Issue with extreemly slow dv2700

Specs:
HP Dv2700
2 Tl-62's @ 2.1GHz
4gigs of Ram
64bit op system
NVIDIA GeForce 7150m/nForce 630m
Toshiba ATA 220gig HD (75 free gigs)

So I've had this problem for a while now and I cannot seem to get a fix for it. When I first bought my computer it was so fast. I would be able to run azerus, iTunes and Firefox with multiple tabs while watching HD videos on gametrailers with a perfectly good frame rate, and everything worked flawlessly.

However now I can hardly watch a video on youtube, the frame rate drops incredibly low and any video, unless is extremely low quality is hardly watchable. The fan is loud (which after reading a few threads found out was pretty common) and the laptop runs pretty hot. I've always ran Trend Micro AntiVirus (recommended from bestbuy) and even now there is no virus detected.

The real downer comes when I look at the task manager performance tab to try and figure out whats going on. I'll notice the processor speeds (on both) are very inconsistent and jump around. Also the physical memory never goes over 1.7gigs of usage. Even when the processor is running at 100% and I have multiple programs open it sort of peaks at 1.7 gigs. So right now I'm thinking that for some reason the laptop isn't accessing all of the available ram and is bottle necking the processor. HOWEVER, I ran Memory Test for 8 hour straight (overnight) and only then did the physical memory peak at 4gigs.



So this is where I'm at right now, I've asked other forums (non dedicated to notebooks) and have gotten little help. Right now I'm hoping its not a hardware problem. If that is the case I'll just back everything and reformat my HD and hope for the best.

But I would greatly appreciate any help or advice.

 

It looks like you have alot of bloatware running in the background which use up resources.

The bloatware they include out of the box cripples the notebooks performance. I advise you do a clean install of windows. (See clean install sticky)

Abit of tweaking will be also be needed to further speed things up..

You should monitor your temperatures using HWMonitor to make sure its not overheating and downclocking.

 

That Tweaking link was awesome, thx for that. I'll try some of that stuff out. The pagefile size has me especially intrigued.

 

Tweaking will just speed things up abit. A clean install of Vista is highly recommended.

 

Ok, I'll definitely do that then as soon as my external HD comes in. Just by changing my page file size the cpu runs allot smoother.

Do you recommend any websites or ways of diagnosing to see if my processors or ram or working properly?

 

You can check your ram simply by looking at the system properties and seeing how much ram is recognized or use a tool to stress test it. I doubt there is any issue with the actual hardware since the machine is booting up. In addition to the tweaks make sure you clean the vents on a regular basis, heat is your number one enemy with a laptop so keep that in mind.

I agree with Flipfire about the clean install too. What I did was create a dual boot setup on my laptop and installed XP Pro and Vista Home Premium. I got all the drivers loaded, updated all the service packs, patches and updated drivers, installed my tools like dreamweaver, zip, adobe reader, dvd copy tools etc and used Acronis True Image to take an image of both OS. Now all I need to do when I want to do a clean install is backup any data I want to save and do an image restore. Takes a fraction of the time and speeds up everything like the laptop was when it was new. I use an external drive to store the images on so if anything ever infects my machine the images are safe. The only reason I mention this is its a pain to setup a new install with all the drivers and what not so why go through the hassle if you can avoid it in the future?

The only thing I really have to do after I restore the image is reinstall what games and what not I want back and copy back my personal files saved before I restored the image. I created two image files, one for each OS, so I can restore them independently or both at the same time.

Good Luck,

/Reby