why is my 3 yr old p4 faster then my t7200 a8jp?

I realize that boot up time doesn't stand for much when it comes to performance, but this is driving me crazy. My 3.2Ghz P4 512mb toshiba is booting up 7 seconds faster than my new t7200 1gb A8jp. It seems to do everything smoother such as opening windows, scrolling the mouse better than my A8jp. I bought this a8jp because it was supposed to be a high performance portable laptop yet my old 3 yr old toshiba is kicking it's tail?

I've never really played games on the toshiba because it used to bog down whenever I did play.

 

were you on battery mode when using the notebook in comparison with the p4 machine? have it on AC.

also, opening programs simultaneously will show the real power of the T7200 over the P4

 

Boot time is just one factor that many Asus notebooks do poorly of at the beginning. There was a thread regarding boot times and those who don't format, have long boot times like 70+ seconds. Those who formatted were getting under 50 seconds.

Another way to test your CPU is to run SuperPi, and run other synthetic benchmarks like PCMark05, Cinebench and you can even run 3DMark05/06.

I suggest you use BootLog XP to analyze your boot time, and from there work on what can be removed to reduce boot times.

 

MilestonePC -- this boot problem you describe, when does the delay generally occur?

My A8JS takes a hideously long time to load windows once past the login screen. It sits for an ungodly amount of timing with only the background visible (no I do not have a messy computer, nor does much load at startup). Is this the slow boot you describe?


PS - my extended warranty card from Milestone arrived this week, thanks!

 

Here are a couple of other ideas:

A8JP specific: convert both C: and D: to NTFS. You may also want to consider a fresh install of the OS. Doing both of these made a big difference in my startup time.

For all computers: Running disk cleanup and defragmenting your hard drive can make a big difference. Both of these tools are built into windows and there are programs you can buy that claim to improve on them.

 

Good to hear that.

In my opinion there are 2 parts in which your boot time will be noticeably slow. The first part is after the Asus logo pops up and when Windows is physically loading. This will be slow because of the, (I believe) the svchost.exe has a lot of services to load and registry.

Do decrease this, you really should format, but also do exactly what sanpabloguy mentioned above, disk cleanup, defrag and of course use NTFS...don't bother with Fat32, unless you really need it.

The next part where you will feel the boot time to be slow is once Windows has loaded and starts to process all of the start up programs/process/icons.
The less you have in the system tray the faster it will load.

One word of advice don't access the computer (use it) while it is loading up all the start up programs, this will slow the entire process.

For example, right when my computer is loading the start up programs, if I double click on the Win Word program, that will slow both the start up programs and Word from opening...Usually it would take 4 seconds or less to load Word, but by demanding Word to open when the startup is still loading it could possibly take 12 seconds to open Word.

In BootLog XP you will able to see what programs take X amount of seconds to load, and from there you can analyze what to do best for your system.

Ideally for laptops, just keep it in hibernation whenever you need to move it. I always use hibernate, never turn it off, unless I need to restart the laptop.

 

1) Convert to NTFS
2) Defrag
3) Remove all non-critical start-up program AND services

 

It sounds to me like the machine is doing a spyware or virus scan on every boot. This is not necessary. It could account for very long boots.

Joe

 

Everyone who said to perform a reformat and convert to NTS are absolutely correct, don't convert to NTFS using the little icon on your desktop. The cluster that it converts to is too small and you won't notice any performance gains.

I thought the same when I first got my W3j, but after a reformat everything works great.

 

WOW, ASUS is still formating things in FAT32???


Boot up time has most to do with the drive and software.. Pre-installed OS's should be the first thing that should be formatted and reinstalled when getting a prebuilt system.. and desktop drives are faster in the begin with, so you will lose a few seconds there if your comparison was to a desktop.

 

hmm. I've used their utility and converted. But afterwards I went from 0% defragged to 30% file fragmentation. After multiple defrags I was only able to get it down to 19% file fragmentation. I guess the only way really is going to be a reformat with ntfs.

How do you do that?

 

SamMan, I share your feelings about performance regarding the A8JP. I've even done a clean install with a single partition and still feel it is slow. To compare, I've instaled windows XP Pro on a Pentium-M (1.5ghz) and compared boot times with only minimal drivers installed). The P-M wins by several seconds and with about half the amount of RAM, both have 5400RPM disks, and both defragged before hand.

My only thought is that it could be because of Windows MCE.

 

Asus uses Fat32 for those who want to use it, it allows the users to chose what file management they want to use.

Asus also provides an Icon on the desktop to convert to NTFS, which only takes 2 minutes or so.

To format using bigger clusters, you can do a few methods, my favourite for reformatting computers is to:
1) Double Click on My Computer
2) Right click on the Drive you want to format to NTFS (format also means remove all data)
3) Click Format
4) Select NTFS under File System
5) Select the cluster size you want, 4096 is the biggest in Windows.
6) Do NOT select Quick Format, and then click START. This will take some time depending on partition and hard drive size.

 

Thanks for the tips MilestonePC, always want to ask how to convert, now i know

 

how does cluster size affect things?

 

Here's a little article regarding cluster size.
http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_optimization.htm

 

Strange. My F3jp (same general specs are the a8jp) has startup times of less than 30 seconds, even on battery. I simply removed and disabled unnecessary startup apps, converted the D partition to NTFS with the tool, and defragmented it ONCE down to 6% without a hitch. No fresh OS install; I didn't need to, since fixing what ain't broke makes little sense.

SamMan, did you address everyone's suggestions by now? Battery use? Bloatware? Fresh OS install?

While cluster size and battery reliance has an impact on performance, it's never been MUCH in my experience in comparison rogue programs running in the background. Unless I'm gaming ;^)

 

Try freeware program called TuneXP and choose the option ultra fast booting (rearrange boot files) if you're finding boot times to be slow. It drastically improved my boot times to about 30secs. It does other tweaks too...

 

I used to use and recommend TuneXp. However, the website is no longer active, the app has not been updated since 2004, and recent users have said using it has caused problems.

Windows XP automatically defrags the boot files. If this gets turned off, which can happen with a reinstall, it can be turned on by following the steps here:

http://www.activewin.com/winxp/tips/registry/3.shtml

Note that this requires editing your registry, so should only be done if you're comfortable editing the registry.

 

I installed XP Professional last night, and now its much faster. Load times and Boot times were cut by probably over 1/3.

 

The F3JP comes with XP Pro, right? If so, there's your boot time performance right there. MCE, which comes on the A8JP, takes friggin forever. This is not a new development.

 

I'm trying to do this, but I can't seem to do it because I can't format the drive that I'm using.