5 Year old Sony VAIO

muddle84

So my Vaio is getting really slow, I recently downloaded norton 360 and noticed an initial improvement of the performance of the laptop but lately it has got slower. Could Norton be causing it to slow down even with the tune up features? If not is there anything I can do to speed it up?

CreepingDeath

muddle84 wrote: »

So my Vaio is getting really slow, I recently downloaded norton 360 and noticed an initial improvement of the performance of the laptop but lately it has got slower. Could Norton be causing it to slow down even with the tune up features? If not is there anything I can do to speed it up?

I wouldn't trust any virus scanner that offers "tune up" features.
They could be referring to the delay they caused in the start up, or simply deferring a lot of services to start up in the background.

I've an old Dell Inspiron 1720, a 17" laptop which I only realised recently has a 2nd hard drive bay.

So for the sake of around €50 I'm going to try a 64Gb SSD hard drive in it, and leave the existing 320Gb non-SSD as a secondary hard disk.

So the SSD hard drive is probably a good upgrade...
assuming you've already at least 4GB of RAM.

bridster007

CreepingDeath wrote: »

I wouldn't trust any virus scanner that offers "tune up" features.
They could be referring to the delay they caused in the start up, or simply deferring a lot of services to start up in the background.

I've an old Dell Inspiron 1720, a 17" laptop which I only realised recently has a 2nd hard drive bay.

So for the sake of around €50 I'm going to try a 64Gb SSD hard drive in it, and leave the existing 320Gb non-SSD as a secondary hard disk.

So the SSD hard drive is probably a good upgrade...
assuming you've already at least 4GB of RAM.

Unless its a 64bit operating system (unlikely for a 5 yr old machine) then 4Gb ram cannot be accessed, max 3~3.5 Gb

bridster007

muddle84 wrote: »

So my Vaio is getting really slow, I recently downloaded norton 360 and noticed an initial improvement of the performance of the laptop but lately it has got slower. Could Norton be causing it to slow down even with the tune up features? If not is there anything I can do to speed it up?

Take off Norton and put on free Avast. Ensure your HDD has at least 15% free space. Type msconfig.exe in the search box and check what programs are ticked in startup tab. Untick things that don't look like essential system files. Could also do a reinstall of the operating system. Clean out 5 yrs of crap.

muddle84

It has a 250gb hard drive in it already,
The processor is an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU P8400 @ 2.26GHz
RAM : 4gb
32 bit operating system.

Would another hard drive speed me up?

CreepingDeath

muddle84 wrote: »

It has a 250gb hard drive in it already,
The processor is an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU P8400 @ 2.26GHz
RAM : 4gb
32 bit operating system.

Would another hard drive speed me up?

Your 32 bit operating system can only access 3.5Gb of that 4Gb RAM, so you can't use more RAM in that machine.

I'm in the same boat.
I've 4GB of RAM and a 32 bit OS, so I'm hoping this 64Gb SSD can work it's magic.

One of the lads in work got an SSD hard drive upgrade for his old laptop... and his dual-core CPU is out-performing my quad-core CPU for major automated build/test tasks. ( software development stuff )

So I've a €50 SSD drive and just waiting on the Dell drive caddy to install it in this laptop I'm on now.. and expecting it to inject new life into it.

muddle84

That sounds like an option. Really what I'm looking for though is some way of improving the speed without spending money :P

Eph1958

Have you considered a Linux install? Try boot from an Ubuntu live disk to try the system out without changing anything. If you like it then free up around 12GB of hard disk space and install it alongside Windows. The Ubuntu disk will handle the install. You will then have a far more efficient system that is great for general use and free(?) of viruses. And IMHO, a much more enjoyable experience. Enjoy.

Eph.

wheresmybeaver

I reinstalled windows 7 on my partners 5 year old Vaio recently and it made a huge difference. But then i replaced the old 100gb hard disc with a 64gb ssd and wow - blazing fast, like a brand new laptop again. Quiter as well.

ozmo

CreepingDeath wrote: »

I'm in the same boat.
I've 4GB of RAM and a 32 bit OS, so I'm hoping this 64Gb SSD can work it's magic.

So I've a €50 SSD drive and just waiting on the Dell drive caddy to install it in this laptop I'm on now.. and expecting it to inject new life into it.

You might be disappointed -

The second bay in some laptops might not run at the full speed (its sometimes intended just for a slower cd drive on some laptops).
And unless you put the whole OS and the compiler on the SSD drive you will still be running off the old drive and wont see any performance boost.

You would need replace the internal HDD drive with the SSD (no caddy needed) so see any major speed boosts.

It is possible to Image the old drive onto the SSD - but can very tricky to do (for lots reasons).

Much easier to reinstall with the SSD as the main internal drive - Win7 or better that fully supports SSD's - and put the old drive in the caddy as secondary storage when you get it.

The speed boost from a SSD is amazing and well worth getting a decent SSD drive - only downside is if it fails - it will be sudden with no warning - so keep backups.

CreepingDeath

ozmo wrote: »

You might be disappointed -

The second bay in some laptops might not run at the full speed (its sometimes intended just for a slower cd drive on some laptops).
And unless you put the whole OS and the compiler on the SSD drive you will still be running off the old drive and wont see any performance boost.

Thanks, but it's a 17" Dell Inspiron 1720, it has two dedicated SATA drive bays and a dvd drive.
Yep I plan to reinstall the OS and frequently used programs on the SSD drive as the primary drive ( drive bay 1 ), and keep the existing 320gb drive as a secondary drive. Just waiting on the special drive caddy from ebay !

ozmo

CreepingDeath wrote: »

Thanks, but it's a 17" Dell Inspiron 1720, it has two dedicated SATA drive bays and a dvd drive.
Yep I plan to reinstall the OS and frequently used programs on the SSD drive as the primary drive ( drive bay 1 ), and keep the existing 320gb drive as a secondary drive. Just waiting on the special drive caddy from ebay !

Ah - cool laptop to have that option -

For anyone with one bay - you can put the old drive in the CD bay - you can get the cd drive shaped caddy for a fiver on ebay. If it runs really slow - check the driver properties that it has not gone from DMA to PIO mode.

Theres also 1T hybred on sale in Maplins at the mo - 110 euros - 1TB SSD and 8G SSD combined- might be another option... supposed to be very good.

yoyo

ozmo wrote: »

Ah - cool laptop to have that option -

For anyone with one bay - you can put the old drive in the CD bay - you can get the cd drive shaped caddy for a fiver on ebay. If it runs really slow - check the driver properties that it has not gone from DMA to PIO mode.

Theres also 1T hybred on sale in Maplins at the mo - 110 euros - 1TB SSD and 8G SSD combined- might be another option... supposed to be very good.

Many newer SATA HDD laptops used IDE disc drive connectors. Even in 08/09 laptops were still using the older IDE connectors. It's worth checking this before going that route

Nick

ozmo

yoyo wrote: »

Many newer SATA HDD laptops used IDE disc drive connectors. Even in 08/09 laptops were still using the older IDE connectors. It's worth checking this before going that route

Nick

Oh - yes - good reminder - there are two types on ebay (and some others nonstandard ones for HP/Compaq) - check you order the right one....!

PropJoe10

If you dont want to spend money, try something simple such as disabling unneccesary startup programs. Start >> Run >>Type MSConfig and press Enter. Disable stuff like Skype, Chrome, Adobe etc in the list of startup programs. Should help you a little.