2 Yr Old Asus Netbook Slowing Right Down

[sbk]

Its got a legal copy of XP on it but dang its slow. Mostly I use it for surfing the web and some document work. Its got music on it and photos but other than that its my convenient access to the net when I am travelling and don't want to lug around the big laptop.

So, in light of that, should I format and install a nice light version of linux? Maybe Mint or something? Not quite sure what to do, not committed to win on it since it really is just internet and light docs.

[little_muppet]

have u ever delete the internet temp since u got this netbook?

if not try : click at start >> type %temp% at the search box than click enter.

it will bring u the new window with alots of files in it. than delete all the files there by press Shift+delete (it will completely deleted the file) u might find some file that u couldnt delete, just skip it.

i think that might help ur net book run abit faster.

[Supernova]

Have a look at Joli OS or Ubuntu Netbook Edition. Mint Fluxbox, LXDE, or Xfce wouldn't be bad choices either. And of course, with Linux you can always try before installing.

[CMSteve]

Definitely try "cleaning it out" first. temp files, registry entries, etc. Also check to see what programs are running in the background and whether you actually use them or not.

As far as Mint, it's pretty bloated itself. Unless you run it in command line (non gui), the difference between its performance and win's will be negligible. May want to try a netbook distro/remix or a "small" distro like DSL, instead.

have u ever delete the internet temp since u got this netbook?

if not try : click at start >> type %temp% at the search box than click enter.

it will bring u the new window with alots of files in it. than delete all the files there by press Shift+delete (it will completely deleted the file) u might find some file that u couldnt delete, just skip it.

i think that might help ur net book run abit faster.

[sbk]

I run ccleaner on it pretty regularly, pruned the start menu from msconfig but its just slow. slow to open programs, etc.

I didn't realize they had netbook specific linux distros, thats interesting!

[CMSteve]

If everything has been cleaned out, and start up items have been reduced to necessities only and you are still getting a slow start up, it may be a hardware issue. Something like the hard drive may be failing. Try the fresh install, or new install to a different OS. If you notice drastic speed changes then all is ok, otherwise you may want to take it in and have a pro take a look. hard drives tend to last longer than 2 years but nothing is 100%. Could also be something else, but usually lagging speeds like this are due to dying HD's

[Richb2004v2]

My 6 year old desk top was the same. It was slow in every way. Slow to open things, slow to start, slow to switch from one thing to another. I tried cleaning it and removing things, as well as virus and malware checks but nothing made a difference. In the end I put Linux Mint on it a few days ago as a dual boot. With Mint everything works without slowdown. I have no idea why but will no longer bother booting into Xp unless I have to.

[Supernova]

BTW, when was the last time you defragged? A heavily fragmented XP installation will slow things down to a crawl. So be sure to 'defrag' on a regular basis (i.e. once a month).

[sbk]

Good point about the defragging, ages I think. defragged and it has speeded up a bit. Still wouldn't mind feedback on anyone who has used a linux netbook distro and how they like it and issues they might have had

[BugJackBaron]

You may not know this but XP + torrent + lots of continuous use(months at a time) will deplete the registry(It has something to do with the number of open files allowed). Registry cleaning won't fix this as it is a "feature"

It's a known XP bug that does not affect Win 7 or Vista or of course Linux or Unix systems.

I had the same problem and traced it to this.Now not running windows at all but a Fedora derivative , Scientific Linux.

Works like a lucky charm.

I'm not sure if that was the problem with your notebook but if you use bittorrent a lot it probably is.

[JimShortz]

I've just bought an EEE PC 1015pem. This has got a new dualcore Atom processor and 2GB of memory. I've never seen it with a Windows Operating System as it came with nothing and I immediately put Ubuntu netbook remix on. This setup is not in anyway slow; bootup in what I guess is about 30 seconds, and shutdown completely in about 5. It also never hangs or pauses - going great!

My ONLY annoyance with this distro is that with the default interface (Unity) it is very pretty, but the sidebar can't be hidden and so impinges on screen space (making the overall width less than 1024 pixels). Because of this I use the normal Ubuntu default desktop (Gnome). It's super easy to switch; just logout, click name to start login again and then change it on the taskbar popout menu before entering the password. This is then your default unless you ever decide to reverse the process and choose a different desktop style! I love it in Gnome layout anyway...

Next month Ubuntu 11.04 will be released. From here on in there will be no netbook edition (it's unnecessary). You just download and install the one-size-fits-all edition and then choose the appearance that you prefer in the way I described above. In the new edition the Unity interface will apparently have a side-bar that auto-hides; if this is the case then I will be trying this very pretty interface that I think may work very well on a netbook. I will be doing my one-click upgrade as soon as it is released. So, go ahead install now, and then upgrade next month... easy!

Ubuntu is much better than it used to be. I have done NO configuring (other than personal preferences buggering about!). Everything works out of the box nowadays. At the end of the install it prompts you to agree to the licence for odd bits of software that are not truly Open Source and then it downloads and installs them - finished result is truly finished - with all programmes installed and away to go.

Here's a couple of links you might want to look at:

http://www.ubuntu.com/netbook/get-ubuntu/download

http://hubpages.com/hub/Asus-Eee-PC-1015PEM-Netbook-Review-On-Ubuntu

[sbk]

You may not know this but XP + torrent + lots of continuous use(months at a time) will deplete the registry(It has something to do with the number of open files allowed). Registry cleaning won't fix this as it is a "feature"

It's a known XP bug that does not affect Win 7 or Vista or of course Linux or Unix systems.

I had the same problem and traced it to this.Now not running windows at all but a Fedora derivative , Scientific Linux.

Works like a lucky charm.

I'm not sure if that was the problem with your notebook but if you use bittorrent a lot it probably is.

yes, yes and yes to all three.

Will give one a shot, can dual boot off a stick right?

[BugJackBaron]

You may not know this but XP + torrent + lots of continuous use(months at a time) will deplete the registry(It has something to do with the number of open files allowed). Registry cleaning won't fix this as it is a "feature"

It's a known XP bug that does not affect Win 7 or Vista or of course Linux or Unix systems.

I had the same problem and traced it to this.Now not running windows at all but a Fedora derivative , Scientific Linux.

Works like a lucky charm.

I'm not sure if that was the problem with your notebook but if you use bittorrent a lot it probably is.

yes, yes and yes to all three.

Will give one a shot, can dual boot off a stick right?

Off a USB stick? Not sure about Fedora but there are spins out there that allow this. Never tried.

Check www.distrowatch.com

[Jdietz]

Also you can physically clean your computer, make sure nothing is blocking the fans, intake grids, open the processor and graphic card covers and clean out the heat sinks. If things heat up, the processor slows WAY down to protect it from meltdown.

[sbk]

Thats worth a shot here, especially considering how much dirt sticks to everything in Thailand somehow. I hadn't even considered cleaning. It is still slow, for example while typing it can take the cursor a few seconds to catch up with my typing.

[Norndeng]

Or try EasyPeasy which is a linux distro designed specifically for, and works seamlessly on, Asus Eee PCs. I bought one of the Eee netbooks with XP pre-installed and immediately removed it due to its bloated size, complexity and apparent inability to function correctly. Installing EasyPeasy (silly name aside) has reinvigorated the tiny netbook.