Testing hard drive speed

slipd

slipd

slipd

Soldato
Joined
26 Feb 2004
Posts
4,843
Location
Hampshire, England.
Hi guys,

My mate brought round his Samsung n150 nettop which I haven't seen in about 3 years. He'd put Mcafee Internet Security on it and was complaining of how slow it had become.

I had a quick look a decided to do a full restore and not put Mcafee back on it - anyway, its still really sluggish! I know its a few years old now but I remember it being really nippy when I first saw it and I almost considered getting one myself? I suspect the hard drive; is there a test I can do to justify him ordering a new drive? I used to use hdtune but I'm not really sure that will prove anything :(

Any ideas?
 
It is the factory restore, which I realise it full of bloat, but that still doesn't explain it. It just feels so sluggish - even downloading/installing the Windows updates seems to be taking ages...
 
Which version of Windows?
What are the CPU, memory & disk activity levels like in task manager?
Any messages in event viewer?
 
My sister used to have this netbook. I will never understand the reason why manufacturers load up as much crap as possible to slow their machines down on purpose.

As KIA mentioned forget the restore and install "vanilla" Windows. Windows updates took ages on my sister's one too.

Also Windows takes some time to optimize to your usage habits.
Disable services like search indexing, shadow copies, homegroup if you don't care about them.
Run CCleaner, Defrag, then just use it for a few days.
 
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Chances are there could be a bunch of dust inside and it needs a good cleaning, the CPU probably needs a good repasting as well. My mum had a Samsung netbook as well (think it was an older model than the n150 though), and when I noticed how hot it felt using it, as well as the CPU throttling, I decided to open it up and was suprised at how much dust was caught in the heatsink. Cleaned it out and got some new paste, installed a clean version of Windows and it was all good again.

It still got replaced a couple of months later for my old laptop :p.
 
Thanks guys! Yep, gave up in the end waiting for a response to updates/trying to multitask etc. life's too short... installing a vanilla sp1 disc now ;)

Will let you know how it goes.
 
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