Advice

jbatista

Hi all.my son has given me an asus x5dc laptop which he had free with a phone..my question is its running very slow although its 3gb ram.its on windows 7 too which I dont like...its got a partioned Hd and I want to kow how transfer all pics music etc to the Hd that says Data (D) Drive..thats got 159gh free where has the HD that says OS(C) Drive is already using 33gd of 58gb free..will it make a difference and what else can I do to make it quicker..

I no these are not great laptops but I want to try and make the most of it..

Many thanks

Jane

Lil306

jbatista wrote: »

Hi all.my son has given me an asus x5dc laptop which he had free with a phone..my question is its running very slow although its 3gb ram.its on windows 7 too which I dont like...its got a partioned Hd and I want to kow how transfer all pics music etc to the Hd that says Data (D) Drive..thats got 159gh free where has the HD that says OS(C) Drive is already using 33gd of 58gb free..will it make a difference and what else can I do to make it quicker..

I no these are not great laptops but I want to try and make the most of it..

Many thanks

Jane

Googled the laptop name on the web.....

Here's your problem the most.... - Processor: 1.2GHz Intel Celeron 220

Anyway, the RAM and HDD are fine, it's the processing power. Would you consider turning off the visual themes, since they soak up memory and system performance?

It won't affect the functionality, mainly the look of everything but I think it should reduce the load the CPU gets when carrying out tasks.

Windows 7 is optimised quite well, so it runs well with 3GB of RAM, however your CPU is underspecced so you need to reduce as much load on the CPU as possible

CHR15

Moving pics and music will make no difference to the speed (unless you were critically short of space on C: )

There is a reason they call Celeron processors Celery's.

Lil306

CHR15 wrote: »

Moving pics and music will make no difference to the speed (unless you were critically short of space on C: )

There is a reason they call Celeron processors Celery's.

Yeah, I've never been fond of Celerons (they're supposedly good overclocked :cool:) but that's a different story

I'm trying to think what else can be suggested to increase performance on the laptop other than above, since the limitation is the CPU.... other than turning off the visual themes for the moment that's as much as I can think of....

Moving page file wouldn't do much, because that would only really be needed if the disk / ram was utilised too much.

bob_man_uk

why are companies giving out seriously underpowered laptops in this day and age, they can manufacture 1.6ghz processors that run windows 7 on the cheapest of netbooks yet they cant make a relatively recent laptop with a decent processor, ive had celery's and to a point they were pretty ok, not brilliant but perfect for what the machines were used for, 1.2 is a joke, i would have expected that from about 4-5 years ago, not these days.

Lil306

One word : money

They're cheap sods, power of marketing
Cheap price, from a posh brand "obviously" means it's good

They're rip-off merchants pure and simple

jbatista

Thanks for your advice guys..How do I turn off the visual themes or disable them..

bob_man_uk

but surely as more people become IT aware releasing a product that is complete rubbish is only going to hurt them

click the start button and start typing, advanced system settings, click the option that comes up (there should only be one) if it doesnt by defailt click on advanced, the click the first settings box, then click adjust for best performance. click apply/ok it should think for a second and the start button will change, task bar will turn grey, basically it will look like the old windows 98 theme

poppy10_2

bob_man_uk wrote: »

they can manufacture 1.6ghz processors that run windows 7 on the cheapest of netbooks... 1.2 is a joke, i would have expected that from about 4-5 years ago, not these days.

A 1.2GHz Celeron 220 is significantly faster than a 1.6GHz Atom processor.
Raw clock speed (GHz) stopped being a useful measure of a processor's speed a long time ago. My 2.8GHz Core i7 is around four times faster than my old 3.4GHz Pentium 4, despite having a slower clock speed..

To the original poster: first thing to do would be a proper virus scan to check for any malware that might be slowing down your computer.

Then install and run Ccleaner and click the Tools>Startup. There may be many programs that are automatically loading themselves and slowing down your computer. The usual culprits are McAfee/Norton, Adobe Speedstart, Java updater, amongst others. Have a look at what is automatically loading and we can tell you what you can safely delete.

Lil306

poppy10 wrote: »

A 1.2GHz Celeron 220 is significantly faster than a 1.6GHz Atom processor.
Raw clock speed (GHz) stopped being a useful measure of a processor's speed a long time ago. My 2.8GHz Core i7 is around four times faster than my old 3.4GHz Pentium 4, despite having a slower clock speed.

To me this just seems another choice of manufacturer going with the cheapest CPU possible. In terms of raw speed the Celeron would win over the Atoms in a single task environment because of the chipsets they're based on, the Atom chipsets are poo.....

The Atom however imo should be the more preferential CPU because Windows is based around Multi-Tasking and given the amount of users now who open more than 1 program at a time, it's fair to say multi-tasking CPU's would be the better option.

I'd really love to see Netbooks binned, I hate the things. They're rubbish, underpowered and of little use. I'd rather use something like an Toshiba Portege it's more expensive but it's the same weight as a netbook with way better CPU power...

I'd never own a netbook because I've used them, other than typing up a file or opening up a program they have no use, the ones I tried Acers could barely handle opening up a 20-30 page powerpoint document....

Anyway... rant off

poppy10_2

Lil306 wrote: »

The Atom however imo should be the more preferential CPU because Windows is based around Multi-Tasking and given the amount of users now who open more than 1 program at a time, it's fair to say multi-tasking CPU's would be the better option.

What do you mean by a "multi-tasking cpu"?