the 'lets tweak my 5920G' thread!

okay, I have the FS special 5920-6273 notebook. I don't have the money to upgrade much at this point in time, but I do have a friend who's sending me a copy of a Vista Home Premium OEM disc, so I can try to do a fresh install on this baby.

what recommendations do you have for me?

I know I can upgrade the CPU...which I will do in time. right now tho, this T5250 is heaven, being I just came from an AXP 2500+ desktop...so it does everything I need.

anyhow, the GPU can be overclocked. I'm running the stock driver from the Acer site currently, what do I need to get and install, to maximize my 8600M GT 512 DDR2's performance?

I've read there is a nifty program that can let me use the Santa Rosa technologies to undervolt my CPU and let it run at it's fastest speed still (which is found with testing and benchmarking, of course) for added battery life performance.

I've also heard of some program called vlite or some such that lets you customize your Vista installation so that all the useless guts are ripped from it, slimming it down? realistically, even if I don't use that program, how much can I slim Vista down? it's eating almost 900MB at bootup (tho I haven't removed the Acer bloatware).

and what about services? I know a laptop has a lot of integrated hardware that requires special services and such to run, but 70 processes and a bazillion services? what can be shut down or terminated? at most I have maybe 35 processes running when I was using XP...

anyhow, please guide me! I'm new to laptops, so I'm walking lightly to make sure I don't make any stupid mistakes...I don't want to harm my precioussss...

 

First, create the Recovery CD/DVD's, you will thank me later on

 

yes, indeed! I've actually been lolligaggling when it comes to that...should get on it asap!

 

First create those CD/DVDs before doing anything else.
It might even be a good idea to make a backup image of your entire Hard Drive incase something happens.

Now you could do a clean install and remove all that useless junk and unwanted features, or you could just do a removal of bloatware. I personally have used vLite and you can break compatibility if you remove something that you need later on, and in order to get it back you must recreate Vista using vLite again without that component removed and reinstall everything.

I personally think its just better to remove all the bloatware Acer has put on the machine as well as disabling unneeded services via services.msc. Also doing periodic defragmentation and CCleaner will help and disabling programs at startup.

RMClock (Undervolting): http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml
vLite (vLite): http://www.vlite.net/

 

Here's some good vista tweak guides
http://www.tweakhound.com/
http://www.speedyvista.com/
http://www.blackviper.com/
http://www.tweakvista.com/

Read all of them & take what you want...

Use RMclock to undervolt your CPU.I do it & maximum heat never pass 67C(Use Prime 95 to stress your CPU.)

BTW remember to create recovery DVD(s).Install Vista updates & new drivers

 

I'm making recovery discs currently. I'm not gonna make a backup of this particular Vista cause it's already had some lock up failures running normal programs (ie. Firefox). guess that's what you get for using Vista :laugh:

edit - question about partitions. currently my unit has a 250GB Hitachi 5400RPM HDD that's separated into 3 partitions...two 100GBish and then the hidden. can I remove the two and create one and still be able to use my restore discs or even if I were to remove all 3 to recover the entire drive, would I still be able to use my restore discs?

 

With respect to tweaking, the 'best' guide you will probably find on the net is right here at NBR (modesty aside). Check my sig block below.

I only mention this because of the extreme number of outside responses i have received as well as the number of times the guide has been plaigerized.

Oh and...Its free!!!!

 

I've taken it under advisement probably going to copy and print it so I have some hard copy to work with, as I hate reading off a screen if avoidable. perhaps you could think of turning it into a PDF that can be downloaded?

 

Hmmm good thought...maybe if I find the time. I have been thinking about adding pictures and illustrations as well.

 

Probably overkill, but I just picked up an extra 2 gig of RAM for this computer from Futureshop, for $50 (boxing week sale) it seemed like a no brainer!

How does one create the backup/recovery CD's?

 

Flamenko, thanks a ton for posting that link! Removing UAC simply made my day, darn did that ever annoy the heck out of me!!

 

it's easy, but be ready to shut everything you're running down as the laptop gets a wee bit buggy as it does it's pre-load and then verification of the discs it's burned.

anyhow, if you have the Acer Empowerment up and running, click on the one called eRecovery, otherwise just go into the All Programs >> Acer Empowerment Technology and click on the eRecovery. you'll find an option to do a current backup, or a factory default backup...that's the one you want to do. the factory default backup takes two DVD's.

 

Just completed it, wow did it ever take a while! Sorry for the side-track!

Also went through the "Disable Excess Windows Processes at Boot" and "Cut shutdown time in half", both went smoothly.