How to speed up a slow laptop

Wailin

Hey guys,
I know this is a common problem and there's probably a couple of threads on it already but how do I speed up my laptop, its driving me insane:eek:!!!
Its a sony vaio with 1GB RAM and I use windows vista. I also have a dell inspiron and have the same problem but not to the same extent. Both take a long time to start up, especially the sony. How do I clear the memory of unwanted junk and how to I tidy it up to increase RAM without having to spend too much, if any, money?
Thanks in advance

Happyman42

Wailin wrote: »

Hey guys,
I know this is a common problem and there's probably a couple of threads on it already but how do I speed up my laptop, its driving me insane:eek:!!!
Its a sony vaio with 1GB RAM and I use windows vista. I also have a dell inspiron and have the same problem but not to the same extent. Both take a long time to start up, especially the sony. How do I clear the memory of unwanted junk and how to I tidy it up to increase RAM without having to spend too much, if any, money?
Thanks in advance

Have you run CCleaner? Google it. I'm no expert but I would imagine 1 gig is insufficient nowadays, infact I think Vista is designed for a minimum of 2.
You also need to tidy up your 'start list' google that for Vista too.

Btwndeyes

I had the same problem, and fixed it all just by upgrading to windows seven and clearing all the junk of the memory, my 3 year old dell now runs as fast as it did the day i got it, i reckon stuff just gets accumulated over time and you just have clear it up.

Enter Username

Hi Wailin,

1gb of RAM for Vista is very low. Your laptop will support up to 4g of RAM. The basic rule is the more RAM you have, the faster the applications will load. Upgrading the RAM is normally very easy (but I think the Vaio may need to have the keyboard removed). You may want to have a experienced technical install @ least another 2 gb. The total cost should be no more than €100 euro (parts + labour)

bhickey

Reboot, login and when the machine has settled open the Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del and select Task Manager) and make a note of the number or processes running. Then the work starts :

1. Go into Programs & features & uninstall everything that you know you don't need or use.
2. Turn off as many startup services as possible. You probably have a lot of programs running that don't need to be. You can do this for some programs just by going into the program's own options and looking for the setting. For the rest (or for ones that won't cooperate) run 'msconfig' and disable as many startup programs as you can,
3. Start at step 1 again

CCleaner will separately also help clean out lots of temporary files and junk that you don't need.

x in the city

getting rid of vista should be your first port of call,who ever sold that with 1G of ram should be hung up to dry. Vista running on 1gig is like driving from kerry to dublin in 1st gear.

just off the top of my head.

complete format the drive

install windows xp

get 2gig of ram or more

= speed increase

Enter Username

x in the city wrote: »

getting rid of vista should be your first port of call,who ever sold that with 1G of ram should be hung up to dry. Vista running on 1gig is like driving from kerry to dublin in 1st gear.

just off the top of my head.

complete format the drive

install windows xp

get 2gig of ram or more

= speed increase

If doing all this work why go for XP when Win7 is not a resource intensive?

Ash.J.Williams

The FIRST thing to do is go to the run command box (in vista it's the white box under the programmes ..and type "msconfig" a small program will start up.

Choose "startup"


from the bottom of this list untick every box EXCEPT

• antivirus
• windows system essentials

If you cannot tell what is what, it is quite simple.
there is a tab for "command" and a tab for "location"
do not untick anything that is located in "C:\windows

or C:\program files \ "folder for your anti virus program)


untick all ****e like Itunes, adobe...google..skype open office....



i gaurantee you this will sort out your startup speed....

if you don't know what something is eg shstat.exe do not untick it....

you can do the same in the sevices tab, but be careful with that

Groinshot

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

The FIRST thing to do is go to the run command box (in vista it's the white box under the programmes ..and type "msconfig" a small program will start up.

Choose "startup"


from the bottom of this list untick every box EXCEPT

• antivirus
• windows system essentials

If you cannot tell what is what, it is quite simple.
there is a tab for "command" and a tab for "location"
do not untick anything that is located in "C:\windows

or C:\program files \ "folder for your anti virus program)


untick all ****e like Itunes, adobe...google..skype open office....



i gaurantee you this will sort out your startup speed....

if you don't know what something is eg shstat.exe do not untick it....

you can do the same in the sevices tab, but be careful with that

Not a good idea, if at all possible, take things off startup from inside the program (like open msna nd uncheck the box for startupo) MSconfig is used for diagnostics, not a long term solution.
if you remove iTuneshelper from startup, iTunes won't start, so if you use it, then don't remove it.

Get a dedicated program to do it, as far as I know CCleamer does it for you, and doesn't let you remove system startup files/

Callan57

I followed Ash.J.Williams suggestion & no problem ... iTunes etc all working perfect & laptop certainly seems to be faster

Thanks Ash.J.Williams

Ash.J.Williams

Callan57 wrote: »

I followed Ash.J.Williams suggestion & no problem ... iTunes etc all working perfect & laptop certainly seems to be faster

Thanks Ash.J.Williams

cheers!!