My Brand New DV9700t arrived Wednesday!!

Hi all, I I ordered my new dv9700t on 3/14/2008. It was shipped on 3/24/2008,which was 4 days before it was scheduled to ship. It arrived on Wednesday, 3/26/2008. As you might imagine, I have been dedicating the majority of my time with my new "toy". Here are the specs...

dv9700t
-Windows Vista Ultimate (64bit) OS
-Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 (2.5Ghz) Penryn CPU
-4 GB DDR2 SDRAM
-NVidia Geforce 8600M GS 512 MB Graphics Card
-500 GB (2x250GB) 5400 rpm SATA Hard Drive
- 17.0" WSXGA+High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1680 x 1050)
-HP Imprint (Radiance) + Fingerprint Reader + Webcam + Microphone
- Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 4965AGN with Bluetooth
- Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer
-System Recovery DVD with Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit)
-High Capacity 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

Well, I have been doing a bunch of unistalling (Trying to pick between programs I might need and if I could find better ones.) And tweaking the system preferences. I have been transferring a bunch of older files from my old PC to this new one I'm using now. SO far, everything's been OK. I only had to force a reboot once, when uninstalling one of the programs went Bad.

I do have some concerns that maybe some of ypou may be able to help me out with. A while ago, I used to own a dv9000z (AMD Turion 2.0ghz) With Vista Ultimate (32 bit). It came with Home Premium but was upgraded (via the upgrade anytime disk) to Ultimate. That system had 2 GB of Ram. I kept close attention on the system resources and without any programs open after booting up, trhe dv9000z used about 750 - 900 MB (40%) of Ram.

My new system (after all the updates from Microsoft) uses 1.5 GB (38%) of Ram with no programs open. Does the x64 version use considerably more RAm? has Vista Ultimate become more of a resource Hog than a year ago? Should I have done a clean install? Thanks in advance...

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Well, vista x64 does use alot more space since it`s designed to work under x86 compatibility, and vista usually does need at least 2 GB memory. Try disabling superfetch ( command prompt > services.msc ), do a reboot and see then.

 

I am not sure if 64bit takes up more ram but here is what i think of the problem.
1. You have just gotten your laptop, vista is doing some indexing...you have to let it run for a week or two then the memory hogging should decrease.
2. The above applies as well if you just installed sp1.
3, If after a few weeks you still see vista hogging all the memory maybe a clean install would be a good idea.
4. Im not sure if you have read flameko's tweakin guide its really helpful to tune your laptop up. (helped my vista to boot within 15secs )
5. Run some free program to free up ram. I use speeditup. Im sure there are other softwares that does the same job.

 

Thanks Acorn and bin asc. I will look into those Ideas.

 

If you do a clean install, orev's guide in this forum is superb! It was a cinch and I'm definitely not tech savvy.

 

Something I came across somewhere a while ago in regards to amount of RAM installed and the amount used is that Windows will use / reserve / allocate (whatever) more RAM for itself if it sees more RAM installed. I gather that with 2GB it will allocate less to itself than when it sees 4GB to use. I took it as a good thing rather than a "hog" thing as it can do what it needs to more efficiently if it can have more RAM to start with.

 

Yeah, you should definitely look into a clean install. I did a clean install (XP though, not Vista) right after getting my dv9700t, and it's running much faster than the default install (though that could be because it's now XP instead of Vista, not just that there's no bloatware).

This is probably the main reason it's using so much RAM. Vista tries to use as much RAM as it can, instead of letting it sit there unused, so if you have 4GB, expect it to be used.

 

I read the guide before my computer came. I decided that since my computer did not come with the Vista Anytime Upgrade disc, I wasn't going to worry about it. Then I was also worried that I was not going to get all of my drivers back after the clean install. I think you have to save the SWS folder or something. ALso, I have Ultimate 64. I don't think there are any upgrade options on my computer.

 

You can get all the drivers from the guide in the sticky about doing a Vista clean install, or from HP's website, which I did for XP.

I don't think you have to have an 'upgrade option' to purchase an Anytime Upgrade DVD.