Speed up windows 7 x64, shall we ? lol

scotslad

scotslad

scotslad

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I got the Mrs a kinda cheapish but ok Laptop for what she needed it for, its an ASUS, its rock solid, good laptop, great quality all round etc, and I did do a bit of homework at the time on it, the only thing I didn't like was that it had windows 8 which I have had to keep until the warranty expires after a year which is in a month from now.

So its now obviously got the auto update of windows 8.1 and all the rubbish and to be honest, I hate windows 8 with a vengeance and so does the mrs, it would be ok with a touchscreen but this isn't one of these, simple as that.

This is the exact model and specs >>> Asus X55C Laptop, Intel Core i3-2328M 2.2GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 15.6" Screen, DVDRW, Intel HD, Webcam, Windows 8 64bit (well windows 7 x64 premium now, lol).

So anyway, yesterday I just bit the bullet and went ahead and done a proper full clean wipe and then installed windows 7 x64 properly, I had heard for the specs of that laptop that "Windows 7 x64 premium edition" was best to put on it as the laptop has loads more specs than is even anywhere close to what is needed to run x64 premium very easily, so I went ahead and installed that version (well that's what someone told me anyway).

Anyways.............Long question short is how the heck do I get this stupid laptop to boot faster, shutdown faster, or in general just do everything as fast as possible, or is that it ? back to the normal drag of windows 7, is that it ?

I have never really played about with a laptop to be honest, I know its just same as a pc really, but with that cpu etc, nope, I haven't even been anywhere near anything like that.

I am just hoping for some tweaks that will defo make differences to where it counts, she only uses it basically for random surfing and facebook and things like that, but to me because I am so used to my overclocked PC here, the little laptop to me seems to act like a drag, although it don't bother her much, bothers me though if shes asking me to do something on it, LOL.

I have to admit, I think windows 8 is garbage, but the only thing I see its better for than windows 7 is the speed for most things, but once the laptop is booted up etc, then its not that slow behind windows 8, so that's that in my opinion.

Anyways, the question again really is :: > I am just hoping for some tweaks that will defo make differences to where it counts, she only uses it basically for random surfing and facebook and things like that, but to me because I am so used to my overclocked PC here, the little laptop to me seems to act like a drag, although it don't bother her much, bothers me though if shes asking me to do something on it, LOL.

Hope some people have worked out some good little tweaks for such a system.

Thanks guys n gals :) ;)
 
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p.s, is there a good programme out there that will pick up that I need drivers updating and things like that, I tried a couple, but they want stupid money just for the sake of it etc, but there are so many things on this little laptop that require drivers its a nightmare, I only took all the ones available on the ASUS support site page but to me the drivers ages look rather old, then when I tried a couple of those driver checking update programmes that I am talking about, they said that nearly all the drivers were out of date, so I don't know who or what to believe man :(
 
You should have left Windows 8 on it and installed a Start Menu replacement. Despite the UI flaws Windows 8 is faster at pretty much everything.

You've basically downgraded the laptop and given yourself an ongoing maintenance project.
 
I don't understand why people have such problems with Windows 8.1 - set it to boot to desktop, use start8 or similar if you have to. No reason to ever see the "metro" interface. You are left with a better more streamlined version of Windows 7. In my opinion.

Anyway...

If you have installed Win 7 fresh and only installed the drivers from asus website then that's about as fast as that notebook is going to go (unless you have a major driver issue or faulty hardware.)

It may be worth checking the manufacturers website for more up to date drivers. For example use device manager or a program like speccy/aida to identify the graphic controller, hard disk controller, sound device, wired and wireless device etc and get the drivers from intel/realtek or whomever it may be instead of from Asus web site. That should get you more recent drivers than from Asus.

I wouldn't trust any of those driver checking programs at all being as I only ever see them installed on malware infected systems. At the very least the ones I've messed around with insist on installing (sometimes with no option to not install) other software as well.

PS don't use any drivers offered up by Windows update - they tend to be drivers written for compatibility rather than performance and the vga drivers that I've used in the past have been awful.
 
As above, dropping an SSD into it with Windows 8.1 and something like Start8/StartIsBack would've been the best choice if you want better performance as well as battery life.
 
Make sure your not using a plain colored and/or plain colored tiled background as there is a bug in Windows 7 that often results in hideously long startup times due to this.
 
Definitely install Windows 8.1, but install StartIsBack for a replacement Start menu. I find Windows 8.1 to be more or less like Windows 7 this way, only faster.
 
darael said:
Definitely install Windows 8.1, but install StartIsBack for a replacement Start menu. I find Windows 8.1 to be more or less like Windows 7 this way, only faster.
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Only an ugly duckling UI with the only improvement being the copy dialog.

8 does have some nice speed ups compared to 7 on low to mid-range hardware but I still dislike the OS considerably - a lot of the non-metro stuff feels like an afterthought badly ripped out of 7 and thrown in at the last minute.
 
Sir SpankalotUK said:
http://www.blackviper.com/service-c...dows-7-service-pack-1-service-configurations/

will explain which services you can disable to speed up the boot process
Click to expand...

thanks everyone :)

I know all about the pro's and con's etc of windows 8 or 8.1 as it was, that isn't really in question, until Microsoft release another operating system that works exactly as good for a normal keyboard laptop and/or PC system then it shall be windows 7 x64 on all my systems.

The fact is that the laptop in question is just a little laptop that I got her just under a year ago as I said, it was on sale and I got it on special offer at the time too, so it was a very very good purchase indeed for a simple laptop that she only uses maybe once every couple of days to check email, use facebook, surf the web and maybe watch the catch up tv programmes on channels like the BBC and ITV etc, it even plays HD movies perfectly too, the onboard graphics are amazing for the Value of the purchase I have to admit, I even hook it up once in a while to my 42inch LED tv using an HD cable and it works perfectly etc.

Its just what I mentioned before and as one of you pointed out, installing win 7 x64 and taking off win 8.1 x64 has in effect slowed it down a bit, but really, its not the end of the world.

Overall she is really happy to get back to the old windows 7 familiar desktop screen and in general the whole way win 7 looks and works, she just couldn't get used to windows 8 at all, I cant either and I have been using and into PC's etc basically since zx spectrum days etc, LOL, but even I hate everything about windows 8 too (apart from it being a bit faster), its perfect if you have a touchscreen though as I mentioned.

As one of you mentioned, yes the drivers are all from the ASUS website for that laptop, so as I thought too, those are the ones that are most suitable for the hardware as that is generally what the manufacturers recommend etc as we all know.

user vanandjuanunited says : Start with a SSD , thanks but no is the answer to that as its a waste of money, I can hardly even afford to be buying SSD's for my own PC's etc, so theres no chance I would waste the money on one for that little cheap laptop, I have one in my PC and I know they improve things amazingly, but no, not for that cheap laptop, if I had spare cash then not a problem, but nah, so I will forget that option, thanks all the same though :).

user yashiro says : You should have left Windows 8 on it and installed a Start Menu replacement, well I did try all that at the beginning and I personally found that the pretend windows 7 look just wasn't looking right somehow, I don't know what it was, but I didn't like it, so I took that fix off, didn't like it, thanks for the suggestion though :)

user andy_mk3 says : basically the same thing as the last guy too, but thanks all the same anyway, it might just be me, but to me the pretend look it is meant to give somehow just didn't look like windows 7, I wanted it to look and work "exactly" like windows 7 in every way, but it doesn't, some people I guess would argue on that, but not much point, especially now that I have fully installed windows 7 x64 premium on it anyway, cant be bothered reinstalling windows again, not in this heat today anyway, LOL, sitting here baking in 28c degrees in the house and its 32c outside man, so not ideal weather for doing all that, LOL, brain doesn't function very well in this heat with beer trying to cool it down, hehehehehe.

user lucifer-mnm says : If you have installed Win 7 fresh and only installed the drivers from asus website then that's the best drivers, well that's what I have done matey, so I guess that part is as good as its going to get, thanks man :)

user nutcase_1uk says : nutcase_1uk , Nope, no, for the reasons I have already stated, lol, thanks though man, I know what you mean, but no, defo not today anyways. cheers man :)

And user Sir SpankalotUK says : http://www.blackviper.com/service-co...onfigurations/
will explain which services you can disable to speed up the boot process.

I will have a look at this just now matey thanks and see if theres anything can be done just to give it a little nudge to make it slightly quicker :)

What about more Ram ? does anyone think that more ram may hep the issue, as I say, its pretty ok once its eventually booted etc ? how the heck do I stick ram in a lappy and what ram too ? LOL;)

p.s, thanks to the rest who have also commented too :)
 
scotslad said:
user lucifer-mnm says : If you have installed Win 7 fresh and only installed the drivers from asus website then that's the best drivers, well that's what I have done matey, so I guess that part is as good as its going to get, thanks man :)
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Not quite what I said or meant :p

There are probably performance gains to be had from updating the drivers to more recent versions than the asus ones. However its unlikely that they would have any effect on boot speed.

With regard to adding more ram. You may see benefits going past 4gb for photo or video editing or working with CAD but not for general use and more ram won't help with boot access times either.

Take the money from the ram upgrade and throw it at an SSD :p
 
scotslad said:
And user Sir SpankalotUK says : http://www.blackviper.com/service-co...onfigurations/
will explain which services you can disable to speed up the boot process.

I will have a look at this just now matey thanks and see if theres anything can be done just to give it a little nudge to make it slightly quicker :)

What about more Ram ? does anyone think that more ram may hep the issue, as I say, its pretty ok once its eventually booted etc ? how the heck do I stick ram in a lappy and what ram too ? LOL;)

p.s, thanks to the rest who have also commented too :)
Click to expand...
Seriously, I wouldn't bother with the Black Viper stuff - his "improvements" were mostly placebo even back in the days of Windows XP. You stand a much greater chance of inadvertantly breaking something than of seeing any noticeable speed gains in day-to-day use; the standard Windows 7 performance tuning advice of "leave it alone" applies as much here as anywhere.

More RAM is never a bad thing, but really, if the laptop is running OK once it's booted, why bother? Boot time always seems one of the most worthless performance metrics to me (it's often used in SSD discussions), unless cold booting your computer is a hobby you absolutely must engage in several times per day - maybe just power it down once per day when you know you've finished with it, other than that just put it to sleep and you can be back up and running whenever you need it in a couple of seconds.

Oh, and a cheap SSD is definitely a good plan - not just faster, but it also has no heads to crash when your wife slams it shut, like you see on the telly whenever a fictional character uses a laptop. :)
 
well I tweaked a couple of things and made sure a couple of drivers were updated etc etc, also forgot a MAJOR thing and that was to make sure that I had SP1 installed etc, lol, no wonder it was so slowwwwwwwwwwww, lol, so now its booting in about 30-40 from seeing the asus logo to then seeing the windows desktop screen, that's not too bad I thinks I suppose.

I tried to find an option in the bios to turn off the asus logo and intel logo on boot but there doesn't appear to be an option, its doing my head in as usually those options would be there man, hmmmm, anyone any ideas ?

also tried the windows 7 test thing to check how good the system is, I think for windows 7 it rates items from 1 to 9 and they finally base the total score on the item that rates the lowest, I think for this cheap laptop it done not too bad at all man, cpu = 6.5, ram = 5.9, graphics = 4.5, gaming = 6.1, hdd = 5.8, so I would say that's not at all too bad for a cheapo laptop man, just for something that the wife plays with every couple of days to check the lottery results or maybe watch a catch up tv program on tv player or summit, HD plays fine on it too, but I suppose it depends on how ya look at it.
 
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