Dell needs to be faster

I have a Dell Inspiron 16400. It is very slow. I have defragged and defragged, cleaned etc. Have maxed out the RAM. Other than a new laptop, how can I speed it up? By the way the processor is a T2050.

Many thanks,

rjtmo

 

Reinstall Windows.

 

+1 .. try that first, then consider a storage upgrade and CPU upgrade. Then again, there are $380 Sandy Bridge notebooks in the thin-and-light link in my sig that will give you a massive increase in performance.

 

I would run the Dell Diagnostic to make sure all your hardware is in working order. If your hard drive is failing then no matter how many times you install the operating system, it will seem slow.

 

Memory meaning ram or hard drive space? Anyways install a gadget for the windows sidebar called This will allow you to see your ram and cpu usage. It will then look like this, Anything over %80 ram will make you slow down it should look like this when set up For temp install realtemp anything over 80 on load is bad IMO.

 

Errr... buy a new laptop?

T2050 is a Yonah processor (ie: first generation Core Duo). That processor family is over 5 years old and the upgrade path doesn't go very far.

The highest processor you can get is a T2700 (2.33GHz/2MB L2 cache) unless your laptop BIOS supports Merom processors, in which case the highest is a T7600 (2.33GHz/4MB L2 cache).

The best you could do for an older laptop (if price were no object) would be upgrade RAM (2x2GB), HDD (7200rpm, SSD will degrade without TRIM or scheduled cleanup), and CPU. Once that's done, there's not much else you could do. That would probably set you back around 200$, but at that point you would've been better off putting that money towards a new budget laptop.