laptop help please

elljay20

help me make it work faster!! it's sooooo slow. it seems slower now than my old one. on oh work lappy at the moment and it's so much quicker.
i've deleted what i can off mine, and defraged it but it's no better. start up is slow, but it takes ages for the msn sign in box to appear and it won't do anything untill thats popped up. Also pictures take ages to open. Any ideas??

orlwaysbroke

I've had similar - as have many others.

All I can say is that Multiple users, Microsoft software and large amounts of music/pics/vids have slowed mine in the past.

I have now set it to one user only (cos each duplicate takes massive extra memory ), have minimised the MS stuff, and have moved as much music etc onto dvd as possible.

That really helped.

Then I changed to memory from 256 mb to 1 gigb ram - that helped too... !!!

elljay20

orlwaysbroke wrote: »

I've had similar - as have many others.

All I can say is that Multiple users, Microsoft software and large amounts of music/pics/vids have slowed mine in the past.

I have now set it to one user only (cos each duplicate takes massive extra memory ), have minimised the MS stuff, and have moved as much music etc onto dvd as possible.

That really helped.

Then I changed to memory from 256 mb to 1 gigb ram - that helped too... !!!

how do i change it to one user. bear in mind you're talking to a techie idiot here!

buglawton

If you are trying ot run XP on 256 MB you are fairly well stuffed! BUT is is worth patiently working through 10 pages of performance optimization tips at:

http://www.pcmech.com/show/optimize/677/1/

- Note the little 'next' button at the bottom of each page - hard to spot!
- Choose the tips that appear the most practical for you

I also run an elderly laptop and believe these tips made some difference.

rdpro

A quick memory improvement is to turn off all the Tellytubby looks of XP - rightclick My Computer, select Properties, then Advanced. Click Performance and select 'adjust for best performance'.

I recommend a minimum of 512MB of memory to run XP - 256MB costs around 25-35 pounds.


Another bad memory hogger is programs that sit in your system tray, unused. Look through them all and decide whether you really need them running all the time. If not, look in the program's options and 'disable at startup'

elljay20

how do i find out how nuch memory i have?? it's not an old laptop, i only got it in jan!!!

BillScarab

download and run ccleaner that will clear lots of rubbish out. As rdpro suggested turn off all of the fancy graphics in XP.

to check your memory

start,control panel, system

One problem with XP is that by default a lot of things are stored in your user profile which is read at startup. One option is to move all of you pictures, videos, mp3s etc from the default locations to new directories.

elljay20

BillScarab wrote: »

download and run ccleaner that will clear lots of rubbish out. As rdpro suggested turn off all of the fancy graphics in XP.

to check your memory

start,control panel, system

One problem with XP is that by default a lot of things are stored in your user profile which is read at startup. One option is to move all of you pictures, videos, mp3s etc from the default locations to new directories.

start, control panel, system then what?

crox

then at the bottom of the General tab it'll tell you what processor / speed and how much memory you have.

btw, what laptop do you have?

elljay20

crox wrote: »

then at the bottom of the General tab it'll tell you what processor / speed and how much memory you have.

btw, what laptop do you have?

it's a packard bell this one
http://www.packardbell.co.uk/products/on-the-go/notebooks/easynote-mv/easynote-mv46-005/productsheet-PB66M00201-805.html

elljay20

crox wrote: »

then at the bottom of the General tab it'll tell you what processor / speed and how much memory you have.

btw, what laptop do you have?

it says T2050 @ 1.60GHz 798 mhz 248 mb of ram