Optimising an Old Ryzen Laptop for Coding — My Full Setup (Ryzen 7 3700U)

Most people online show off their brand‑new M‑series Macs or high‑end gaming laptops. Meanwhile, I’m still coding on a Gateway GWNR71539 with a Ryzen 7 3700U, 16 GB of RAM, and Vega 10 graphics. It’s not glamorous, but with the right tweaks, it still handles Python, VS Code, GitHub Desktop, and WSL without falling apart. This is everything I’ve done to keep this older Ryzen laptop usable for development in 2026. My Laptop Specs Model: Gateway GWNR71539 CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700U (4 cores, 8 threads) RAM: 16 GB DDR4 Storage: 1 TB SSD OS: Windows 11 Home Daily tools: VS Code, Python, GitHub Desktop, WSL The Problems I Faced Before optimizing anything, the laptop had several issues: It ran hot even during light tasks Fans would ramp up quickly Browser tabs lagged VS Code took too long to open RAM usage regularly hit 100% Windows updates were slow Battery life was poor These problems made coding frustrating, so I started experimenting with ways to improve performance. 1. Creating a Custom Powe