what should i do with this laptop

bonkers

what OS should i put on

dell latittude d600m
1.6ghx pentium M
256 ram

xp service pack 1

petes

You say you already have XP on it.

Are you looking for recommendations of other OS's?

bonkers

its very slow.. the memory upgrade might fix that.. just wondering if ubuntu or that might be the job.. never used any of them before

petes

XP only needs 64mb of ram to run so 256mb should be fine although an upgrade would be beneficial.

Have you a lot of things starting when the machine boots? Have you ran a virus/spware scan lateley?

bonkers

yea well its quite slow have avg on it

another thing its constantly discconects from wireless and tries to connect to neighbours one.. and fails every 10mins or less.. cant seem to fix that at all..

any good deep cleaning start from scratch software that can make windows good as new with no software bar startup ms stuff

wellbutty

In reality XP needs 512Mb to run properly.

Try START...RUN.....MSCONFIG.....startup tab

Deselect everything and reboot, it should be super quick.

Then run msconfig again and using trial and error, tick back on those programs you know and want to start when you boot up.

Also, go to www.hijackthis.de and download this app and install it.
Run it, generate the log and then go to the website and upload your log and choose to view visitors ratings. Look for those with a Red X.

Warning: Use Hijackthis carefully, it's lethal if you delete an important value!

petes

wellbutty wrote: »

Try START...RUN.....MSCONFIG.....startup tab

Deselect everything and reboot, it should be super quick.

Then run msconfig again and using trial and error, tick back on those programs you know and want to start when you boot up.

Do not deslect everything from your startup list. Only untick programs that you know.

Morning

if you wanna speed it up go with linux, with 256 of ram you could have it look like vista without all the hassle. search for ubuntu, its free & great

civildefence

bonkers wrote: »

what OS should i put on

dell latittude d600m
1.6ghx pentium M
256 ram

xp service pack 1

Upgrade to SP2, avoid vista, If it was still supported i'd suggest reverting to 98 as it was the best MS OS in my opinion.

bonkers

thanks for yer help guys

what are the downsides to unbuntu - all i want to be able to do is use internet, print, use word processor and watch some divx etc..

might stay with windows if i could somehow manage the wireless thing but i cant.. is there some way of getting a wireless manager

wellbutty

XP SP2 has a complete rewrite of wireless and is a must.

Do not deslect everything from your startup list. Only untick programs that you know.

Either or, but unticking everything wont break your PC and will still allow it to boot up properly

civildefence

bonkers wrote: »

thanks for yer help guys

what are the downsides to unbuntu - all i want to be able to do is use internet, print, use word processor and watch some divx etc..

might stay with windows if i could somehow manage the wireless thing but i cant.. is there some way of getting a wireless manager

Well I had a belkin wireless card working with its own manager on an ancient compaq presario laptop running 98 and it was grand

Squeeonline

get rid of XP, run Ubuntu. Its free and should work fine with that laptop. You'll get more out of it that if you were running XP (or vista god forbid).

As long as you arent using the laptop for games, ubuntu is the way to go.

gamer

Go here scan memory [url]http:///www.crucial.com[/url] get 1 or 2 gig ram upgrade and it will be fine..SWITCH off some services, ie remote diagnostic etc.

Effluo

gamer wrote: »

Go here scan memory [url]http:///www.crucial.com[/url] get 1 or 2 gig ram upgrade and it will be fine..SWITCH off some services, ie remote diagnostic etc.

This won't fix his wireless problem...
Your wireless problem sounds like what's buggin you most?

*First Download the drivers for your wireless adapter
2.uninstall the utility/driver you're currently using
3.Install the driver you downloaded (it'll prob now work again unless it's the hardware)....

To speed up you system however i'd just say copy all the files you want to keep that are on your pc to an external hard-drive (or two to be safe)

And then do a clean install of xp.

That's what i'm doing with my old laptop now btw.
If it ran fast in the past it can still run fast in the future,
all you have to do is make like it was when it ran fast....

MunsterCycling

Update to at least SP2 as the WiFi is better supported as SP1 and Gold had no native support and relied solely upon the management tool supplied by card manufacturer.

Morning

sounds perfect for unbubtu, you can use firefox to browse, open office does all your printing & word processing (& is compatable with word .doc) & it can play dixv. i'm sure you wouldn't have problem with the wireless as well. & most of all its all free

bonkers wrote: »

thanks for yer help guys

what are the downsides to unbuntu - all i want to be able to do is use internet, print, use word processor and watch some divx etc..

might stay with windows if i could somehow manage the wireless thing but i cant.. is there some way of getting a wireless manager