External Hard Drives and Sims Query

tahariel

I bought a laptop around 2.5 years ago. It's gone incredibly slow and I've had to restore it once already however this didn't make it any faster. I've put most of my files onto disks and freed up as much of it as I can. It's still no faster. So my next thought is to get an external hard drive. I want to play Sims 2, can I store the game on the external drive and play it from there ?

I also wonder if there's any other reason for the slowing of my laptop. It's running on XP, I can't upgrade at this time and I always use a cooler underneath. I'm wondering if a laptop was a bad choice, although my friend has one and hers is really fast and she has never used a cooler.

A:I

If it is running slow removing files form the hdd won't make any difference (unless you're loading games on a hdd which needs a serious defrag).
If i were you, i would reinstall XP from you Windows XP disk (not recovery), and it would be as-new. After years of installing and uninstalling programs it can slow down a computer, by reformatting you're starting again.
If you do decide to reformat, remember to
a) Backup all your files to disk/usb
b) Make sure you have your XP cd key (should be on bottom of laptop, or with documents)
c) You may need to reinstall drivers (liek sound) from disk, or the internet after you have reformatted, so don't be alarmed if you dont have sound etc.

But you've done the right thing having a cooler on it, should help prolong the life of your componants (Y)

shimmershelly

Some info on mod the sims 2 here about running TS2 from an external hard drive.

superscaper

shimmershelly wrote: »

Some info on mod the sims 2 here about running TS2 from an external hard drive.

Waste of time if it's already running slowly natively as running from external hard drive will be even slower.