factory settings?

First, it's the wrong place. You are in the internet connection section. Your isue is a Software, Operating system isue.

Now, doing a factory reset is NOT a good solution as it will also nuke all your personal files, installed applications and setings.
It's a very last ditch, and uterly destructive procedure.

Steps to improve your performances:
1 - Take a look at the startup items. Many are probably not needed. Disable any pre-loader and quick starters. They DON'T work after about 10 minutes and slow down the boot process.

2 - Take a look at the notification area. It's normal to have up to 7 items. If you have 10 or more, you probably need to remove some.

3 - Uninstall any obsolete application.
This could remove some background processes and will free up some disk space.

4 - Do some serious cleanup. I recomend using CCleaner for that task. It may reclaim many Mb of disk space, maybe even some GB...
It can also find and repair several problems.
If your drive is almost full, it will degrade your performances.

5 - DEFRAGMENT tour drive. I usualy use Defraggler from Pyriform. It's a very good defragmenter, way beter that the one from microsoft.
Start the defragmentation process. It will probably take a many hours if you never defragmented your drive before, so, put your laptop on the charger.
Set it to do automatic defragmentations on a scedule. Be sure to leave the computer ON and connected to the charger when the scheduled defragmentation is about to start. A good time is overnight on the weekends.
A fragmented drive is a very, VERY serious slowdown source.

6 - Install a good free antivirus like AVG free (free.avg.com) or Avira. They beat some paid solutions. Let it perform the first full scan. Set it to perform a weekly scan. A normal scan may take about 1 to 4 hours.

7 - Install and run Spybot. Correct any problem found.

After following those steps, your computer should be MUCH faster.

Electro
September 2012