Why Your Chromebook Is Slow And How To Fix It – SlashGear

Since Chromebooks have minimal offline storage, users rely on cloud storage platforms such as Google Drive for storing their files, which offers limited functionality offline. Additionally, to view and edit your Google Docs, you must have access to the internet. Several common apps also require an active internet connection to function, including video games, social media platforms, and collaborative apps. Although many of these apps have an offline mode and will create temporary autosave files, this capacity is limited by available space and may fail if storage space begins to dwindle. Hence, a Chromebook needs a steady (or at least prominent) internet connection.

However, an unstable or slow internet connection can slow down your Chromebook. To check, run a quick speed test and see if the download and upload speeds are optimal. As mentioned on an official support page by Google, “for general web browsing and editing Google Drive documents, 0.2-0.5 Mbps per concurrent session at a minimum should provide satisfactory performance.” For HD video streaming, the Chromebook will need greater than 4Mbps per concurrent session.

In addition to the bandwidth, latency is also an important factor. While conducting the speed test, check your internet connection’s ping rate. If the ping is below the 100ms threshold, your internet connection’s delayed response time could slow down your Chromebook. In this case, you should contact your service provider to diagnose and fix the larger connectivity issue you are facing.