Software to Speed up Laptop/Notebook question?

Hi all:

Can anyone tell me, is the free software downloads I sometimes see on the net, that say the software will speed up your laptop/notebook and make in faster and more efficent... do they really work?

Are they worth downloading?

I got dell Inspiron 6000 (not sure of hard disc size) will be 2 years old in October. I got it fixed recently in Tucom Pattaya as was very slow, it has speed up a maybe 30% but no amazing results. (I suspect maybe job was not 100% done right, due to new little faults that appear from time to time). I will take it to another guy soon to see can he do better job.

Anyway... if any of this free or if I have to buy on line (nothign too expensive though) speed up the Notebook software

is any good, can anyone share some links/Product names with me etc?

Thanks

Gerry

More Ram/Faster HD

Are they worth downloading?

as games yes ,

britmaveric , has it right

if you want to pay for something diskeeper.com

Http://www.iobit.com/

Download Advanced Windows Care and let it optimize your system.

I like disk keeper but they are pretty aggressive with spamming you so for that reason I won't touch their products again.

the ability to controll the MFT is a huge bonus .

There are no magic programs to actually make your computer faster (except maybe overclocker programs, but those are rare, and not for notebooks). There are just programs to help make it less cluttered than before, and thus seem to be faster. The easiest way to make your computer fast is to keep it lean. Install only the programs that you need, and don't install all the various "extras" that come with it (like something that resides in the system tray, an IE toolbar, etc. etc.). That will keep your computer free of junk that you never use, and thus make it keep most of its resources for things that you do use. The typical user's notebook will have tons and tons of resident programs that you just don't touch, let alone use.

There are no magic programs to actually make your computer faster (except maybe overclocker programs, but those are rare, and not for notebooks). There are just programs to help make it less cluttered than before, and thus seem to be faster.

No, you can make them operate faster. Window and menu behaviour in their default settings are set at compromise levels, and good tuneup programs can adjust them to suit your particular machine's strengths and weaknesses much in the way that Firefox is so much faster when you alter the config file from the default which is setup for slow machines and dialup connections.

Thanks for all the info everyone.

When I got my notebook, just before I moved to thailand, an IT Support Engineer who

looked after my small office network.. said that the laptop was more powerful that my old office Server which we got in 2001 (or 2002), .. I was getting rid of the server and my own personal files from my Office PC were on there. mainly word docs etc...

So he uploaded all my old files onto the harddrive of my laptop, and told me it would be no problem, not slow things down etc..

Now, reading what some of you say, I have just realised, that 70% of the files on there, I do not need on a day to day basis. So they are taking up disc space, which if I free this up, could make my laptop alot faster. Now I till need all this data and would hate to loose it.

If I did want to move it from my laptop on a permanent basis, what are my options for storing it... is there is portable storage devices ? would a more powerful version of...apologies I cannot think of the name...those USB file storing keys, do the job???

or what is best option?

Thanks

Gerry

Thanks for all the info everyone.

When I got my notebook, just before I moved to thailand, an IT Support Engineer who

looked after my small office network.. said that the laptop was more powerful that my old office Server which we got in 2001 (or 2002), .. I was getting rid of the server and my own personal files from my Office PC were on there. mainly word docs etc...

So he uploaded all my old files onto the harddrive of my laptop, and told me it would be no problem, not slow things down etc..

Now, reading what some of you say, I have just realised, that 70% of the files on there, I do not need on a day to day basis. So they are taking up disc space, which if I free this up, could make my laptop alot faster. Now I till need all this data and would hate to loose it.

If I did want to move it from my laptop on a permanent basis, what are my options for storing it... is there is portable storage devices ? would a more powerful version of...apologies I cannot think of the name...those USB file storing keys, do the job???

or what is best option?

Thanks

Gerry

An external USB hard drive would be perfect for you.

Thanks for all the info everyone.

When I got my notebook, just before I moved to thailand, an IT Support Engineer who

looked after my small office network.. said that the laptop was more powerful that my old office Server which we got in 2001 (or 2002), .. I was getting rid of the server and my own personal files from my Office PC were on there. mainly word docs etc...

So he uploaded all my old files onto the harddrive of my laptop, and told me it would be no problem, not slow things down etc..

Now, reading what some of you say, I have just realised, that 70% of the files on there, I do not need on a day to day basis. So they are taking up disc space, which if I free this up, could make my laptop alot faster. Now I till need all this data and would hate to loose it.

If I did want to move it from my laptop on a permanent basis, what are my options for storing it... is there is portable storage devices ? would a more powerful version of...apologies I cannot think of the name...those USB file storing keys, do the job???

or what is best option?

Thanks

Gerry

An external USB hard drive would be perfect for you.

That look a lot like an external floppy disk drive

Thanks for all the info everyone.

When I got my notebook, just before I moved to thailand, an IT Support Engineer who

looked after my small office network.. said that the laptop was more powerful that my old office Server which we got in 2001 (or 2002), .. I was getting rid of the server and my own personal files from my Office PC were on there. mainly word docs etc...

So he uploaded all my old files onto the harddrive of my laptop, and told me it would be no problem, not slow things down etc..

Now, reading what some of you say, I have just realised, that 70% of the files on there, I do not need on a day to day basis. So they are taking up disc space, which if I free this up, could make my laptop alot faster. Now I till need all this data and would hate to loose it.

If I did want to move it from my laptop on a permanent basis, what are my options for storing it... is there is portable storage devices ? would a more powerful version of...apologies I cannot think of the name...those USB file storing keys, do the job???

or what is best option?

Thanks

Gerry

An external USB hard drive would be perfect for you.

That look a lot like an external floppy disk drive

Except for the 160GB of storage

Thats perfect, I shall get down to Tucom this week and get one.

Thanks for the photo! thats helps, I seen those before, I know the name, but as I am dummy on techie stuff, the photo helps... "A picture says 1000 words"

So that will allow we to take all the files and folders (70 - 80% of my hard disc contents on lap top off), the sort of files, I might need once a year. but if I on other hand deleted them, it would be seriously inconvienent if I need them in the future. etc

So the good news, is with these off the laptop, in theory ( until I actually remove the files and see what happens) it

should speed up my laptop alot?

Here is another question, on a similar topic...

Agan on laptop, in MS Outlook I keep alot of emails, (my work is very email orientated, and I do store the files and docs attached on folders on laptop) but as a back up and again due to my techie ignorance, and out of fear of loosing them, I then to keep the last 12 months emails in outlook, (each new month, a delete a month from 12 months before. the really important emails, I store Folders in Outlook, however I could have up to 4000+ emails. alot with 2 or 3 page word docs attached on the Inbox.

Now what would be a better way of storing these emails elsewhere, so again can speed things up etc... does putting them in folders in OUtlook, as opposed to sitting in Inbox make a difference??

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Gerry

Here is another question, on a similar topic...

Now what would be a better way of storing these emails elsewhere, so again can speed things up etc... does putting them in folders in OUtlook, as opposed to sitting in Inbox make a difference??

Archiving the older, less accessed emails into a separate PST file will help Outlook load the current inbox PST file faster.

How to: Archiving Outlook Email

Removing files most likely will not affect your speed that much. You need to answer a few questions first.

How much free hard drive space you have now?

How much RAM do you have?

When was the last time you defragged?

At same time press following keys: Ctrl, Alt and Del then select processes tab on window that opens and seen how many processes are running.

I agree with an earlier poster about the Ram and HD.

I have a p4 2.66 running XP and went from 512 to 1 gig of ram and noticed a difference.

I then replaced the old HD with a 7200rpm and it made HUGE difference.

As for speeding up programs loading I use a program called SystemBooster and I defrag with a new defragger called UltimateDefrag that absolutely kills all the other defraggers out there. They both come from the same company.

Hope that helps

jack

Unless your hard disk is running low on space, just removing data files will not give you a big speed up.

i.e. They're taking up space on the disk, but unless the disk is so full that you're thrashing when using virtual memory, they won't be affecting performance.

Check what you have running in your system tray, or on startup.

Some Anti-virus programs are notorious for slowing systems down (Norton). but anything that's running in the background like that will be using some memory, and also some processor time. (Not saying you should run without an anti-virus - just avoid Norton).

If you go to Google, and type in "speeding up notebook", you should see an article on Tom's Hardware (GearDigest) about speeding up notebooks. Basically - you remove software from the startup sequence that you don't need to start up every time. And given you've got a Dell, who are notorious for the amount of crap they install on new PCs, there's probably a few things there that you don't need.

Basically - look at the startup tab on msconfig, and the running processes on services.msc - and maybe with a little googling to see what the process is, you simply stop things running by default, or disable processes you don't use if you're SURE you don't need them.

Edited to correct typos.

Edited July 23, 200718 yr by bkk_mike

Sorry on delay in posting this... bloody TT&T Maxnet down since last night.. emails in/out ok..but no web surfing!! just back up now!

Here is my lap top memory and stats... again, alot of this, means not much to me, due to my lack of techie foresight!

so answers for dummies please!!!

I defragged a few days ago, then from this thread I got links to

Advanced Windows Care 2 (free download software)

and Iobit Smart Defrag Free Download.. I defagged yesterday with that.

But I got McAfee too which does it once a month... and sometimes I run windows defrag too

76 Process Running from Windows Task Manager

from Systems Information on Lap Top I got wins XP Pro 5.1.2600

Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB

Available Physical Memory 191.02 MB

Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB

Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB

also from Systems Information-> Systems Summary -> Components->Storage->Drives

Drive C:

Description Local Fixed Disk

Compressed No

File System NTFS

Size 55.88 GB (60,003,381,248 bytes)

Free Space 36.51 GB (39,201,992,704 bytes)

Volume Name Master

Advanced Windows Care 2 (free download software)

Gave me the following Info

Total Memory 503MB

Used Memory 379 MB

Free Memory 123 MB

Memory Useage 75%

Thanks

Gerry

From the look of this...you need more memory (RAM). Your hard-disk still has lots of room so moving files will not help. Also, I recommend removinf McAfee and going with a less resource hog program-like NOD32.

Ski....

Sorry on delay in posting this... bloody TT&T Maxnet down since last night.. emails in/out ok..but no web surfing!! just back up now!

Here is my lap top memory and stats... again, alot of this, means not much to me, due to my lack of techie foresight!

so answers for dummies please!!!

I defragged a few days ago, then from this thread I got links to

Advanced Windows Care 2 (free download software)

and Iobit Smart Defrag Free Download.. I defagged yesterday with that.

But I got McAfee too which does it once a month... and sometimes I run windows defrag too

76 Process Running from Windows Task Manager

from Systems Information on Lap Top I got wins XP Pro 5.1.2600

Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB

Available Physical Memory 191.02 MB

Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB

Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB

also from Systems Information-> Systems Summary -> Components->Storage->Drives

Drive C:

Description Local Fixed Disk

Compressed No

File System NTFS

Size 55.88 GB (60,003,381,248 bytes)

Free Space 36.51 GB (39,201,992,704 bytes)

Volume Name Master

Advanced Windows Care 2 (free download software)

Gave me the following Info

Total Memory 503MB

Used Memory 379 MB

Free Memory 123 MB

Memory Useage 75%

Thanks

Gerry

Ok, So How do I get more RAM asap....but a bigger... what???

I do not care about cost too much... I am not going to buy new laptop... but I want to soup this one up

and get it as fast as possible. if it means dropping it into Tucom Pattaya for a day or 2, to get more stuff put in

I will do it... what do it need please?

McAfee has turned into pain in butt for a techie dunce like me.

noticed other day about 40 important work related outgoing mails, I sent, since 3 july have been trapped and held hostage by Mcafee. so i disabled scan of outbound mails.

was on the their live web chat support, very unhelpful, refused to take responsibility.

I got McAfee on PC, up I use laptop for MS Outlook... my work using 2 screens helps me work better.

yeah so I could take it off Laptop, keep it on PC, and download NOD32

or maybe get rid of McAfee all together!!!! cost $70 for download.....McAfee is a pain in arse!!!

Thanks

Gerry

as much ram as you can fit in ,

dump McFee and install Avast or AVG .

Just take your laptop to any major computer store and tell them you want more RAM. Tell them you want 2 GB (gigabyte) of RAM. They will take your old RAM out and put in new ones. Should take about 5-10 minutes and cost about 3000 baht.

Stay away from Norton and McAfee as they are resource hogs. NOD32, AVG and Avast are all good alternative.

Ski....

Ok, So How do I get more RAM asap....but a bigger... what???

I do not care about cost too much... I am not going to buy new laptop... but I want to soup this one up

and get it as fast as possible. if it means dropping it into Tucom Pattaya for a day or 2, to get more stuff put in

I will do it... what do it need please?

McAfee has turned into pain in butt for a techie dunce like me.

noticed other day about 40 important work related outgoing mails, I sent, since 3 july have been trapped and held hostage by Mcafee. so i disabled scan of outbound mails.

was on the their live web chat support, very unhelpful, refused to take responsibility.

I got McAfee on PC, up I use laptop for MS Outlook... my work using 2 screens helps me work better.

yeah so I could take it off Laptop, keep it on PC, and download NOD32

or maybe get rid of McAfee all together!!!! cost $70 for download.....McAfee is a pain in arse!!!

Thanks

Gerry

McAfee just been dumped off laptop, and will dump McAfee off PC in a few hours.

I had AVG before, and one litte problem I had is this... emails to one of my work emails, customers emails they send in have word docs attached, which then automatically, get imported onto my work database. I noticed with AVG before, that the little AVG Cert that gets added into emails to show they are clean, gets added onto my database, as an doc attachment to clients records in there.

Now this is not a major issue, but it irritates me to hel_l!! and I do not want extra docs that are AVG certs, maybe that will slow database. I wonder does anyone know how to get rid of this??

Lap top will get max RAM possible, shall be done this week! make it a souped up hotrod! LOL!

I do not care nor want RAM to do play Multimedia etc I just want it fast as possible for work. Ok I confess I do have about 300 songs in Realplayer, a man need his AC/DC and Thin Lizzy tunes, when he is on the road, but I do not think this would slow the machine to death? ( no movie downloads... I hear they take 2 much space up)

I found diminishing returns on XP after 1GB of ram. The difference between 512mb and 1gb will be huge. The difference between 1 and 2gb much less so.

I second the NOD32 recommendation. My wife has an older, slower laptop with XP that had Avast but switching to Nod32 freed up considerable resources. McAfee is much worse than Avast for hogging resources.

If you want a free AV try Antivir http://www.free-av.com/ it's got a detection rate second only to Nod32.

I'm forever cleaning viruses out of machines "protected" by AVG. Leave that trainwreck off your computer

Edited July 25, 200718 yr by cdnvic

Looking at the info you provided I don't think you need more RAM unless you run multiple software programs at the same time that are memory hogs but increasing to 1 GIG would be nice.

I think the slow down is being caused by the 76 processes you have running. Currenly I have only 22. All software companies seem to think their programs should be started when the PC is booted up so they are loaded in memory to same time when called for. As you install software it may add one more of these processes that will load at startup until you have so many, like 76, it starts to slow your computer down.

You have to be very careful but you can use msconfig to disable the ones you don't want running at startup by doing following: Start/run then type msconfig. A window will open and under the startup tab you can uncheck programs you don't want running at startup. Be careful because some of these might be apps to operate some of the hardware on your laptop.

Edited July 25, 200718 yr by ballbreaker

Looking at the info you provided I don't think you need more RAM unless you run multiple software programs at the same time that are memory hogs but increasing to 1 GIG would be nice.

I think the slow down is being caused by the 76 processes you have running. Currenly I have only 22. All software companies seem to think their programs should be started when the PC is booted up so they are loaded in memory to same time when called for. As you install software it may add one more of these processes that will load at startup until you have so many, like 76, it starts to slow your computer down.

You have to be very careful but you can use msconfig to disable the ones you don't want running at startup by doing following: Start/run then type msconfig. A window will open and under the startup tab you can uncheck programs you don't want running at startup. Be careful because some of these might be apps to operate some of the hardware on your laptop.

Advanced Windows Care (already installed) has an easy to use startup manager that tells you what's essential and what's not, and takes the risk of using msconfig away.

Looking at the info you provided I don't think you need more RAM unless you run multiple software programs at the same time that are memory hogs but increasing to 1 GIG would be nice.

I think the slow down is being caused by the 76 processes you have running. Currenly I have only 22. All software companies seem to think their programs should be started when the PC is booted up so they are loaded in memory to same time when called for. As you install software it may add one more of these processes that will load at startup until you have so many, like 76, it starts to slow your computer down.

You have to be very careful but you can use msconfig to disable the ones you don't want running at startup by doing following: Start/run then type msconfig. A window will open and under the startup tab you can uncheck programs you don't want running at startup. Be careful because some of these might be apps to operate some of the hardware on your laptop.

Advanced Windows Care (already installed) has an easy to use startup manager that tells you what's essential and what's not, and takes the risk of using msconfig away.

Mabe Advanced Windows Care does this too but...

I use CodeStuff Starter to clear out startup clutter - it's nice because it shows

- All startup programs - there's various ways in windows to get programs to load when the computer starts, CodeStuff Starter shows them all in one list

- Who made a certain program - that's good because you can just go by "leave anything Microsoft there, remove all other stuff except you know what it does and want it to be there"

- You can mark programs to start or to not start. E.g. if you removed one by accident, you can get it back by just clicking on the checkbox. Doesn't delete anything.

- Right click options to research tasks using various sites on the internet, one of them usually can tell you exactly what a certain process is doing. ProcExp (free software) does this too. Very nice.

I would recommend, in order of expected impact:

- Upgrade to 1GB - I have 2GB but WinXP doesn't really make use of anything over 1.5GB

- Clear out startup tasks

- Remove McAffee

- Defrag HD

If it's still slow after that the only thing that could still help is re-installing Windows.

HDs get a lot slower as they get fuller but you have over 50% free so that's not an issue.

Edited July 25, 200718 yr by nikster

76 processes running is way too much. On a regular XP machine it should be about half. Try Ctr-Alt-Del and sort the processes by CPU and Memory Usage, in descenging order. You could find one or two that eat up most of the resources and kill them, or better yet their parent program. Usually you'd see by the name what program runs what process. If not, google it out.

If you really need these programs - tell us what they are and maybe we can help with fixing them.

>>>>>

Forget AVG, it's got a lot of bad publicity lately.

>>>>>

Beyond Advanced Windows care or whatever - try to notice when exactly your system slows down. It could be slow response to a right click, for example - that needs special attention.

Another trick that always works is reinstalling Windows over existing version so that you'll keep all your files and programs. Some say you should do that every couple of months as a maintanance. It's very easy - start the computer as usual, when all is loaded pop in the CD and choose update (or upgrade) from the Installation options.