What Was Happening
A Kingston University student brought in their Asus VivoBook 15 ahead of their final year at university. They had noticed the machine was slower than it used to be, with boot times that had grown to 5–6 minutes, but had not experienced a critical failure. They wanted a health check before the year’s work began — particularly before their dissertation period, when losing project files would be the worst possible outcome.
The machine was three years old, had been used heavily throughout their degree, and had never had professional maintenance.
Our Diagnosis
Storage: The conventional 1TB hard drive was at 96% capacity — 960GB used out of 1TB. We broke down what was using the space: 280GB of lecture recordings (several years’ worth, most of which had never been opened after download), 180GB of raw video project files from first and second year (completed projects kept in full), 120GB in the Downloads folder, and the rest in documents, software, and system files. The actual files the student actively needed for their current year represented a small fraction of the total.
Drive health: SMART data showed 19 reallocated sectors. On a conventional hard drive, this is an early failure warning. The drive was not yet showing an imminent failure count, but the reallocated sector count was increasing and the pattern was consistent with a drive that would fail within 2–6 months.
Memory: 8GB RAM, test passed.
Startup: 18 items loading at boot — including three applications from first-year courses that the student confirmed they had not opened in over a year.
Thermal: Heatsink approximately 50% blocked. Thermal performance still within acceptable range but worth addressing.
How We Fixed It
We discussed the findings with the student and gave a clear repair-vs-replace recommendation: repair was clearly the right choice. The hardware — CPU, memory, screen, chassis — was all healthy. The problems were the storage technology (mechanical drive) and the accumulated data management, both of which were straightforwardly fixable.
Data organisation: Before replacing the drive, we worked with the student to identify what needed to be transferred to the new drive and what could be archived to their cloud storage or an external drive. Lecture recordings from completed years went to their OneDrive storage (which they had 1TB of and had never used for this purpose). Raw video project files from completed projects were moved to an external drive they purchased separately. The download folder was reviewed and cleared. The actively needed data — current year documents, software, and the materials they actually used — came to approximately 180GB.
Drive replacement: The mechanical drive was replaced with a 500GB SSD. The curated 180GB of active data was transferred to the new drive. A clean Windows installation was performed.
Startup rationalisation: Startup queue reduced from 18 to 6 items.
Cooling: Heatsink cleaned while the machine was open for the drive replacement.
The Result
Boot time on the new drive: 22 seconds. The student had a machine that felt new, with only the files they actually needed, a drive that had years of reliable life ahead of it, and documented confirmation that the hardware was in good health for their final year.
Why Final-Year Students Should Check Before Term
A dissertation year is not the time to discover that your laptop’s drive has been failing for months and your only copies of your research files were on it. Drive failures are the most common cause of sudden, unrecoverable data loss on student machines. They give warnings in SMART data weeks or months before failure — but only if someone looks at that data.
Students who bring machines in for a check before their final year consistently identify actionable findings: full storage, failing drives, overheating from blocked cooling systems. Each of these is cheap and straightforward to address before it fails. None of them are recoverable without cost and disruption once they do.
Prevention Tips
- Review and clear your Downloads folder and completed project files at the start of each academic year — lecture recordings in particular accumulate quickly
- Keep storage below 80% for reliable Windows performance; below 70% is better
- Back up dissertation and project files to at least two locations — cloud storage plus an external drive — throughout the year, not just when a file is finished
Local Help in Kingston KT1
We offer PC and Mac health checks at our Putney workshop for Kingston students and residents. Free collection from KT1 and KT2 is available — no need to carry a laptop to Putney. Student pricing guidance available on request.
Related Services
- PC & Mac Health Check — full diagnostic service for any laptop or desktop
- PC & Mac Health Check in Kingston — local service for KT1 and KT2
More Case Studies
- Student laptop screen replacement in Kingston — same-day screen repair for a Kingston University student
- MacBook Pro SSD upgrade in Kingston — storage upgrade restoring a slow MacBook to near-new performance
- PC & Mac health check — slow MacBook in Wandsworth — similar fault pattern on a MacBook from a nearby area