Is Your Netbook/laptop Too Slow ?

[Gary A]

My HP Mini 210 netbook was slow enough to be irritating. It came to the point of buying a more powerful unit or doing something to improve the one I have.

With the great support from ivadeIT, I was able to get a 2GB RAM upgrade that actually fit and worked plus a 120 GB SSD. The little netbook is now quite acceptable at a much cheaper cost than a new machine. Maybe another good thing is if/when the netbook dies I will still have the RAM and SSD for a new one. The Mini is now about three years old.

[guzzi850m2]

My Asus Eee netbook was also slow as hell. I upgraded to a staggering 2GB ram (maximum) and it's faster now but won't impress anybody, he-he.

For what it is it's okay, I paid 500 S$ 2 years ago for it so when it dies I wont cry.

[Guest]

I have an 5 years old Lenovo Thinkpad X61s with 4GB of memory. Week ago upgraded to 128GB SSD.. and oh boy the speed difference is great!

The laptop currently support only SATA I speeds, but found an unofficial BIOS which enables SATA II speeds.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3765

http://www.invadeit.co.th/product/solid-state-drives-ssd/ocz/128gb-vertex-4-sata-iii-2-5inch-ssd-vtx4-25sat3-128g-p009064/

[JSixpack]

My netbook was slow until I put LInux (Lubuntu, specifically) on it, free. It's quite fast now.

[Chicog]

I put 2Gb and an SSD in my ee PC1000 right at the start. I dual boot Windows 7 (without a page file) and PCLinux OS.

Windows is a bit slow starting, but once it's up it's perfectly acceptable.

But it is grimy and a bit battered. I recently upgraded to the Asus Infinity, so I'll probably donate the eee to someone or other who can get some use out of it.

[dave_boo]

daveboo@daveboo-UL80VT:~$ uname -a
Linux daveboo-UL80VT 3.2.0-23-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Tue Apr 10 20:39:51 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

daveboo@daveboo-UL80VT:~$ sudo hdparm -i /dev/sda

/dev/sda:

Model=C300-CTFDDAC128MAG, FwRev=0002, SerialNo=00000000103102FC****

daveboo@daveboo-UL80VT:~$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Timing buffered disk reads: 702 MB in 3.01 seconds = 233.49 MB/sec

daveboo@daveboo-UL80VT:/proc$ cat cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 23
model name : Genuine Intel(R) CPU U7300 @ 1.30GHz

daveboo@daveboo-UL80VT:/proc$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 7952 2470 5481 0 561 1307
-/+ buffers/cache: 601 7350
Swap: 2000 0 2000

daveboo@daveboo-UL80VT:/proc$ optirun glxinfo
name of display: :0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: VirtualGL
server glx version string: 1.4
...

OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce G210M/PCIe/SSE2
OpenGL version string: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 304.51

Works great with Lubuntu (finally upgraded from Mint 10). Actually goes to the Desktop from a cold boot in 7 seconds and idles at the desktop with Chrome open (3 tabs) at mid 7 Watts. Something is screwy with gnome-mplayer; trying to use vdpau results in higher CPU usage than using xvmc...(?)

PowerTOP 1.97 Overview Idle stats Frequency stats Device stats Tunab

The battery reports a discharge rate of 7.81 W

Edited October 14, 2012 by dave_boo

[cbrer]

Most people with slow laptops usually just need to clean out and tweak their system.

Start out by typing 'How to speed up *name of operating system?*' in to google.

Then streamline it by getting rid of the programs you don't need and learn about basic maintainence and care..

[billd766]

If you upgrade the hard drive in my instance on an Acer laptop with an 80gB hard drive how do you copy the existing hard drive to a bigger one, say 320gB?

Just checked and I have 4gB RAM and a 1.67gB processor.

[dave_boo]

If you upgrade the hard drive in my instance on an Acer laptop with an 80gB hard drive how do you copy the existing hard drive to a bigger one, say 320gB?

Just checked and I have 4gB RAM and a 1.67gB processor.

You're going to need an SATA->USB adapter. If you're going to want to use the old drive as an external drive, just buy an enclosure. After you've installed both drives where you want them, use Clonezilla.

[Crushdepth]

Gary A said:

With the great support from ivadeIT, I was able to get a 2GB RAM upgrade that actually fit and worked plus a 120 GB SSD. The little netbook is now quite acceptable at a much cheaper cost than a new machine. Maybe another good thing is if/when the netbook dies I will still have the RAM and SSD for a new one. The Mini is now about three years old.

What SSD did you get? I've got a HP Mini 5101 which I love, because it is awesomely portable and has a beautiful design (and ok, crappy Atom processor). Even though it's 3 years old and obsolete, it's my favourite machine for meetings and basic tasks.

[Gary A]

I bought what invadeIT recommended;

Intel SSD 330 Series 120GB, SATA 6Gb/s, 25nm, MLC

[electau]

Clean your HDD. Run a registry cleaning progam. Defragment the HDD. Uncheck progams you do not need to use at startup, remove unwanted programs you do no longer use. Make sure all of your operating system updates are installed, and your antivirus protection as well. Disable WiFi and bluetooth when not in use.

CCleaner is a good program to start with. Auslogics is a good defragmentation program.

[JSixpack]

updates are installed, and your antivirus protection as well.

Actually a big help, if you know a bit about what you're doing, is to disable the real-time virus protections (big drag on performance) and go w/ an on-demand scanner you can run as needed or on a regular schedule, say, once a week.

'Course, if you're running Linux, you have little to fear.

[billd766]

If you upgrade the hard drive in my instance on an Acer laptop with an 80gB hard drive how do you copy the existing hard drive to a bigger one, say 320gB?

Just checked and I have 4gB RAM and a 1.67gB processor.

You're going to need an SATA->USB adapter. If you're going to want to use the old drive as an external drive, just buy an enclosure. After you've installed both drives where you want them, use Clonezilla.

Thanks for the info. I opened the Clonezilla site and by halfway down the page my eyes glazed over and my brain stopped.

The laptop is my old one used by the kids and it kept telling me there is no memory left.

I spemt a couple of hours on Sunday night un-installing programs, emptying the trash folder and I managed to freeup about 30gB of crap from in there so I should be good for a couple of month now.

I am thinking of getting an Acer desktop around the new year for ME, then passing this laptop down to my son and dropping the oldest to the next child that come around every day but the laptop will stay here where I can keep an eye on it.