Will DX11 slow down laptop?

[Beirut]

Howdy,

My buddy gave me his Toshiba Win7-64 - Athlon64X2 - 1.8ghz\1Gb\ATI 1200 laptop to clean up - he finds it very slow - and I noticed his kid has installed a few games on it and the machine is running DX11. I'm thinking his kid might have put on the DX 11.

Could DX11 be slowing the machine down?

How do I roll it back to DX9?

Thanks.

[Husar]

I don't think it could, the HD 1200 or whatever the graphics card is doesn't sound like a DX 11 card, as such DX 11 can be installed but not really used. Some games may require it to be installed in order to run though, but not in DX 11 mode if the card doesn't support it.

That said, DX 11 comes with Windows 7 so it probably hasn't been installed by any kids, I don't even know whether rolling it back isn't possible but it shouldn't be the reason for the slowdowns anyway.

I'd looks for programs running in the background, scan for viruses and do a defrag first, maybe clean the registry somehow (though, personally, if that seems warranted I usually do a clean install )

[Beirut]

Ahh, thank you for that.

I've been cleaning out oodles of junk his kids have put in and I hope I don't have to do a clean install. Trying to make the machine as lean & clean as possible. Also, I might throw in Norton 2011 Internet Security for him. (I owe him a favour and as I have it on my machines, it's $20 less if I buy it for him.) He's running the free Panda and AVG programs, but I got bugs when I had them, so maybe he has a bug. But since I've had Norton IS, about nine-months, I haven't had a single problem on any of the three machines I have it on.

Thanks again for the reply.

[Xiahou]

Uninstall any apps they don't use via the Control Panel (I'd include Panda/AVG here) and then install Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware (free versions of both) and let each complete a scan. For anti-virus, I'd go with either Microsoft Security Essentials or Avast!- again, both are free.

Another thing I'd consider is disabling the 'Windows Search' service. The service indexes the hard drive to let file searches run a little faster- but I don't think the faster searches are worth the excess drive thrashing. Also, how full is the hard drive? If it's more full than empty, disk fragmentation might also be a concern.

Edit: Heh, this is my 7777th post

[Beirut]

As you remain the nuclear bomb of cool, I expected your reply to my post to be nothing less then your 7,777th.

His laptop has a 150GB HD, about a third full, and I'm sure I'm doing the first defrag since he bought it two-years ago. I took out tons of crap and the defrag in on Pass #6 as we speak and it's taking a looooong time.

I was the one who put Panda and AVG in his machine. I read some reviews that put the free Panda very high on the list. And AVG is decent and it works with Panda. I think Superantispyware and Panda don't get along. Pretty sure I'm going to get Norton 2011 IS for him. We have it on three machines in the house and not one problem since we got it. It doesn't even slow down the prehistoric laptop I'm typing this post out on.

Never knew of the "Windows search" thing. I'll look into that. Any advice for a good (and easy to use) registry cleaner?

Thanks.

[Lemur]

I'm leery about registry cleaning. The gains are minimal and the risks area real. Never encountered a "cleaner" in the wild that actually yielded a result worth the hassle.

I've seen several machines with severe infections that were running AVG. No longer recommended. Xiahou is in the right of it, both Avast and MSE are good substitutes.