Performance issue - suggestions needed

[kmac]

So I have a laptop in the kitchen for general family browsing and MS Office work (browsing for recipes, homework preparation etc)
It is a Lenovo T61, Core 2 Duo 2 GHZ with 2GB RAM. Running Windows 7 Prof 32 bit. I just re-loaded the OS as I had experimented with Linux Mint (which I liked but the rest of the family wanted MS Office instead of Open Office etc). Anyway with Windows, it seems a bit slow, i.e click on a browser icon and takes a few seconds for browser to launch.

Any ideas on how to improve performance? I looked at the Windows Experience Index and it is 3.5 due to the graphics sub-score being 3.5 The graphics chip is an Intel 965 express chipset.

I am looking at a few options:

1) Increasing RAM
2) Going back to Mint and loading Office through PlayonLinux
3) Upgrading the laptop i.e buying a new laptop
4) Building a small mini-ITX based system for the kitchen

Only want to go down 3) or 4) if there's no other way. Any suggestions appreciated.

[MrJim]

Is the laptop appreciably slower than when Windows was installed previously to Linux? Usually doing a clean-install of Windows gives a bit of a speed increase. I assume you've installed all the necessary OS drivers for the T61 from the Lenovo website?

If you're interested in improving the responsiveness of a laptop, my first port of call would be an SSD, although that's obviously quite a big financial investment, and may reduce your available storage depending on your budget...

Edit
----

Of course you could try the SSD, & if it doesn't make the difference in speed you hoped for, your could re-use it in your ITX build instead The other thing that occurred to me is that you could buy a cheap USB powered external caddy for the existing laptop hdd, & use it in conjunction with the SSD to supplement available storage.

[DanceswithUnix]

I installed 64 bit Windows 7 on my netbook that came with 3GB of ram so I could update it to 6GB. The key that the machine came with worked fine for that.

If you have quick USB drive handy then you could try using that for readyboost. Might be useless, but an easy thing to try if you have the kit handy.

I don't think the experience index really means much tbh.

[kmac]

I did update all the drivers correctly using the Lenovo website. Because it was a clean install, I think the performance is probably hardware related. On a side note, I hate Windows installations - takes much longer than Linux and then twice the time again for all the Windows Updates from Microsoft. I think Service Pack for Windows 7 may be having a detrimental effect.

I'll have a look at ready-boost. Re the SSD, might give that a try that. I don't need any storage on the laptop itself other than for the OS as all our documents are saved to a NAS.

[kalniel]

Just use the computer normally for a week or so. Windows will profile your usage and start pre-caching more effectively, which greatly improves application response time.

[technodean]

SSD will give you your biggest improvement especially if your old hard drive is getting slow. My laptop is/ was an Advent single core 2gb (knew nothing about computers at the time), I changed the cpu to a 2.4 core 2 duo (£25 ebay), then added another 2gb ram (£15 ebay) this made things a bit quicker. Changed the hard drive to an M4 (£60) which was a big step. But in the last few weeks I changed the os to win 7 64 (free) which has made it more responsive and win ex scores went up with a big increase in hard drive from 5.9 to 7.9.

[Pob255]

My laptop is a core2duo 2.0ghz with 3gb of ram I think and a GM45 chipset, bootup to windows 7 isn't the fastest but opening up chrome isn't that slow.

What anti-vrius are you using? I find that's often a problem with pc's
How soon after getting to desktop are you trying to open your browser? windows still has the bad trick of loading stuff and shunting data too and from the hard drive after displaying the desktop and hasn't actually finished fully loading.
How full is the hard drive? after about 70% full I find windows does tend to slow down a bit.

I do agree with other here, an SSD is probably you best bet to see a responsiveness bump

[vicar]

Have you considered a hybrid drive like the Seagate 750GB MomentusXT Hybrid SATA III 32MB Cache best of both worlds for performance and storage?

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/750gb...oogle+shopping

[kmac]

Just use the computer normally for a week or so. Windows will profile your usage and start pre-caching more effectively, which greatly improves application response time.

Actually a re-boot improved it a lot already - I normally just leave it on all the time - sleep mode and just wake up when used

What anti-vrius are you using? I find that's often a problem with pc's
How soon after getting to desktop are you trying to open your browser? windows still has the bad trick of loading stuff and shunting data too and from the hard drive after displaying the desktop and hasn't actually finished fully loading.
How full is the hard drive? after about 70% full I find windows does tend to slow down a bit.

Using AVAST - never really had any issues with it
As above, leave it on all the time, so not boot-up related
HDD is only about 30% full - just the OS and browser favourites are local, everything else is on NAS

Have you considered a hybrid drive like the Seagate 750GB MomentusXT Hybrid SATA III 32MB Cache best of both worlds for performance and storage?

Looks interesting - never even knew these existed

Thanks all for help and suggestions - will try out a few and report back

[Pob255]

Not rebooting or shutting down the laptop now and again could well be your problem, windows can build p a lot of temporary and cache data which isn't getting flushed because it's being put to sleep not rebooted, also updates are probably stacking up because one update is stuck in the que waiting fr a reboot.
I'd say reboot at least once a week.

When you say "just the OS and browser favourites are local, everything else is on NAS" do you mean the browser program is on the nas? The whole user profile stored on the nas?
windows 7 user profiles are big if you're not careful you can end up trying to shunt hundreds of mb's across the wireless connection every time you log on.

[kmac]

Sorry, that was misleading, the OS and all applications are on the HDD of the laptop. Just data that is on NAS. But the only apps are MS Office 2207, some browsers ( IE, Chrome , Firefox) and some other utilities such as Adobe Reader, 7-Zip etc.

yeah re-booting has helped a lot, will re-boot every Friday

[Pob255]

MS Office 2207

He's a time traveller! quick get him so we can find out the winning lottery numbers.