Breathing life into an elderly laptop - advice please

Steve-o

My laptop is about 8 years old, an Advent 7109b, running XP Media Centre Edition. It chugs along a bit, freezing for a good 30 seconds or so at various times. Boot up time is about 4 or 5 minutes. I can't afford to buy a new laptop at the moment, so I'm looking for advice on if it can be made to run better.

It's got 2gig of ram fitted (no slots free), and a 320gig hard drive which is about 2 years old. I am thinking of replacing the XP MCE with Ubuntu, as I'm assuming that Linux isn't as much of a system hog as the XP MCE. I'm also considering replacing the hard drive with a 64gig SSD to extend the run time on battery.

Would the combination of Linux and an SSD be worth doing, to speed up my old machine?

closed

backup and reinstall xp, or follow the speedup sticky and post a hijackthis log, (you may need to change all system32's to system42 to post it)

NiftyDigits

A poor processor, but still better than the one in my Netbook and that is fully loaded in a minute or so.

So a back up and reinstall with an up to date Dixons XP disc with SP3 should make all of the difference.

victor2

Steve-o wrote: »

My laptop is about 8 years old, an Advent 7109b, running XP Media Centre Edition. It chugs along a bit, freezing for a good 30 seconds or so at various times. Boot up time is about 4 or 5 minutes. I can't afford to buy a new laptop at the moment, so I'm looking for advice on if it can be made to run better.

It's got 2gig of ram fitted (no slots free), and a 320gig hard drive which is about 2 years old. I am thinking of replacing the XP MCE with Ubuntu, as I'm assuming that Linux isn't as much of a system hog as the XP MCE. I'm also considering replacing the hard drive with a 64gig SSD to extend the run time on battery.

Would the combination of Linux and an SSD be worth doing, to speed up my old machine?

As suggested, a clean reinstall of XP (having backed all data up first!) will at least put it back to as it worked when new. You can then remove the junk that came bundled with it to improve performance a bit more.
As for replacing the hard drive with an SSD, it will be faster, but can you live with such a reduction in disk capacity? SSD's have a limited life when it comes to write operations, of which a standard installation of XP does many when running, so expect its life to be less than a typical hard drive. If the laptop still has its original battery, that must be near the end of its useful life anyway. I would question if an SSD is worth the investment.
Linux is an attractive alternative to XP and not as resource hungry. But you have to be prepared to learn a new operating system and put aside all you know about XP.

culpepper

Download a version of puppy linux as a live CD then boot from that for a while without changing anything on your laptop and see how you get on.
I have it for my older lappy and it flies along.
There is quite a lot of support for puppy on various systems.

ThemeOne

I'd say a clean new XP install would actually be less of a resource hog than a new version of Ubuntu.

Linux certainly *can* be light on resources, but the major distros tend not to be these days. I use a bare-bones version of Debian coupled with IceWM window manager and that's pretty speedy. Puppy, as suggested, could be another way to go.

NiftyDigits

victor2 wrote: »

As suggested, a clean reinstall of XP (having backed all data up first!) will at least put it back to as it worked when new. You can then remove the junk that came bundled with it to improve performance a bit more.
As for replacing the hard drive with an SSD, it will be faster, but can you live with such a reduction in disk capacity? SSD's have a limited life when it comes to write operations, of which a standard installation of XP does many when running, so expect its life to be less than a typical hard drive. If the laptop still has its original battery, that must be near the end of its useful life anyway. I would question if an SSD is worth the investment.
Linux is an attractive alternative to XP and not as resource hungry. But you have to be prepared to learn a new operating system and put aside all you know about XP.

There won't be junk with a clean install.
If you mean a Factory Restore, I wouldn't recommend that with an eight year old disc.
Agree about the SSD and battery.
Just replace the battery if necessary, for just over £16. No need to spend more on such a machine. There is also a double capacity option for under £16, but it offers a different voltage, so proceed with caution.

Strange to have options offering a differing voltage.

Which is your original battery part number?

L51-3S4400-G1L3 (10.8v 4400mAh)
L51-3S4000-G1L1 (11.1v 4000mAh)
L51-3S4000-S1P3 (10.8v 4000mAh)
L51-4S2000-C1L1 (14.8v 2000mAh)
L51-4S2000-G1L1 (14.8v 2000mAh)
L51-4S2200-G1L3 (14.4v 2200mAh)

paddyrg

SSD money is better spent on a new lappy, so keep it in the back for now. Format and use a specifically small/light Linux build. XP isn't going to have much in the way of support now (it's ancient in computer years) and so become a magnet for more and more malware as OS patches dry up.

spud17

ThemeOne wrote: »

I'd say a clean new XP install would actually be less of a resource hog than a new version of Ubuntu.

Linux certainly *can* be light on resources, but the major distros tend not to be these days. I use a bare-bones version of Debian coupled with IceWM window manager and that's pretty speedy. Puppy, as suggested, could be another way to go.

So true.

How often do we see the questionable 'put Ubuntu on and it will fly'? :cool:

kwikbreaks

Spot on. I put Linux Mint on an SSD into an EEbox (netbook spec machine) and it really seemed no faster at all than it was with XP.

debitcardmayhem

spud17 wrote: »

So true.

How often do we see the questionable 'put Ubuntu on and it will fly'? :cool:

I don't think the OP mentioned flight simulator software Spud