Just wondering if anyone still uses an older i3 8130u-based laptop in 2025 and what they think of its performance in 2025? Because my mom still uses an old i3 8130u laptop, and every time she has me use it to help her with something, it just seems painfully slow when you try to do more than one thing at a time.
My dad used something like this (perhaps a bit older) and didn’t want to replace it despite it being essentially unusably slow — especially when Windows wanted to do updates. You can inject some life into it by replacing any mechanical hard drives with SSDs (probably the biggest speed improvement you can make in any PC), maybe upgrading RAM as well if she’s sitting on 4GB.
@West
She’s got an SSD, upgraded to 16GB of RAM since 8GB wasn’t enough, causing it to run even slower.
Nico said:
@West
She’s got an SSD, upgraded to 16GB of RAM since 8GB wasn’t enough, causing it to run even slower.
Huh, that does sound less expected. That completely eliminates RAM and storage speed concerns. Have you checked for bloat or resource hogs on task manager? Definitely not overheating at all?
Failing all this, you could try a more lightweight OS (just tacitly assuming she’s using Windows), but this is a massive learning curve for anyone not technologically minded.
@West
I mean, it’s got the standard Windows bloat garbage, but it’s not really hogging any CPU usage. But if you try to load 2 Chrome tabs at once, it always pegs out at 100%. Even 1 Chrome tab, depending on the website, can max out the CPU. Thermals are well within safe limits. I will say, since the Windows 11 upgrade happened, it has been a bit slower. So maybe it’s just a Windows 11 thing.
@Nico
Other browsers are doing the same, I guess? Otherwise, it seems like you’ve eliminated everything.
West said:
@Nico
Other browsers are doing the same, I guess? Otherwise, it seems like you’ve eliminated everything.
Haven’t tried others, but my mom uses everything Google, so she probably wouldn’t want to switch anyways.
My 8750h feels painfully slow, loud, and hot compared to my wife’s Ryzen 7 7735HS. But the 8750h is very old in comparison… it’s crazy how hot my laptop gets. I have a desktop, so I only use it while traveling.
I actually picked up a used ROG Ally Z1e (handheld, not laptop) for $300, but I’m planning on using it over my old laptop while traveling. The handheld is legitimately 2.5x faster and way quieter, lighter, and cooler.