Can this laptop ever be fast??

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Founder_film

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I currently have a Packard Bell laptop which used to be my girlfriends, it has a 1.4GHz Celeron M cpu and 256Mb ram. Beasically I need a PC to take back to uni so I can program (C mainly). I am a mac man but I need to design programs for windows being as its way more popular. Problem is this laptop seems to run so slow! Takes forever to boot etc etc. So would I see a big speed increase if I added an extra 512Mb of ram and re-formatted the HD with XP Pro?

My other option is to sell it and get a Mac Mini and dual boot windows on that (however I could not take this into uni like I could the laptop).

What you guys reckon? Will the RAM upgrade be worth it? Or scrap it and start again?

Thanks
 
Ok thanks, definately wont be playing games. I am sceptical about how big the increase in speed will be, its so frustrating working on fast computers going to a mega slow computer. Hmmmm I still dunno which way to go.
 
GuruJockStrap said:
Thought you said it was a HP laptop?

Either way, you'll probably need:

Intel Chipset Drivers
Intel Wireless Adapter drivers (if your laptop has it)
Graphics drivers (sounds like your laptop comes with the Intel Integrated Adapter)

All of the above can be obtained from the Intel website.

Then, you'll be needing:

Sound Card Drivers
NIC card drivers (depends on the make. Windows might load a driver or you'll have to use the manufacturers)
Modem (my laptop comes with an integrated modem. Seeing as I have use for it, I've disabled it in the BIOS. One less item for the battery to power.)
MMC Drivers (it might have a memory card reader integrated in which case you'll need drivers)

As I've mentioned already, no need for touch pad drivers. My laptop has a few media hotkeys that function fine without and loaded drivers too.
Click to expand...

Doh its Packard Bell, dunno why I said Dell.

Ok I will try and get the Chipset, gpu and wireless from Intel.

Sound I might just get from Packard Bell. Wont bother with the internal modem (wont use it) so might disable it as you have. Not got a memory card reader. But what are NIC drivers?
 
As for my copy of Windows I have an old copy of Windows XP Pro which I bought years ago, however its not got SP1 or SP2 on it. Will that be a problem?

I think you might be right that it has a hidden partition on the HD, can I get rid of that?
 
Ok I wiped the HD and reinstalled windows, its already a lot faster, cheers guys.

However on bootup the boot load is shown with both Windows Pro and Home edition installations, I thought I have got rid of home, anyway I can stop this?

Going to order 512Mb of RAM hopefully see another speed boost with that.
 
Another thing thats seems to be very annoying with this laptop is the fan noise, its stupidly loud! Surely it should not be running full wack all the time?? Do you guys reckon that its just full of dust or something? Or is there another way to get it to be quieter?
 
Bubba said:
Start, run, msconfig, boot.ini, check all boot paths, it will then hopefully find an invalid one and ask you to remove, apply then ok, no need to restart.

Also make sure you disable all the visual themes and everything,

Right click my computer, properties, advanced, settings under performance, adjust for best performance, also right click your desktop, properties, appearance, effects, untick the first two.

Abou the fan noise, with most laptops they run at full speed till windows loads, if you arnt usuing the chipset drivers from the laptop website it might not be able to recognise that windows has loaded, try installing the ones from the hp website.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks for the tips, will give these a try when I get a chance.
 
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