Frustrating Performance on my Personal Laptop

[Comdrpopnfresh]

I have an ASUS Laptop with a 5th-gen i3 that I am beginning to loathe more and more. Chrome (x64) is slow to start, I get DPC Watchdog Violations if I stream video on an external display, and everything on it just seems so labored. I even block most JS/trackers/analytics/ads on webpages, and the load time is still crummy given my 50/50 fiber internet service. Maybe I'm spoiled by the PC I use at work.

My laptop has 12GB of RAM, an SSD that somehow pulls numbers during benchmarks rivaling an m2, and I do not have a bunch of crap always running.

The DPC Watchdog Violations are a PITA, but streaming video on Waterfax instead of Chrome seems to keep it from happening. ASUS has not released any updated drivers or software for the machine (common fashion for all the products I have had of theirs, after it has been on the market for a year or longer), so I am not keen to wind back my core drivers to versions released in 2016/2015.

All in all, it feels like it's time to get a new machine. This one was only ever meant to tide me over after I no longer had a powerhouse i7 laptop with 16gb of RAM and a beefy SSD. I hate how different browsers and video streaming services utilize graphics acceleration differently, and none of them seem to extract enough use out of the GPU vs CPU. Because of this, I do not see much reason to get a discrete graphics option, or at least not when the CPU in a laptop has integrated graphics. Should I wait for Zen-based APUs to hit laptops?

 

[UsandThem]

You haven't said what OS you are using on it, but if you are using Windows 10, it should install most of the drivers automatically that you would need. Maybe a clean install will fix your woes?

I've only had one experience with an Asus laptop, back in 2010 or so, and I wasn't really impressed. It was one of their mid-range models, and I don't think they designed the cooling very well, as I experienced a lot slow downs with it after 6 or so months. I eventually ended up hating it so much I got rid of it, and bought a Dell XPS with a 2nd generation i5 'U' (low power) in 2011 I believe. It's actually still in use because I passed it down to my teenager. It's still good for Youtube, internet, school work, etc.

The one I replaced it with was a Dell Inspiron 7559 I got for $700 in 2016. The one thing I made sure of getting this time around was one with an Intel 'HQ' CPU. They have quad core i5 and i7 HQ CPUs which offer much better performance than the dual core , low power 'U' processors (at the expense of some battery life). I replaced the hybrid HDD with a 850 EVO, and it is very speedy. It has dual graphics (Intel and Nvidia 960m). It uses the iGPU in everything besides gaming, where the 960m takes over. It is easy to upgrade and seems well built, although their premium XPS lineup is the best in overall quality (but too much $$$ for my needs). I figure this one should last me for a very long time before I need to replace it due to lack of performance.