x60s slow boot: processor, RAM, or HD issue?

hi! a close friend recently received an x60s (1,67GHz Core Duo/1gig RAM), and it takes a really long time to boot. for example, after the login screen for windows vista, it takes maybe like another minute and a half before everything is fully loaded. even after that, it seemed sluggish (example: opening a new tab in internet explorer lagged just slightly)

long story, but she is going to be exchanging it for an x61s, but i'm not sure what changes to make to fix the issue. i tried inserting a 2nd gig of ram, and I reinstalled vista with a lot of crap software removed, and i tried defragging the hard drive, and it only slightly improved.

do you think getting the new x61s (w/ newer processor: 1.6Ghz Santa Rosa Core2Duo) will fix the issue? Or should i upgrade the HD to 7200RPM? or should i get more RAM, or any combo of the three.

i am most hesitant to upgrade the hard drive (cuz it costs the most), but i'm thinking that that might be the most significant cause. your thoughts?

 

It sounds like there is a bunch of crap-ware on the system, and a fresh re-install might be in order.

 

yeah, i reinstalled it, but it only improved slightly

 

have you reinstalled it from the recovery partition? as I understand doing that would load same crapware on your laptop as there was before. what needs to be done is the clean install of the OS only, and then those programs that you need.

 

i did it from the recovery partition, but they have the options to choose which crapware to install and which to not install(eg, i chose not to install the Symantec junk, diskkeeper lite, microsoft office trial).

i know it might not be the BEST way, but it seems pretty close.

 

I'd probably try booting either a old windows 98 disk and doing a fdisk format or use a usb flash drive and using a partitioning program from bootdisk.com. Make sure you know the DOS commands if you use fdisk from 98.

It'll format the hidden partition but you'll know you have a fresh copy of windows.

Next you could try is a pretty lengthy tweaking of Vista but it should help.

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

 

thanks for all the input... on her new x61s, we chose the faster hard drive. it should make a big improvement.

if it still seems sluggish, i'll check this thread again