Slow Laptop - Please Help ! !!

moaner

Please help! I a running a compaq presario 2500, 2.6ghz celeron, 512mb ram, windows xp, 40gb hard drive, m-audio firewire audiophile, maxtor firewire external hard drive. cpu usage seems to spike at over 70% when running most applications and the machine slows down. this occurs with almost every application, even when playing mp3s in media player or itunes. i transferred all of my mp3s to the firewire drive but I still have the same problem.

i have tried deleting unused files / applications, defragging, stopping unnecessary applications and processes, changing virtual memory settings etc and this is still happening. the internal hard drive is running at 4200rpm but surely this should be enough to do something as basic as playing music without slowdown? i bought the firewire drive and then the audiophile thinking that this would solve the problem but even applications that i have installed on the external drive are still suffering. can anyone help me with this? PLEASE ! ! ! !

gamer

Do control alt delete see what processes its running, u can close, end viruschecker,firewall etc when not connected to the net,theres loadsa of services u can switch off ,like remote desktop services,etc, do search boards services computers forum,theres like 5 at least u can disable, u need telephony services, to connect to web,theres start up manager built in to windows that enables u to disable some progs, stop em from loading on start up.you can knock off processes like ipod, realplayer if u think u wont need em in this session,i have 256 p4 cpu, usually have only 8meg real memory free.Use spybot sd program to make sure theres no spyware taking up cpu time.u may have too many progs loaded in system tray.cntrl alt delete,then click performance in task manager.

moaner

thanks gamer. ive stopped all unnecessary processes and services but its still the same. ive also ran spyware s&d and its clean. the system tray is also pretty much empty. i really cant figure out wtf is wrong

irlrobins

Hey OP,

Download and run this prog. It will show you what process exactly is taking up all the CPU time. That might help to narrow it down.

gamer

Download symantec program ,system dianostic/optimisation program ,i cant remember name , it analyzes your pc ,system,setup,then it suggests fixes to all the problems,software or hardware ,it finds, I think u,d need win xp version, also try download belarc adviser, and driver detective,run full virus check too.maybe sum1 outthere knows the program name.You may have spyware or malware thats using up your cpu or u may be missing drivers for some component.

stevenmu

Laptops often slow down a hell of a lot if they're overheating, check that the air vents are clear and that air can flow freely through them. Make sure the fans are spinning and that air is actually being pulled in/pushed out.

moaner

cheers guys, ive tried all that and have managed to get the cpu usage rate down a fair bit. it still seems to be struggling when running more than 1 application though. i had been thinking about upgrading from 512mb to 1 gb but given that the Celeron only has a 128k cache, im not sure if an upgrade like this would be worthwhile. has any1 any thoughts on this? cheers

irlrobins

yea i reckon you wouldn't see much of a performance increase considering you have a weak processor. How much would the extra RAM cost you? If it's a small sum then it might be reasonable to do it.

moaner

itd probably cost about €150 for the ram. i suppose upgrading the celeron would be out of the question, so if i thought id get any boost in performance, id upgrade the ram

irlrobins

personally I don't think you'll see a huge increase in performance so not worth 150e. Others might have differing opinions.

gamer

make sure u have wifi progs, and card switched off most of the time,,takes up alot of cpu,and BATETERY power,unless u are actually browsing the web.U CAN KNOCK off antivirus,and firewall,when u are not connected to the net,be careful, re :floppy disk virus/s.

Tom Dunne

moaner wrote:

itd probably cost about €150 for the ram. i suppose upgrading the celeron would be out of the question, so if i thought id get any boost in performance, id upgrade the ram

Just as an aside - I have a HP laptop that I purchased with a Celeron 2.6Ghz (at least, I think it was 2.6) processor. I whipped it out and replaced it with a Pentium 4 3Ghz and it's working a hell of a lot better.

You do of course need to check your chipset and socket type, but this may give you another option. I got the chip on ebay for 100 Eurons - cheaper than the RAM upgrade and probably better, IMHO.

Kali

Disable System Restore... first thing to go each and everytime I install XP.