laptop advice/help

HMP

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Current laptop is about 4 years old. Maybe 5. It works, but its glitchy at times and slow sometimes etc.

Someone posted in the Walmart thread about an inexpensive HP laptop
https://brickseek.com/walmart-inventory-checker?sku=54056482
https://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-Strea...13319745742592621444&affillinktype=14&veh=aff

and it got me thinking.

Its 120 bucks and ive had good luck with HPs in the past
Not a fan of the color, but whatever, its 120 dollars.

I just need something to browse the internet, stream some stuff (not a ton), do PowerPoints and Word docs
Thats about it

Thoughts? Advice?
 
For what you're looking for, it's probably adequate. Generally speaking, the Celeron processor line is the lower end and 4G ram is low by today's standards. Still, it should be enough power for Internet, some streaming, emails, power point, etc. Didn't notice any HDD / SDD drive specd but it's probably a 5400 rpm magnetic disk.

The reviews give it 3.5 out of 5, so I would look at them and see if any major repetitive issue jumps out at you.

Most PCs come from Taiwan or China these days so there probably all similar in quality. At the price point, it's probably worth it.
 
Id be willing to go a little higher if the quality and specs were higher too

One thing that concerns me a bit is the 32g harddrive.
Im used to having 500

I dont use it all up, but its nice to have it there and not HAVE to have an external for more.
 
Before you invest, why not try wiping the current laptop and do a complete fresh Windows install?

My laptop is about the same age, maybe a year older, than the OP's. It's an HP as well and about six months ago, mine was acting up and having issues. I backed up the data to a big thumb drive, did a factory reset, reinstalled the data, and voila, it's been working great ever since.
 
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Before you invest, why not try wiping the current laptop and do a complete fresh Windows install?
^ This.

Also consider buying a used laptop. 4GB of RAM is a pittance. If you like having a lot of browser windows open, you will certainly need more RAM. When buying used, for the same money, you'll get more RAM, better screen resolution (which makes a huge difference if you're using the laptop screen as opposed to connecting to external monitor(s)), a faster HDD or even possibly a SSD.
 
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How do you do a reset?
 
personally, i've had really good luck with Craig's List.
my current laptop was a barter trade: knife/ammo.
i have another that i got for $35. it works fine but
it has to be plugged in since the battery died.
 
How do you do a reset?
Backup your data
Format the hard drive
Reinstall Windows
Reinstall your apps
Restore your data
 
How do you do a reset?

It depends on the machine. If your's is an HP machine, go to HP's website, navigate to their customer support portal, find the search tool where you can type in the model# (maybe serial# as well) of your laptop, and look for the procedure to do a factory reset on your particular machine.

These days, including several years ago, the computer manufactures built into their products a method of restoring the computer back to the (factory new) default.

However, depending on the machine and manufacturer, there are several different methods to start a factory reset.

Of course, with knowledge, there are also ways to format the drive and install a fresh Windows operating system.

However, I'm betting your machine has a built-in factory reset feature that is either accessible at bootup, i.e. watching the screen for a "Recover" option before Windows loads, or a Windows option in Control Panel where System Restore is located.

I'd stick with the "factory reset" option if your machine has it loaded, before going the route of trying to do it yourself, in my opinion.

If you were knowledgeable enough about computers to do it yourself, this thread wouldn't exist. No insult intended. Just trying to help.:)
 
The Stream is HPs version of a Chromebook.

These are truly the bargain basement of laptops...and they're really meant to be used with the Cloud...hence the teeny-tiny hard drive.

My wife got one (Stream, Chromebook, whichever) and a bit more than a year later she's not so happy with it.

Try this with your current laptop:

Back up all the files (if you haven't already).

Image the drive to an external HD as-is. (You can restore to this image on a new HD drive, if you wish everything to be exactly the way it is right now.)

Do a system restore to the factory condition. This will reload everything to like it was when you bought it. Then you can start over from there.

Image the drive to an external hard drive in this condition.

Buy a solid state drive which is AT LEAST as big as the one you currently have. If you have a 500 GB HD, buy a solid state drive that's 500 GB or bigger.

Replace the existing hard drive with the new solid state hard drive. It's pretty darn simple on HPs...usually an access panel on the bottom of the laptop. Remove the battery first, remove the old hard drive, install the new one, put everything back together. Dell laptops? Holy cow, what a pain...

Install a recovery CD, turn the laptop on. Connect the external HD with the images saved to them. Restore from whichever image you want.

In a few minutes, your new solid state drive will be ready to use EXACTLY like your old one.

Only this drive will be bugger-all FAST on boot-up time and stuff.


Oh...and bump your laptop RAM up to 8GB. I'm guessing that's the max it'll take, so if it's not there, just do it.
 
Oh...the factory reset:

Basically, it reinstalls all the software that the laptop came with, including your operating system. Your hard drive is partitioned (split into to sections) and one of those sections has all the restore stuff on it. This way they don't have to send CDs or DVDs with the OS and everything else to do a restore.

You typically enter the restore option by hitting F11 on start-up and following the menu.
 
This reminds of one of the problems with Windows. It just gets slow as it ages. You can do all the optimizing and what not but it still remains sluggish. The only option is a wipe and reinstall.

Personally, I can’t stand the new user interface they went to in 8 and continued in 10. I liked the version in 7 and hence run Linux with KDE.
 
8 was garbage, hated it But I really like 10 just fine.

I'll look into this refresh. I actually just backed up all my stuff the other day to my external, so that part is already done
 
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