My laptop is slow

[Evil Chris]

When I first got it, my laptop was really fast. Booted up immediately, loaded whatever program I wanted with impressive speed.

Now, almost 3 years later it's become slow. It's still the same machine, but with tons of Windows updates and programs coming and going, it's sluggish to boot up and shut down.

It's still a great machine. Sony VAIO, Pentium 4 CPU 3.06GHz, 2.63GHz, 448MB RAM. Video is Radeon IGP 64MB (1280x800).

There seems to no reason why it can't go as fast as it used to. Anyone know how I can revitalize it?

[Vid Vicious]

throwing it up agaisnt the wal sometimes works .... You could also try threating it .. that usually puts a little scare in them and gets them going again .. but never to full capacity .. it's the usual story .. a real love affair for the frist few months .. and then they take advantage of you, start to slag off .. and before you know it they're hands are in your sock draw looking for hidden cash ... I warned you about Asians .. Always buy AMERICAN

[Buddha]

I think if you've made it 3 years then you've done well. I have the same problems with my laptops, even the one I purchased just over a year ago.

I have one running Windows XP Pro (dedicated to word-processing / e-mails / general browsing) and the other (dedicated to 3d graphics / photoshop work). I made the mistake of upgrading to Vista onto the graphics machine and now the it runs about 10 times slower than when it had XP.

I don't know what to do, either. Three years ago I paid $4k for a top of the line laptop which is now the one dedicated to word processing, e-mail functions. Just over a year ago I dropped $5k on one for my graphics apps and now that it's running Vista, it's slower than the one running XP.

[SFS]

Take a look at your programs and determine which are starting up and running silently at bootup. Most proggies do not need to be running unless they are opened for you to use.

Look down by your clock, how many little icons are there? Check the prefrences of each of those proggies and disable any start-up at windows load. The only thing that should be running is Firewall, anti-virus, printer, IM, etc..
Dont allow things to be running and sucking up all your system resources when you dont need them.

There is much more you can do, but start here, and if i can be of help i AM a master of the machines and will gladly help you speed up your puter, i do this for my clients, friends and neighbors all the time.

[Terrence]

Ask Santa for a new one

Terrence

[Papillon]

format format format!

back up your stuff and format that baby!

[SFS]

format format format!

back up your stuff and format that baby!


NO NO NO NO... Thats not always necessary and can lead to other issues (like missing critical data because you just didnt get all your stuff backed up, or dont have the drivers you need to properly install your devices, etc)

You can seriously speed up your computer by adjusting a few parameters and cleaning up any programs that are running in the background un-necessarily which is always the case with any large manufacturer (Dell, Gateway, HP, etc). They "Ghost" on a bunch of programs that open on Windows boot up and run in the background, sucking up resources for no reason.

Chris,
If you are going to do anything, put in more memory. Its always a good thing to pack your MB with full memory. Most standard MBs (mainboards) will hold at least 2-4GB, Pack it full and watch your computer come alive....

[Evil Chris]

Well one thing that I have installed is hijackthis but to be honest, I don't recognize 90% of what it finds to be running on the system and I don't dare shut anything down.

I will definitely consider more memory though.

[Rochard]

Take a look at your programs and determine which are starting up and running silently at bootup. Most proggies do not need to be running unless they are opened for you to use.

Look down by your clock, how many little icons are there? Check the prefrences of each of those proggies and disable any start-up at windows load. The only thing that should be running is Firewall, anti-virus, printer, IM, etc..
Dont allow things to be running and sucking up all your system resources when you dont need them.

There is much more you can do, but start here, and if i can be of help i AM a master of the machines and will gladly help you speed up your puter, i do this for my clients, friends and neighbors all the time.

Yeah, I agree.

The longer you have your computer the more programs you'll have installed on it, and the more damage it will do. For example, I use Musicmatch (which now seems to be owned by Yahoo) and pops things up on my taskbar without asking, and also runs something called "shellithiddenwindow" - when I first saw it I said "shit, I've been hit with some virus or something".

Just between my music software (Musicmatch, Itunes, and two others) I constantly have their stuff running in the background and they tend to fight on the rare occasion I put a music CD in my drive.

If I see something running on my computer and I don't know what it is.... I reseach it on the Internet, figure out if I really need it, and if I don't I get the hell rid of it.

I can't stand shit running on my comptuer that doesn't have my permission to run.

And my spyware software is the worse..... I leave my computers running, and if I leave up Windows Explorer too long it fucked up my spyware software.....

Figure out what you have on your computer, figure out what's running, and get rid of what you don't need. Also, free up hard drive space too. After three years windows has fucking files everywhere that you really don't need....

[Rochard]

Oh, and then do a scan for viruses and stuff.

[Mister E]

And this from me the least technical cat in the house...

Erase your damn OS and replace it with Vector Linux!

No bullshit-intrusive-corporate swill, just a usable almost bulletproof

alternative to the resource sucking vampire that is your present OS.

[SFS]

And this from me the least technical cat in the house...

Erase your damn OS and replace it with Vector Linux!

No bullshit-intrusive-corporate swill, just a usable almost bulletproof

alternative to the resource sucking vampire that is your present OS.


Vector Linux is great but you wont get a windows user to switch over all to easily.
I couldnt agree with you more that WINBLOWS sucks the big wazoo, but its the most user-friendly for most people and with a few tweaks runs very fast and efficiently. Ya just have to know what to tweak.

[peterk]

do this combo and it will move fast: backup your important files and perform a format&windows installation. After you are done with the win. install add another 512 RAM module.