Which laptop - ideas please for my list of requirements.

Tracyk_2

Under - say £450.
Seperate numeric keypad.
Use - for word, Excel, Sage and about 10 internet web sites - all open at the same time and would like a speedy 'jump' from each of them as I move around them.
Watching dvd's.
Watching movies online (not a deal breaker - but would be nice to have a speedy experience).
Younger kids games being played - maybe!
I have a 4 year old HP laptop - which I find frustratingly slow - but am bamboozled with all the AMD/Celeron/Intel blah blah.
Oh - and as long a battery life as possible.

I'd just like the fastest for my money.
Thanks in advance.

dixiebb

Tracyk wrote: »

Under - say £450.
Seperate numeric keypad.
Use - for word, Excel, Sage and about 10 internet web sites - all open at the same time and would like a speedy 'jump' from each of them as I move around them.
Watching dvd's.
Watching movies online (not a deal breaker - but would be nice to have a speedy experience).
Younger kids games being played - maybe!
I have a 4 year old HP laptop - which I find frustratingly slow - but am bamboozled with all the AMD/Celeron/Intel blah blah.

I'd just like the fastest for my money.
Thanks in advance.

for that price -- try and go for an i5 Intel -- it's a nice processor and speedy enough for your needs. i7 would be better but a premium price -- might be possible at that price .

Tracyk_2

Thankx Dixie!

stilltheone

A four year old laptop should not be slow. RAM upgrade and a Factory Restore should bring it up to speed. Maybe £20 in all.

Even so, you can buy a laptop more than ample for your needs for £250.

debitcardmayhem

stilltheone wrote: »

A four year old laptop should not be slow. RAM upgrade and a Factory Restore should bring it up to speed. Maybe £20 in all.

Even so, you can buy a laptop more than ample for your needs for £250.

Agree with that my ASUS is now getting long in the tooth like me, but having doubled the RAM to a max of 4gb it is like new (didn't factory restore though) Follow Closed's thread on speeding up that may be enough (I didn't do that either ) But I keep mine fairly light using the similar tools/methods. Worth trying the thread first (no cost just time/or factory restore) if it improves a fair bit then RAM is the next step.

Tracyk_2

I upped my memory to 4 meg a couple of months ago after it went into the shop following a virus attack. It may have made a slight difference - but not massive.
I bought an emachine from pcworld last week for my fil - £279 - and it was much faster. Using the same Sky broadband wifi in the house (which was another thing on my list of suspects as to my laptops slowness).
Is the thread on this category for the ideas to speed up? Although tbh - I think maybe I might have malware still kicking around - each time I go to a web page - everything seems to be loaded - but it takes 5 or 6 seconds till I can navigate around it. Does that sound like malware? I ran Bullguard virus checker and it was clean.
Actually - I should maybe start a new thread for my 'problem'.

stilltheone

Tracyk wrote: »

I upped my memory to 4 meg a couple of months ago after it went into the shop following a virus attack. It may have made a slight difference - but not massive.
I bought an emachine from pcworld last week for my fil - £279 - and it was much faster. Using the same Sky broadband wifi in the house (which was another thing on my list of suspects as to my laptops slowness).
Is the thread on this category for the ideas to speed up? Although tbh - I think maybe I might have malware still kicking around - each time I go to a web page - everything seems to be loaded - but it takes 5 or 6 seconds till I can navigate around it. Does that sound like malware? I ran Bullguard virus checker and it was clean.
Actually - I should maybe start a new thread for my 'problem'.

It's 4 GBs, not 'meg'. Why not start with the full model number of the machine?

Download, install, update and run a Quick Scan with Malwarebytes' AntiMalware. When complete, choose 'Remove Selected' if there is anything to remove and Reboot your computer.

After restart, open the program again and go to 'Logs'. Double click on the log produced for today and post the contents here.

Tracyk_2

It says on the bottom of it Compaq nx6325 - although says HP on the lid. Windows XP and has a label saying AMD Sempron on it.

I've been trying to get a copy of malwarebytes for the past day or so - but no luck. When I click on your link it says server down for maintenance.

stilltheone

Tracyk wrote: »

It says on the bottom of it Compaq nx6325 - although says HP on the lid. Windows XP and has a label saying AMD Sempron on it.

I've been trying to get a copy of malwarebytes for the past day or so - but no luck. When I click on your link it says server down for maintenance.

Sempron is not good. CPU Benchmark figure of between 444 and 478. Actually better than my PC, but I have a separate graphics card.

Use this link for Malwarebytes instead.

Compaq nx6325

stilltheone

23n1th wrote: »

Hell if you really want to spend some money buy yourself an SSD drive, that'll certainly speed things up. After you've confirmed you haven't got a malware issue and unneeded start up items.

Of course you are not serious??

Tracyk_2

Have run malwarebytes - came up clean - no malicious threats found.
How do I check what my start up items are? I think I read how to do it on bleepingcomputer last night - but it'd take me ages to find the thread again.
I won't even pretend I know what an SSD drive is!!