Fast / Lean Avp ?

[LivinLOS]

Its time to flush and rebuild my laptop.. Its a very nice form factor and totally usable for all my webwork (I have multiple desktops for video work or other intensive tasks), digital photo storage, and travelling needs and at 1 Ghz / 256 RAM is not ready to retire..

I notice that the machines lag and delay is not processor or ram restriction but HD file access and virus scaning... I currently have Norton 2004 on here..

I know in this day you simply cant live without having some form of AVP working but the 'laggyness' TM of this machine is getting annoying.. Can anyone reccomend a good / safe / AVP that is also lean and or fast ??

Putting in a new faster HD in is a possibility but I am sure it used to not be so bad as this.. Perhaps just a new XP build and clean install will help.

[Firefoxx]

An alternative is to disable online scanning. You can only get a virus through a new program/document, so if you use the on-demand scanning every time you download or install something, you're pretty much protected. Of course, this is only if you've got a firewall (windows firewall is good enough) and don't use IE (too easy to get a virus).

You can also try increasing your RAM. 256MB sounds a bit too tight for winXP (which, with its supporting processes and whatnot, will already use nearly that much).

[LivinLOS]

Dont use IE already (except in MS sites).. Use firewalls on both the home net and important / exposed machines...

The laptop will NOT be getting hardware upgrades.. I never really found this cost effective (HD's if storage is low but thats a bit different) the kind of machines I can get at 35 - 45k baht make sourcing and importing laptop RAM usually a waste..

Will try the nuke and pave option first.. The slowdown and lag seems to be a recent issue.. Probably just getting bogged down with too many background processes from installed junk.

[RDN]

I have the same problem - the hard disk light on my lap top comes on for 5, 10 or even 15 seconds sometimes. All display updates cease, and I just have to wait. I too think it's the Norton antivirus working, PLUS I've just installed "MSN Desktop Search" which is excellent at finding files and emails, but it regularly indexes my files/emails, and so it uses up a lot of CPU time and probably disk access time too.

My lap top is over 3 years old - it's only a 500 MHz P3 with 250 MB RAM, but both RAM slots are used, so it would be very expensive to upgrade to 512 - although I'm sure it needs it.

I try to find out what is happening by running Task Manager - but it doesn't show which process is using the disk.

If there was a utility that DID show that information, I would see it there's something I could tweak. Anyone know of such a utility?

[francois]

hi'

I uninstall norton 2005 to replace it by AVG 7 free version and so far I'm quite happy of the change, no hang-ups it's working fast as it should be.

Norton is pretty heavy even with a "good" speed ...

P4 ht 2.6ghz 1gb ram ddr3200 ...

but with AVG it's fine and surely well protected, I had some email attachements removed (ie) "I-bagle.worm.B".

my 2 B worth here

francois

[RDN]

hi'

I uninstall norton 2005 to replace it by AVG 7 free version and so far I'm quite happy of the change, no hang-ups it's working fast as it should be.

Norton is pretty heavy even with a "good" speed ...

P4 ht 2.6ghz 1gb ram ddr3200 ....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks - I'll have a look at AVG 7.

"P4 ht 2.6ghz " - lucky man! 1 GB RAM!!! Wow! *jealous*

[Firefoxx]

I have a P4C HT 2.4 (overclocked to 3.2) and 1GB ram too. Even so I disable the online scanning (mcafee) and do on-demand scanning.

You can't get any notebook ram here? Have you tried used computer stores?

[LivinLOS]

Not in BKK.. down on Phuket its usually tough to get laptop parts.. I know I wanted something for a toshiba and it was impossible..

Couldnt even fix up my mates machine.. needed some PC266 DDR and despite them having loads of 333 and 400 none of them would work (confused the crap out of me).. No one in LOADS of shops would order some 233Mhz 144 pin RAM !!!

[francois]

hi'

"P4 ht 2.6ghz " - lucky man! 1 GB RAM!!! Wow! *jealous*

just enough to run video program comfortably, ram un dual channel 2x512, and this makes a difference, I feel that most of program requires more power and ram now than before, so when the upgrade time came, I did not save any bath to get what I wanted, and until now, I'm pretty satisfied

francois

[RDN]

...  Have you tried used computer stores?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not in BKK.. down on Phuket its usually tough to get laptop parts.....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's what I found, too. I have a Dell and it needs SDRAM, SO DIMM 144-pin, 100 MHz. I know it's available from manufacturers like SimpleTech, but at 9,000 baht for 256 MB, it hardly seems worth it - 18,000 baht is halfway to a pretty good desktop!

I did see some second hand at Pantip, but did not have my PC with me to try it - I didn't go there for RAM and only thought about it when I saw the shops on the upper floors. Nearly all the shops said "too old" when I asked for Dell laptop compatible RAM and gave them the spec. But just one second hand shop had some - for about 4,000 baht a stick - but I didn't want to take a chance on it not working.

Dell specify the Kingston product - KTD-INSP7500/256 - but in Pantip and Phuket it's like rocking horse sh1t.

I must accept that it's time to move on. I had the same problem getting tapes for my Betamax VCR...