Vista Running Speed

[JAS21]

I'm looking for a replacement laptop.

Today I have seen an HP Pavillion dv2808tx with Centrino Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz 667MHz....whatever that is!

It comes with 2*1024 MB DDR2 667 and Vista Premium. Looks like good option is to change RAM to 2*2048. Have also been told that Vista can run slow on low end PCs.

Can any wiz please comment. I really dont use computer for much other than banking and info research. Music and films download..probably never.

Thanks appreciate a swift comment.

[Guest Reimar]

To get the full memory working, in case you install 4 GB (2 x 2 GB), you must use an 64 Bit OS because 32 Bit OS's can work with 3 GB Memory only!!

Cheers.

[lopburi3]

Vista should run fine on 2g - I am running 1g with 1g usb and fully happy with it - and I do play a lot of video/music.

[JAS21]

To get the full memory working, in case you install 4 GB (2 x 2 GB), you must use an 64 Bit OS because 32 Bit OS's can work with 3 GB Memory only!!

Cheers.

Thanks for that...I wondered why the guy suggested just replacing one of the memory chips. Also thanks Lop

[libya 115]

I have a HP Pavillion laptop with Vista. It is so slow I am embarrassed. My desktop (XP) 3 years old is ten times faster.

They both have 1GB RAM.

If anyone out there can suggest a way to speed up my laptop please let me know. It is worse than Windows 98. It takes 3 minutes to turn on and when I open something there is a pause of 5-6 seconds. Useless. Plus it keeps locking/crashing. If it gets much worse, I'm going to throw it into a skip.

[dave_boo]

To get the full memory working, in case you install 4 GB (2 x 2 GB), you must use an 64 Bit OS because 32 Bit OS's can work with 3 GB Memory only!!

Cheers.

God, I'm so tired of this being thrown out. A 32 bit OS can work with up to 4 gigs. It's the reserving of address space that is the problem. Any and all items that have memory on your motherboard need that memory addressed. This includes your bios, video card memory, etc(granted this is a simpilifcation, but it would be very confusing to go into everything for a n00b). Intel has had 36 bit PAE in all processors since the Pentium Pro. Assuming your motherboard supports 4+ gigs, it's too easy to tell Windows to use it.

@ libya 115

There's several ways to speed up Vista. The quickest is to turn off the sidebar and use a 'Classic' theme. Using a flash drive as Ready Boost will give you a slight speed up. Scanning for problems. Defragging. Turning off services<--that's a really technical one(most can be put on Manual). Stopping background applets. ExtremeTech had a good write up on your question.

[wpcoe]

I have a HP Pavillion laptop with Vista. It is so slow I am embarrassed. My desktop (XP) 3 years old is ten times faster.

They both have 1GB RAM.

If anyone out there can suggest a way to speed up my laptop please let me know. It is worse than Windows 98. It takes 3 minutes to turn on and when I open something there is a pause of 5-6 seconds. Useless. Plus it keeps locking/crashing. If it gets much worse, I'm going to throw it into a skip.

If your hardware has XP drivers available, I think you can still contact Microsoft and get a license to operate Win XP with a Vista license. You can only use one or the other at a time -- either Vista OR XP, not Vista dual-booted with XP -- but it might be worth seeing if your computer would be faster on XP.

[JAS21]

To get the full memory working, in case you install 4 GB (2 x 2 GB), you must use an 64 Bit OS because 32 Bit OS's can work with 3 GB Memory only!!

Cheers.

God, I'm so tired of this being thrown out. A 32 bit OS can work with up to 4 gigs. It's the reserving of address space that is the problem. Any and all items that have memory on your motherboard need that memory addressed. This includes your bios, video card memory, etc(granted this is a simpilifcation, but it would be very confusing to go into everything for a n00b). Intel has had 36 bit PAE in all processors since the Pentium Pro. Assuming your motherboard supports 4+ gigs, it's too easy to tell Windows to use it.

@ libya 115

There's several ways to speed up Vista. The quickest is to turn off the sidebar and use a 'Classic' theme. Using a flash drive as Ready Boost will give you a slight speed up. Scanning for problems. Defragging. Turning off services<--that's a really technical one(most can be put on Manual). Stopping background applets. ExtremeTech had a good write up on your question.

So this n00b should buy 4 gigs then...and do a bit of reading...thanks

[Guest Reimar]

To get the full memory working, in case you install 4 GB (2 x 2 GB), you must use an 64 Bit OS because 32 Bit OS's can work with 3 GB Memory only!!

Cheers.

God, I'm so tired of this being thrown out. A 32 bit OS can work with up to 4 gigs. It's the reserving of address space that is the problem. Any and all items that have memory on your motherboard need that memory addressed. This includes your bios, video card memory, etc(granted this is a simpilifcation, but it would be very confusing to go into everything for a n00b). Intel has had 36 bit PAE in all processors since the Pentium Pro. Assuming your motherboard supports 4+ gigs, it's too easy to tell Windows to use it.

@ libya 115

There's several ways to speed up Vista. The quickest is to turn off the sidebar and use a 'Classic' theme. Using a flash drive as Ready Boost will give you a slight speed up. Scanning for problems. Defragging. Turning off services<--that's a really technical one(most can be put on Manual). Stopping background applets. ExtremeTech had a good write up on your question.

A year ago I was try to get my laptop (Acer) to work with 4 GB memory because the MB supports up to 4 GB. The OS Vista just was seeing 3 GB. So went to MS to find out there is any way for use the "missing" 1 GB for the system. Was try to use the PAE and was follow MS explanation how to do. Result: The vista was slowing down after enable the PAE and was come back to it's "normal" speed after disable PAE.

This is just my own experiences on my own Laptop! Customers of mine was checking to do the same on Toshibe Laptop and on an Fujitsu Laptop with both negative result.

But ok, that's just my two cents. Suggesting for to system tweaking for an non-techie is something I wouldn't do to avoid future complaining.

Anyway it's up to the user what he want to do with his system.

Cheers.

[Crushdepth]

There's several ways to speed up Vista. The quickest is to turn off the sidebar and use a 'Classic' theme.

The worst thing about the side bar is the random photo widget. That eats a substantial amount of processor, turn it off! (You can see the difference it makes on the CPU widget)

[libya 115]

To get the full memory working, in case you install 4 GB (2 x 2 GB), you must use an 64 Bit OS because 32 Bit OS's can work with 3 GB Memory only!!

Cheers.

God, I'm so tired of this being thrown out. A 32 bit OS can work with up to 4 gigs. It's the reserving of address space that is the problem. Any and all items that have memory on your motherboard need that memory addressed. This includes your bios, video card memory, etc(granted this is a simpilifcation, but it would be very confusing to go into everything for a n00b). Intel has had 36 bit PAE in all processors since the Pentium Pro. Assuming your motherboard supports 4+ gigs, it's too easy to tell Windows to use it.

@ libya 115

There's several ways to speed up Vista. The quickest is to turn off the sidebar and use a 'Classic' theme. Using a flash drive as Ready Boost will give you a slight speed up. Scanning for problems. Defragging. Turning off services<--that's a really technical one(most can be put on Manual). Stopping background applets. ExtremeTech had a good write up on your question.

Big thanks to "dave_boo" I followed your advice and link and have speeded up my Vista laptop by about 200%. I seriously recommend that Vista owners check that link out. thanks. L115