.