Anything unique about it? Are you running Windows 10? Latest updates? Need any driver updates? (Most drivers are updated by Windows but a few, like graphics/network sometimes benefit from checking yourself.)
Are you running a (really) resource intensive anti-virus program?
I own an $800 Asus gaming laptop and a $700 Asus ultrabook. One with 7th gen i7 and 16GB DDR. The other with 8th gen i7 and 16GB DDR. One has SATA SSD and other NVMe SSD. One is 1 year old. The other is 2 years old.
Both of them can run Visual Studio Professional, VS Code, Netflix, Hulu, StarCraft 2. Both are very fast and a joy to use. One is heavy; the other is light!
If it has a 5400 rpm hard drive, consider getting a 2.5" SSD to replace it, and use software to clone the drive. (Although it kind of sounds like you could use a fresh install.)
I guess "hacker" doesn't really mean what it used to mean. I thought it used to mean people who are curious and like to tinker. Maybe it now means "busy people who have no time to actually tinker but like the idea of tinkering".
Anything unique about it? Are you running Windows 10? Latest updates? Need any driver updates? (Most drivers are updated by Windows but a few, like graphics/network sometimes benefit from checking yourself.)
Are you running a (really) resource intensive anti-virus program?
I own an $800 Asus gaming laptop and a $700 Asus ultrabook. One with 7th gen i7 and 16GB DDR. The other with 8th gen i7 and 16GB DDR. One has SATA SSD and other NVMe SSD. One is 1 year old. The other is 2 years old.
Both of them can run Visual Studio Professional, VS Code, Netflix, Hulu, StarCraft 2. Both are very fast and a joy to use. One is heavy; the other is light!
If it has a 5400 rpm hard drive, consider getting a 2.5" SSD to replace it, and use software to clone the drive. (Although it kind of sounds like you could use a fresh install.)