Why is my Local Acumatica Test Environment taking forever to load or timeouts al together

Hello,

I have installed a Acumatica local instance on my laptop and it was loading up my U100 and S100 data in the first couple weeks just fine, but it seemed to get slower and slower every time I launched the instance to input data from the training manuals. Now the instance has started to time out when I attempt to launch it from the Acumatica configuration wizard. 

1. What can I do to speed up loading the instance
2. Should I be using a laptop
3. How can I create a reliable an stable test environment for low to no cost?

Thanks for your help.

Abdul