Speeding up an old laptop

Warmo161

Warmo161

Warmo161

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20 Jun 2010
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69
Hi, lately I have been trying to make my old laptop a bit faster...
I have ran partition magic on it and changed the sizes (The 60 GB HDD was split 30:30) Doing this made it a little faster but nothing really noticeable

I wanted to clean up windows as my friend has a net top PC with a close spec but it runs a lot faster, this is because there isn't much information. I found that pc only had 20 gb used while I only have 8 gb left on the now 42 gb partiton, with windows taking up nearly all of it

Would it be just easier to reinstall windows?
It is running Fat32 and to change I would have to get a different install disk, could you have 2 partitions with different file systems? but I though if I would do that, then I would just get rid of the second partion
 
If you are running Windows XP, download nlite: http://www.nliteos.com/ and remove all nonessentials from the OS, including drivers you don't use, and slipstream any later service packs than your current installation disc into it.

I removed services such as Alerter and Security centre from my XP install, disabled scanner and imaging device support and various other things that my P3 700Mhz laptop doesn't need (it doesn't even have web access, though windows will still support it, just disabled it when setting the IP. This was so I didn't have to load an antivirus on, as it runs nice and quick as it is atm, AVs slow it down somewhat).

I expect your system is faster than a P3, so you shouldn't have be quite as drastic, but nlite is very very useful. :)
 
I'll have a look at that n lite now,
Yes its windows xp, with a 1.6? processor, and 512mb of ram


EDIT: just looked at that nlite, it looks quite good but can you delete stuff without renstalling windows and burning disks?
 
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Thought about using Linux? My first laptop (Intel Celeron 1.6, 384mb ram, 20gb HDD) always ran XP, but with all the updates and latest programs it was painfully slow. I decided to try Ubuntu on it, everything works perfectly, it's quick and no AV needed.
 
I'd recommend at first running something like CCleaner (or other system clean-up tool) and then defrag the hard drive. That should offer some speed improvements to start with. If you're after more than that, you'd need to reinstall the laptop.

What antivirus are you using? As that can have an affect on performance too, but on a Windows install, it's a necessary evil.
 
nliting is good for xp, but xp itslelf is pretty bad in terms of bootup, you want your laptop to be able to boot up fast, and the best os for that is windows 7, which nliting isn't available for at the moment.

The other obvious thing is ram and SSD upgrades, but on a such a poor base to start with, you're better of keeping the upgrade money, selling the laptop and buying a better model with better features. That will get you more mileage than RAM +SSD upgrade on a low end laptop.

I was unable to sell my netbook, and turned it onto a basic home server for NAS.
 
I had a P3 500 Dell a while back, I ran Puppy Linux on it, the only OS I could find that could run full screen video on it without stuttering.

So another vote for Linux. :)
 
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