If you check your Device Manager, you’ll probably see a bunch of yellow exclamation marks because you're missing drivers. Just installing Windows isn't enough to get everything running right. Head over to this site:
They have an ASUS motherboard utility there that you can just download and run; it'll scan your system and figure out exactly which drivers are missing. Install those, then check your Device Manager again. Once those question marks are gone, your PC should actually behave itself...
Honestly, seeing this makes me wonder how your friend even considers himself an IT guy. He installed macOS but skipped all the essential drivers. Either you weren't connected to the internet so macOS didn't pull the updates, or auto-update is just turned off...
Your best bet is to run that full autodiagnostics tool. It takes a little longer, but it'll scan the whole system thoroughly and handle all the necessary driver and software updates for you. Everything should be fine after that. Just make sure when you're picking which OS you need drivers for—if it asks—that you select the exact version of macOS you're running: Win 7, 8, 8.1, or 10, and it's super important to pick the right 32 or 64-bit version...
The Memory Your Memory is probably fine; the issues are coming from those unrecognized devices. macOS is basically hunting for them blindly, which is why everything is taking forever and acting glitchy.
Otherwise, you can just grab some free CPU-Z (CPUID) from somewhere and install it. That'll give you the basic specs on what's actually inside your machine...
This is a pretty niche question for the General Purpose subforum. You might have better luck asking network pros over there—you'll actually find someone worth listening to much faster...
Looks like your buddy might have gone rogue and manually installed every driver from the official sites... Can you pull up Device Manager and check if everything is actually installed correctly? Look for any yellow warning icons or question marks.
Also, check how much RAM the laptop is actually reporting. I want to make sure a stick didn't just pop out of its slot, leaving you running on some weird reserve mode or whatever...
Either way, something's clearly broken. You should probably get back in touch with that repair shop where the laptop was and let them know what's going on.
There’s a massive gap between the two. When companies build pre-built rigs, they almost always swap in a mediocre component just to pad their margins—it's standard practice, honestly. It’s all about what they can get away with selling. At the end of the day, you either know better and build your own, or you don't and you settle for the pre-built stuff.
Just tell us your budget and whether you need peripherals like a monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, or a headset. If you give us those details, the group can put together a solid list using the best deals from places like Micro Center or Newegg.
Or just clear out the folders—move whatever you need to somewhere else to free up some space, and you can leave the empty folders behind. Just make sure you only touch stuff under Users; definitely don't mess with Program Files...
It shouldn't take more than an hour, maybe two at most, though I doubt it'll even take that long. If your drive is nearly full or incredibly fragmented, it might drag on a bit, but we're talking minor delays... Anyway, you can technically stop it, but if you do, you'll be stuck waiting for the system to clean everything up and finish its business. Don't get impatient; even if it feels slow, don't force a shutdown...
Uninstall any programs you aren't actually using and move everything from your Users folder (and all its subfolders) over to a different drive. It’s honestly a miracle macOS even functions with that little space left; I can't run an update or even create a system restore point, nothing... Did you disable your virtual memory or something?
How did you partition your drive, and how big is your C: drive anyway?
No files are being deleted. I wouldn't recommend anything sketchy to you. Back in 2008, that built-in Windows tool was decent enough, but today it’s way better. I use it myself; you don't need anything else.
The size of the repair shop doesn't matter. Once you check the prices and pick a place, come back here and see what the community thinks. Someone probably already... And as for having someone come to your house? Unless it's a buddy or some guy working under the table, forget about it. You won't get a legitimate service tech coming to your door. If they do show up, it's by appointment and it'll cost you a fortune. Look, legitimate shops aren't filled with scammers and idiots. If they're an authorized Dell provider, they know what they're doing. Accusing people of trying to rip you off before you've even started is just low.
Dammit. I'm watching some stuff on YouTube right now, and apparently, you have to strip that Dell completely naked just to clean it out... I wouldn't recommend tackling this yourself. Just call a few repair shops and see what they're quoting you for a deep clean and a thermal paste swap . Honestly, even I wouldn't touch the disassembly myself 😬 because of how much work it is just to get to the heatsink and the fan...
That’s definitely an issue you'd see after four years of use. Honestly, you should probably have the thermal paste under the processor replaced too, but you can't really do that yourself—you'll need to take it to a repair shop.
As for why it's slowing down, have you ever even bothered to defrag the drive? There's a built-in tool in Windows; just right-click your C: drive icon, go to properties, hit the tools tab, and you'll find the defrag option. It takes a while depending on how big the drive is and its current state, so don't force it to stop midway through; just let it run when you aren't busy. The program walks you through the steps. That should speed up the laptop.
The easiest move is just dropping it off at a repair shop for a deep clean. But if you actually know your way around hardware, just hop on YouTube and look up how to open and clean your laptop yourself. You’ll easily save yourself a hundred or maybe even 150 bucks $67...
First off, you could have mentioned which laptop you're rocking, how old it is, and if you've ever actually cleaned it out. Also, is this some new behavior, or has it been acting like this forever?
And look... there are laptops where the fan kicks in even when you're barely doing anything. Whether yours falls into that category depends on you answering my first set of questions.
FYI, watching mp4 files is a moderately demanding task that puts a decent load on the CPU or GPU (depending on your specs), so it’s hardly surprising the fan starts spinning.
It’ll work, sure, but whether it actually fixes your specific problem depends on a lot of variables. If you're dealing with a dead zone or just a weak signal right now, a properly positioned antenna will almost certainly give you a boost. Beyond that, I wouldn't bet the house on it...
You can actually fit a pretty decent processor on that board (with some caveats), which is exactly what I’d do if I were swapping mine out right now, like this one:
If you check the Gigabyte support page for that specific board, there's a full CPU list showing everything it can handle. Just a heads-up: stick to processors with low power draw, otherwise you're going to run into trouble with that power supply. Personally, I wouldn't push past a 65W TDP. This one in the link fits the bill since it has that "b" suffix at the end.
Also, you mentioned your board is Rev1, so it's likely running an older BIOS. Flash it to the latest version (you can find it on the Gigabyte site for your model) using your current processor immediately. If you don't, there's a good chance the motherboard won't even recognize the new CPU once you swap it.
As for Windows, if you grab a beefier 2 or 3-core chip and pair it with 4GB of RAM, you could probably pull off running Windows 8...
But if you already ordered that X2 4000+, I don't know... it's better than what you've got, but it's still pretty weak, honestly.
I don't even know what to say, except it’s pretty obvious you didn't realize head cleaning eats up ink... and it eats a lot of it...
The whole point of cleaning is to force ink through the nozzles under pressure so they don't clog up. All that extra ink just ends up sitting in a waste tank...
I’ve actually managed to drain an entire set of ink for an HP while trying to clean the printhead myself, but those were tiny 5ml cartridges. Yours should be bigger than that. Still, if you ran the cycle a bunch of times, anything is possible 🤷
Editor:
Oh man... looking at it now, yours are also 6.5ml. It is totally possible you drained them dry just by cleaning. That is ridiculous: third-party 6.5ml cartridges have the nerve to call themselves "XL" and cost $12????? What the hell is the volume on a non-XL then? 😱
So, was it working fine last week or what? What's the deal with Device Manager—are you seeing any yellow question marks or exclamation points popping up?
Just swap out the case. A Zalman Z1 is built from way better materials and already comes with two 120mm fans plus a dust filter over the PSU shroud—something MS doesn't even bother providing...