Slow laptop
I recently bought a DELL Inspiron 1564 with Specs
Core i5, 3GB DDR3, WD 250GB HDD, Windows 7 64-bit.
I have uninstalled all the junk that Dell install but the laptop is still slow. Bootup takes long, you click something and ti takes time as well!
My E8500 C2D PC is faster than this!
What can I do to speed up my laptop?
Tnx
Buy an SSD and install Win 7 from scratch.
EDIT: Or, just re-install Win 7 from scratch, get rid of all the partitions that are already on the HDD and make new ones when installing Win 7.
Last edited by DDY; 17-10-2010 at 04:40 PM.
Can't afford SSDOriginally Posted by DDY
Ok, another question ... which is better for i5 - 32bit or 64bit and is 64bit one of the culprits for slowness?
32 vs 64 shouldn't make any noticeable difference to speed, IMO just stick with 64 if you have a 64 capable CPU since there's no real reason not to unless you have a printer or something that only has 32 bit drivers. A laptop with those specs shouldn't be slow, check it's not on some CPU-throttling/battery optimised setting as some limit the max speed of the CPU but even so with a modern CPU it shouldn't slow things down that much. My guess would be there's still some remaining crapware, have a read of this: http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/totw/repair.asp
I would just format and reinstall windows.
Use a standard Windows 7 retail/oem disk (not the one provided by Dell) and the serial code should work fine. Then you've got a clean, fast installation.
What's wrong with the Dell Win 7 CD? Apart from a few Dell logos and branding here and there it's practically the same as the standard Win 7 install CD.
Just a thought, but I've yet to see a mechanical drive laptop run well with any antivirus app installed.
I haven't owned a Dell Windows 7 CD - I knew that was the case with Vista, but didn't want to advise in case the situation had changed. If that's so, then fair enough. Stick with the same disk.
I have come across many slow laptops where the HDD looks fine bad sector wise but the
drive mechanics are slow. PC check is the only prog i know of which has a mechanics test
which shows visually how fast its moving about. Another thing to note is its not just its
either very fast or very slow, a decent drive should be very quick. Even if it is slow though
PC check will still pass it unless it actually stops.
That's a good point, what AV are you using?
NOD32, I dont think AV is at fault.
Only thing that is sticking out in BIOS is Intel speedstep - should this be ON or OFF ?
Speedstep should be on, if its slow on startup Windows could be having a problem with a device with no driver; check device manager. If it happens once Windows has started then it could be a hard drive problem, benchmark it to see if the speed is fine. You could check in task manager to see if anything is using the hard drive.
I would really look at "slow" subjectively. There could be many reasons for the periceved slowness. A PC can become slow over time due to new programs being installed, updates, virus, spyware, fragmentation, services running in the background and as well as many other factors.
I would recommend that you firstly update your antivirus software and run a full scan on your system. This although might sound mundane, can help identify if viruses are the cause. Secondly, you could defragment your hardrive - seeing as you might have installed many programs and uninstalled them over the time you have used the laptop.
The other thing I would say is I find 64bit OS excessive for computers that DO NOT have 4GB RAM. I say this because really the whole point of using a 64bit OS is so that your system can address more than 4GB ram and your system only has 3GB. So perhaps look into installing 32-bit Windows 7 instead.
You could also speed up your boot time by altering what services are loaded at startup. You can do this by going to Windows>Run and typing msconfig and selecting the services tab. Also services that aren't critical to your system can be stopped from running. If you don't have a printer, stop all the printer related services. If you don't use automatic updates, disable that service too. You can do this by right clicking your "my computer" and selecting manage and then going to services.
I am sure others will point out many different ways of speeding your computer up, however if all else fails and you still aren't happy, just system wipe and reinstall windows.
Hope that helps.
+1 for looking for bad drivers, I had a problem a while ago with incorrect drivers which caused the system to hang for a while every time I opened my computer or something. In this case it was the drivers for the JMicron SATA controller.
There is much more 64 bit OSes than the common knowledge they only let you use more memory. I don't see how it could be 'excessive' in any way. As I said before, 32 vs 64 bit Windows on a 64 bit capable platform should not make any noticeable difference to performance, the difference would probably be down to slight differences in drivers between the versions, for example. 32 bit is becoming a legacy platform and there are very few reasons to use it now.
[QUOTE=watercooled;1995407
There is much more 64 bit OSes than the common knowledge they only let you use more memory. I don't see how it could be 'excessive' in any way. As I said before, 32 vs 64 bit Windows on a 64 bit capable platform should not make any noticeable difference to performance, the difference would probably be down to slight differences in drivers between the versions, for example. 32 bit is becoming a legacy platform and there are very few reasons to use it now.[/QUOTE]
Whilst I do agree with you on the point that 64bit offers more than just memory enhancments in terms of perfomance given the OP's system spec, I cannot see 64bit Win7 being beneficial. 32bit applications run in emulation mode under 64bit hence you actually acquire a performance deficit. It all boils down to what software the OP is using, what sort of activities he carries out. I have still clung onto 32bit as I see no real gains from switching over to 64bit just yet (that is just my personal taste).
From Wikipedia:
But we are straying from the point a bit anyway, the minute differences would not be noticeable enough for the OP to create this thread; something else is causing the problem.Because the full 32-bit instruction set remains implemented in hardware without any intervening emulation, existing 32-bit x86 executables run with no compatibility or performance penalties,[2] although existing applications that are recoded to take advantage of new features of the processor design may see significant performance increases.
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