Slow laptop - not o...
 

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Slow laptop - not obvious

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I've got this work laptop (Lenovo T14 Windows 11) and I think it has a hardware fault or something.  It's constantly virus scanning (Windows Defender) but this is pushing CPU up to 5-15% variously with another 5-10% of 'system' phantom drain and this is causing the clock speed to stay elevated.  This makes it run hot.  If I change the power settings to best efficiency the fan slows down but it can't handle much workload before the whole UI slows down. But today I was on a teams call on 'balanced' profile and I was trying to surf at the same time, and the whole thing slowed to a crawl, it was quite unresponsive.  There's no evidence of any rogue processes or even corporate spy/bloatware consuming CPU, but 

So the question is: is it possible to have a hardware fault cause the CPU to run much slower than it should?


 
Posted : 04/03/2025 8:21 pm
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If I'm on a Teams session and presenting, for example, using PowerPoint, my work Dell laptop slows to a crawl. And I'm often disconnected from my own Teams sessions. In fact, Teams generally causes my laptop to behave like I'm on Freeserve dial up! 


 
Posted : 04/03/2025 8:27 pm
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CPU wasn't maxed out though during the call which is curious.


 
Posted : 04/03/2025 8:41 pm
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Crystal mark scores are lower than what I can find on the internet for this drive, but the 4k random reads with 32 threads is a tenth of what is posted online...


 
Posted : 04/03/2025 8:49 pm
 Del
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P'raps too obvious but there's not an onerous update in progress?


 
Posted : 04/03/2025 9:33 pm
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Throw it back to your IT department?


 
Posted : 04/03/2025 9:45 pm
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Posted by: Cougar

Throw it back to your IT department?

Make sure you include a list of advice you received on a cycling forum and then demand detailed explanations of why that advice is being ignored.


 
Posted : 04/03/2025 11:15 pm
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The main reason is likely to be the partnership between a garbage PC and various protection programs installed by IT. Oh, and that Teams is a massive, flaky, resource suck. Raise a ticket with IT citing its performance problems and the deleterious effect that this has on your productivity and ask them to fix it?

I also have a T14. It has a woefully underpowered CPU, a meagre 16GB RAM and is the major contributor to frustration at work. Booting up the T14 is painfully slow. Then it’s back to the 90s and CTRL+ALT+DEL to login. 

would not recommend. 


 
Posted : 05/03/2025 6:35 am
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Same here, actually have a decent spec laptop (I crunch large datasets so asked for an upgrade), a  combination of Teams and IT bloatware make it laggy and unpredictable. I appreciate IT need to keep the networks secure but there has to be a balance between security and usability.


 
Posted : 05/03/2025 6:49 am
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Posted by: prettygreenparrot

Teams is a massive, flaky, resource suck

Yes. I disable it from launching on startup. Massive difference on slower hardware.


 
Posted : 05/03/2025 7:10 am
gecko76 reacted
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When you say it runs hot do you mean it feels a bit hot or that it over heats? I’m not sure why you charged l changed the power plan

 


 
Posted : 05/03/2025 7:17 am
 mert
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I've had a load of teams issues with the latest update (both teams and a Win11 upgrade), especially when running via our corporate VPN.

Lose connections to other (important) tools and occasionally drops audio (even when video is off).

It's getting better now though, it's been a month though.


 
Posted : 05/03/2025 7:20 am
fazzini reacted
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Teams isn't consuming excessive resources.

It seems to be overheating as periodically today it pinned the clock speed to 0.45Mhz for a few minutes every few minutes. I'm going to try to get a new one.


 
Posted : 05/03/2025 6:07 pm
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Intel CPU?  Disable Speedstep?


 
Posted : 05/03/2025 6:49 pm
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Posted by: molgrips

Teams isn't consuming excessive resources.

Aside from its many many threads running while it apparently sits idle. 

The heating effect of the T14 is tremendous. Mine sits there warming the desk all day, fan blowing away. On battery it’ll last maybe a couple of hours? With my previous one my Amazon found it a comfortably warm place to nap. My current T14 is maybe 8 months old. An upturned aluminium baking tray over the keyboard provides a good platform for him and for reducing the cooling rate of a cup of tea. 


 
Posted : 06/03/2025 6:20 am
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Ok sounds like a rubbish laptop

My work place laptop is an HP, i5, 16Gb and ssd. It might be relevant that the display is HD, although it can save does drive a 4k display 

It’ll do about half a day on battery. I’ve never had it bog down including the odd teams meeting. Yes it’s warm underneath but nothing crazy


 
Posted : 06/03/2025 7:15 am
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Throw it back to your IT department?

 

Step one will be blow the fluff out of the vents and fan.


 
Posted : 06/03/2025 11:35 am
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Blowing out the fluff did not help, but reapplying thermal paste has helped hugely. I've done this on several devices in the past and it never made a difference but the laptop is now mostly silent.  CPU is still spiking up to 25% every few seconds, and consequently the battery life is still crap, but at least it's quiet and cool.


 
Posted : 06/03/2025 11:02 pm
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The issue was Podman desktop (if you don't know what it is, you don't need to know).  Not the container host VM or any containers - it works perfectly if you use the CLI - but the actual GUI app itself was somehow writing and re-writing files all the time causing the virus scanner to go nuts.

Also reapplying thermal paste was highly effective, much more so than any other time I've done it to other machines.  Feels weird to be sitting here in silence.


 
Posted : 07/03/2025 11:05 am

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