Aged Laptop advice please

love_lifer

Hello all

Ive asked for advice before and now need a bit more please. My EI laptop is about 6 years old and has 256mb RAM and 40 HDD. I've been advised to get another memory thingy but because the laptop is rather ropey I've been reluctant to shell out in case it packs in. yet still it goes on

i have lots of photos and music but no gaming, just use of internet and email daily

It keeps saying low virtual memory and being very slow. I have done all the defrag/ crap cleaner etc. And for some reason spybot takes hours to complete. i have the latest avg. and adaware

Is it likely i have a virus? or do i need to start saving for a new system?

All opinions gratefully received

vyseyboy

The latest AVG is quite memory hungry, and I'm pretty sure it slows down browsing hugely. You might want to think about swapping this for another free one like avast or avira, or better still splashing out on Eset NOD32, costs moolah, but the least memory hungry and the best, by all accounts.

Also, definately you should be maxxing out the RAM if you can- try going to crucial.co.uk and seeing what upgrades it recommends / says are availalble to you, then shop around to see if you can get this puppy rolling again. 256Mb isn't really enough for XP to be comfortable. Aim for 1Gb if your laptop's mainboard can accept it.

Other things to try- get rid of all non-essential background processes at start up by using c-cleaner's startup utility.

The number one cause of computer slowdown these days tends to be spyware, so as long as you have spybot up to date and are running it regularly, I can see no reason why there'd be an issue. Always best to get second (and third) opinions though, maybe you could try running a malwarebytes scan? This only runs when you prompt it, so it won't slow your machine down more by installing.

Your computer is obviously not top-of-the-line, so really it depends on how much you are willing to sacrifice... personally I'd much rather keep my ancient P2 laptop, and use Miranda IM instead of MSN's bloated messenger, than buy new stuff that I can't really afford just to get eye-candy that doesn't really do anything more productive.

cowbutt

Virtual memory is the term given for the combination physical RAM and the swap file (aka pagefile) on the hard disc that is used to supplement it.

Physical RAM is 10-100 times faster than a hard disc, so avoiding using the swap file will make the machine quicker if it normally does so.

As applications are upgraded, they tend to consume more memory and be more demanding on the processor. Also, if you have many applications running simultaneously, the will be more pressure on memory.

You can increase the size of the swap file as long as there's room on the hard disc for it, but a good rule of thumb is that you avoid using a swap file that's more than twice the size of physical memory (and preferably don't use any swap at all in normal operation). If you need more virtual memory, buy more RAM so that rule continues to hold.

I guess you're running Windows XP on the machine. If so, upgrading it to at least 512MB will help, and 1-2GB won't hurt either, if that's possible with your laptop and it's affordable.

Check how much an upgrade will cost on http://crucial.com/uk/ and compare it with the cost of buying a new machine (e.g. The Acer 5720 laptop from Tesco at £349, or the Medion desktop PC at Aldi this week for £499).

TonyMMM

How much free space do you have on your 40Gb Hard Drive ? If there is very little, that will be the cause of slow running. You will need to delete stuff you don't need.

Falc

After 6 years i would back up, then reinstall your operating system, that would clean things up

Conor_3

256MB is pushing it now, even for Windows XP, due to the fact that pretty much all applications have got larger and their memory requirements increase. 512MB is what I'd consider a minimum for a computer now (Linux or XP) even though 256MB was classed as the sweet spot 6 years ago.

love_lifer

Thanks for all opinions. I have to take the leap i think and either get a new one or buy new memory. The problem is limited funds- im a very mature student and cant really afford to get memory and then it falls to pieces (theres lots of bits of casing missing). but then i guess i could sell the memory if this happens?

am going to install new anti virus ware- avira or avast? any experiences?

And if i reinstall, do i lose everything?

Tony- I have 21.7gb space left. that seems like a lot. Im considering copying all photos to cd and memory stick so i can delete them and free up space

Thanks again