"My laptop is slow" is one of the most common IT tickets and one of the vaguest — slow could mean a dozen different things. Before you submit a ticket, run through these checks in order. Most slowness traces back to one of the first three, and you'll often fix it yourself in less time than it takes to describe the problem to someone else.
1. Check what's actually using your resources
This is the single most useful diagnostic step, and most people skip it.
- Windows: press
Ctrl + Shift + Escto open Task Manager, click the Performance tab to see overall CPU, memory, and disk usage, then the Processes tab sorted by CPU or Memory to see what's actually consuming resources. - Mac: open Activity Monitor (search via Spotlight), and sort by % CPU or Memory.
If one specific app is pinned near 100%, that's your culprit — not a generally "slow computer," but one specific misbehaving program. Browsers with many tabs, video conferencing apps left open in the background, and sync clients (OneDrive, Dropbox) mid-sync are frequent offenders.
2. Count how many browser tabs and apps are actually open
Each browser tab consumes memory even when you're not looking at it, and this adds up faster than people expect — 30+ tabs across multiple windows is a common, completely invisible cause of slowness, since nothing in the interface obviously flags it as a problem.
- Close tabs you're not actively using. Bookmark anything you want to come back to instead of leaving it open.
- Restart your browser entirely every so often — browsers accumulate memory leaks over days of continuous use that a simple restart clears.
3. Check for a pending update or background scan
A surprising amount of "randomly slow" complaints are actually Windows Update or antivirus running a scheduled scan silently in the background, consuming disk and CPU without any visible notification.
- Windows: go to
Settings > Windows Updateand check if anything is downloading or pending a restart. - Check your antivirus software's activity log or dashboard for a scan currently in progress.
- If a scan is running, it's usually faster to just wait it out than to try to interrupt it.
4. Check available storage space
When a drive gets close to full (typically under about 10-15% free space), both Windows and macOS slow down noticeably, since the operating system needs free space for temporary files, virtual memory, and caching.
- Windows: open File Explorer, click This PC, and check the free space shown under your main drive.
- Mac:
Apple menu > About This Mac > Storage. - If space is tight, clearing out the Downloads folder and emptying the Recycle Bin / Trash is usually the fastest win.
Tip: on Windows, Settings > System > Storage has a built-in breakdown showing exactly what's taking up space by category — often more useful than guessing.
5. Check what's launching automatically at startup
Apps set to launch at startup don't just slow down boot time — many keep running in the background indefinitely afterward, quietly consuming resources all day.
- Windows: Task Manager → Startup apps tab. Look for anything with a high "Startup impact" rating that you don't actually need running constantly, and disable it.
- Mac:
System Settings > General > Login Items.
Be cautious disabling anything you don't recognize on a managed work device — some startup items are required by company IT policy (security agents, VPN clients). When in doubt, leave it and ask IT rather than guessing.
6. Restart — fully, not just sleep
This sounds obvious, but on laptops that are closed and reopened daily rather than fully shut down, memory leaks and stuck background processes accumulate over days or weeks without ever clearing. A full restart (not just closing the lid) resets all of this.
When it's time to actually submit a ticket
- You've run through the steps above and a specific app or process is still consistently consuming resources with no clear explanation.
- Slowness started suddenly, right after a specific update or software install — that's useful diagnostic information IT can act on directly.
- The laptop is old enough that this might be a hardware limitation rather than something software can fix — IT can tell you if it's due for replacement.
Mentioning which of these steps you already tried in your ticket saves real back-and-forth time, since it tells IT what's already been ruled out.