laptop as a desktop - too slow?

Hi - I have 3 users who all use a Dell latitude D600 running at 1.8Ghz with 1GB of RAM. They are constantly complaining about how slow their laptops are and my response is this - the laptop is a 1.8Ghz machine and your using the thing as a desktop opening Outlook, a couple of word docs and a a few excel spreadsheets plus internet explorer is open. The laptop is not suited for this many apps, especially as an entry desktop runs at 3Ghz with at least 1GB of RAM. I am thinking these users are trying use their laptops as they once used a desktop - it aint suited.

Is this the case and if not how can a 1.8Ghz machine compete with a 3Ghz desktop?. How can I speed the laptop up or what can I do?

regards

stompin

 

Is it a Dual 2 Core processor?
My 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo processor is as good as a 3.4GHz processor (or something like that according to System Requirements Lab).

You can get very good laptops today that will do the job very well. Bigger laptops (desktop replacement) will have no problems with this.
Doing simple tasks like you said above (outlook and word processing) is nothing and most laptops today will run those programs with no problems at all.

Laptops can easily do what you mentioned above. The only thing to remember is that if it's not plugged in (running on the battery) the processor and video card might not run at their maximum (to save battery power or simply because they can't get enough power from the battery).

 

Slow? Maybe there are problems inside the computer outside of the CPU and RAM. Like virus. Spyware.

A Dell latitude D600 running at 1.8Ghz with 1GB of RAM should have no problem with those tasks you mention.

People have weaker systems and run photoshop just fine.

 

Unless it's a pentium M, running what you've listed shouldn't strain even entry level notebooks these days. For that matter, even a 1.8G pentium m should cope with it. Maybe you have too many background processes open.

 

you have a few possible problems. You either need more ram (2GB), your systems have a virus or OS corruption, you have way too many things running in the background, or virtual memory (pagefile) is not setup correctly.

Photoshop CS2 really dogged until I dropped another gig of ram into my system, then it was like sticking the throttle to the floor. I have found that using modern high end software is requiring more and more physical ram.... You can adjust the VM to compensate a bit, but depending on your hard drive speed, that just may be futile...

 

He really doesn't need 2GB of RAM to run what he's doing.
Yes using high end software does require more RAM but running a word processor or Outlook shouldn't be a problem with 1GB of RAM.
Especially since he says it runs fine on a desktop with 1GB of RAM.

Like others have said you might have a lot of spyware or a virus slowing down your computer.
Or it could simply be programs running in the background.
Have a look at the Optimize your notebook guide.

 

Why don't you go and test some of the laptops out to see if they are indeed slow. Laptops which mostly use slower hard drives seem slower than desktops because things hang just a bit more when accessing data. My desktop with a Sempron 2600+ would handle those tasks no problemo.

 

Cheer's for the prompt replies... OK first off correction , the machines have 500MB of RAM, they have been scanned with McAfee with no problems, and have also been scanned for spyware and all other undesirable little things. The OS is XP SP2 and I have minimised startup apps to the absolute minimum. I have been using the sysinternals filemon and regmon apps to see whats running and nothing untoward has been found. VM is optimised correctly @ 1 1/2 x RAM, and has been tweaked to see if I can get it even more efficient but could not so returned to 1 1/2 x RAM, though I am of the belief that the OS handles the page file pretty well on it's own. machine still too slow for my liking and am surprised you guys are saying a 1.8 machine competes with a 3Ghz + machine - really?

Any other advice greatly appreciated.

later

 

GHz means nothing. The Pentium M is a much more efficient CPU than the Pentium 4. The Penitum M has more cache and a shorter pipeline amongst other things, therefore it does more work per clock cycle. CPU is also only one part of the equation. Hard drive speed and memory will also play a large part in overall performance. If they are running on 4200RPM drives, the notebooks will seem slow. Besides for what the users are doing, the CPU will be low on the performance bottleneck list.

 

Agreed. A 1.8GHz PM should be easily in the same ballpark as a 3GHz PIV.

The one thing where notebooks lag desktop performance is the harddrive. So, programs manipulating big chunks of data may suuffer a bit and load times may be marginaly longer.

Another possible spoiler: your power managment settings. Where they running on battery when reporting bad performance?

 

You also need to defrag the HDD with a program like Diskeeper and run Easycleaner to clean out all of the unnecessary junk files. This will improve performance alot.

 

The two main things I would say may be slowing you down, as the others mentioned, are the hard drive (especially if it's a 4200RPM model) and the 512MB of RAM. Certainly 512MB is usable in XP, but I would never configure an XP system with less than 1GB, even for somewhat basic tasks and expect fluid use. If you have 512MB of RAM AND a 4200RPM drive, anytime Windows needs more than 512MB of memory it will go to the page file on the hard drive and the hard drive would be slow. Any hard drive is inherently slower than the main memory, and if it's a slow hard drive on top of that, ouch. If it's a 5400RPM model, I wouldn't sweat it, but if there is an open ram slot, three sticks of RAM shouldn't cost you that much and would greatly increase the happiness of your people.

 

hit Alt-Ctrl-Delete and bring up the task manager. look at the very bottom left of the window, see how many processes you are running. anything over 50-60 is too much depending on the programs you are running. especially if its a single core processor.

also, defrag the hard drive as suggested above.

 

Definitely use Task Manager or Sysinternal's Process Explorer to check out how many processes you have running, and how much memory they take up. Take a note of the largest ones and decide if they're essential.

The CPU is definitely not the problem. You could probably cut the speed of the laptop CPU in half and still have great office performance as long as the rest of the system could keep up...

As for upgrades, I agree with the other people on this thread, but prioritize the RAM before the hard drive; otherwise get both if you can. RAM is an order of magnitude faster than the hard drive; making sure that the computer touches the hard drive as little as possible is the goal.

Are they complaining about performance in specific areas? E.g. bootup, application load, or just in general?

 

I have a three year old 2.53 GHz Pentium 4 and I can have virus scan and three or four internet windows open and I don't get much slow down, however I also have 1 Gig of RAM and a 5400rpm hdd. Right now I have Media Player, three internet explorer windows open, and 56 processes and I have no slow down.....or maybe I'm accustomed to the slow down and I don't notice it anymore.

 

My 1.73 GHz Pentium M laptop beats the eggs out of my dad's 2.8GHz Pentium 4 desktop, and both machines have 2Gigs of RAM....so GHz means pretty much nothing these days (unless if its in the same product/type line, like a 1.6GHz Core 2 duo vs. 1.83GHz Core2 duo).......try doing a clean/fresh install of windows XP and see if that helps

 

Perhaps they have too much bloat running in the background that doesn't need to, spyware and/or virus or HD needs defragging as above

We have 2 desktops at home and the 2nd one is an ancient HP - old P4 and 256mb ram and that actually runs XP surprisingly well. There is a pause on program startup, but it can still run multiple apps for office (word, excel, access, internet) fine. I would suggest you follow the advice above. Even if the laptop is a Pentium instead of minimum core duo, it should still be OK for office tasks.... that is based on my experience

 

A Core Duo, 1gb RAM, system is as good if not better than most entry level computers.

 

Well thanks to you all for such great input. I'm looking to up the RAM to at least a gig and will probably replace the HDD from the existing 40GB, though the spindle runs at 5400rpm (adequate). I've double checked all the ideas posted here and they all check out fine (virus, spyware, startup progs, resource allocation etc etc..). But hey at least I've learned something today in that what I believed was a poor processor (1.8) is actually pretty good running as a P4M. Still need to speed the thing up though but as our policy here at work allows users to install software whenever and whatever they choose! (I know... but it's not my decision) keeping a lid on potentially bad things is a challenge to say the least. I'm sure I'll sort it but thanks again to you all.

later