Help in improving laptop perfomance

I own a Dell Inspiron 6000 Intel Pentium M processor 1.60GHz
1.60 GHz, 512 MB of RAM (purchased 2005).

Im in university with a low budget to spend on upgrades. Nevertheless these updates are vital, to allow for the smooth processing I require for my studies. I have approximately 4gb left on the 80gb HD; mainly of programs that I really would like to keep. B/c of this lack of space i just purchased a Lacie 80GB external HD. My computer recently has had trouble processing simple and multiple tasks. It always seems to be caching, and I have a lot of program lockups and freezes. Im not sure if its the Hd causing the trouble. Whether it is or not, I was wondering what steps I can take in improving my laptops performance?

Thanks
Jonathan

 

Buy RAM! That is your problem!!

 

Well you do need more memory I'd suggest at least 1Gig.

If I were you I'd also take some time and optimize your system's performance. Look for one of those guides, how to optimize xp. That'll save us from posting everything you can do to make your computer run better.

And of course you can alway pinmod that thing...

http://www.overclockers.com/tips1204/

 

You can save a bunch of space, usually about 15% of the HD (12 GB in your case) by disabling System Restore. That does of course have the disadvantage of not being able to use System Restore - so make sure you back up important stuff first - but could help the space crunch a lot in this case.

Also go through the Add/Remove Programs thing in the Control Panel if you haven't already...you want to keep most of the programs you know are on there, but you may have forgotten about some you installed awhile back, as well.

And RAM quite possibly is causing the problem. If your Page File Usage is over 512 MB more than a few % of the time, this is definitely a problem.

 

All the advice is good above but if you just want a quick and dirty way of cleaning out xp you would want to run cc cleaner. Defraging helps also if you haven't done that.

 

True, but then buy RAM.

 

i have the same computer.

1. you need more ram. i ran XP with 512 and it did ok, but 1 GB would have been perfect. however, even with 512, it didn't page much at all

2. you're a sloppy notebook user. to let your HD get that full means you don't maintain your computer. delete stuff off your HD or archive it.

 

Big thumbs up to ccleaner, I just used it on one of my problem computer and it is was zingging along. It took about 30 minutes to finish because of all the stuff that was on it.

 

I hope you did not buy any more upgrades.
Buying another 512 of RAM is a waste of money. It will not provide that much performance. You need to upgrade to at least 2GB(around $100) or to the max which should be around 4GB of RAM which costs around $200.

In your case, buying ram and an external hard drive are a waste of money. Remove all your personal files and programs. Move all your pics, music and other stuff to a DVD or CDs.
Sell the computer and throw in the external hard drive a part of the deal. Buy a new laptop with 200GB of hard drive and 2GB of RAM.

 

Whoa, that seems more than a bit extreme. Sure, a 1.6GHz Pentium M is less than ideal these days, but I'd hardly advocate trashing the computer! Getting an additional 512MB of RAM, or maybe even upgrading to 2GB, would definitely not be a waste. That chipset can't support 4GB of RAM, and there's no way you need that much anyways unless you plan to take up serious CAD work or play BioShock and World in Conflict - at the same time. And of course your Pentium M and Intel integrated graphics would make all that impossible anyways.

Here's the simple, cheap solution that will keep you running for some time - back up important documents, upgrade to 1 or 2GB of RAM, and reformat Windows (ideally in that order). More RAM and a clean install with fully updated drivers will make all the difference in the world. Don't expect to magically be able to play games - since you didn't mention the ATi card (which isn't very good either), I'll assume you have Intel integrated graphics - but general system performance will definitely improve.

 

That is not true. He will definitely see an improvement by adding more ram.

 

Blondie, I like the new look. Oh yea and yea more RAM=good!

 

Yeah, it shows my shyness. But she is just a little prettier than me.

 

Tweaks below including CCleaner!!!

 

Ok heres your Prioritys:
RAM(upgrade to 1GB)
HDD(can you keep any on the external? If not 120GB 5,400RPM)
Processer(what task will you be performing & what socket do you have-find out with CPU-Z if you have the dough dual-core)

 

Can 32 bit operating systems even handle 4GB of RAM?

Ah, here you go. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html

In addition to adding more RAM, after you clean out things you don't need from your hard drive, be sure to defrag it as well.

 

Upgrade to 1GB ram, should tide you over until you get a new notebook later.

Clean out startup programs and items run from the registry on startup especially things like HP Digital Imaging Monitor.. complete resource hog.

 

Well friends, increase in Ram for laptop is not doubt a optimal measure but at the same time we must keep in our mind about the capability of the motherboard to deal with such high end configurations. Ram only accelerates our computer speed and sometimes can even better our graphics quality. Increase your Hard disk only if you want to build a portable data warehouse.

 

More RAM definitely helps. However, turning off unnecessary always run programs may even be better.

A case in point, my Celeron 700/320M Dell running XP feels snappier than my T2350/1G Samsung running Vista UNTIL I disable superfetch and those virus guard(Window defender). Before anyone tells me 1G is not enough for Vista, the task manager shows only 512M or so used and CPU at less than 10%.

It is these tiny little "no-harm" programs that constantly bang the HD which is the slowest component.