Biggest Slow down of my M40?

I started to use my M40 as my primary machine, or trying to at least, but it is a fair bit slower when it comes to multi-tasking compared to my desktop. I narrowed the slow down to 2 possiblities comparing to my desktop

1) No Dual channel Memory (is the video card taking 128MB away from my 512MB?)

2) 4200 RPM HD...It's a fairly bit slower than the 7200 RPM WD w/ 8MB Cache WD in my desktop

I could upgrade both of these eventually, but as of now, if you had to do only one upgrade, which one would you choose given the ram upgrade is around 120, and I found a 7200 RPM Hitachi for $219 at Canada Computers...

Cheers

Ming

 

It depends, if you have the M40, you're not supposed to loose 128mb of memory because the video card in this model is not shared, however if you have the M45, it has the integrated video card which uses shared memory.

Now, considering this, if you have 512mb of memory, depending on use, it's normally enough for normal-stuff multi-tasking, but with today's memory hungry applications, it can become a bottleneck and then Windows starts to swap and so the scratching begins.

So if you think that most of the time, your hard drive never stops accessing and you get slow downs, then maybe your programs use a lot of memory and you would benefit from a 512 to 1 gig upgrade, because then your hard drive would be left alone most of the time.

Personally, I don't think dual channel memory would give you any tangible improvement, it would be the double-the-memory that would be of help.

Then again, if it is the loading times of your software that is too slow and that annoys you (like when playing a game, or when starting Windows, or when starting Microsoft Office, Photoshop, etc), then it,s the hard drive that you should upgrade first, because 4200rpm access time is not that great.

Hope it helps.

Toshiba Satellite M40 - Pentium-M Sonoma 1.6ghz - 512mb DDR333 - 60gb 4200rpm - GeForce 6600 128mb - 15.4" BrightView WXGA TFT LCD

 

Would memory for the laptop be only $120CDN ? I was reading other posting on Toshiba forum and one guy was taking about upgrading RAM to make it dual channel. According to him you have to buy the same RAM chip as one in the M40. I believe the 512MB of memory for the laptops is more then $120.
As for HD, yes, HD is slowing down the system. I am not sure if M40 has standard size HD - it is very thin as compared to desktop replacement laptops. Check for that. Let me/us know the results. I may do the upgrade as well.
What do you do on the laptop? Gaming? If so than memory would be a better bet. Read the posting about M40 on Toshiba Forum and you find out more about your concerns.
Do you have high pitch sound coming out from your left speaker or left speaker area, especially when laptop is idling and quiet environment around you? Do you agree that the laptop is a little bit cheap built? Many of the plastic casing parts easily move. How about your pc express slot, can you open it? I am asking these questions to compare me observations with others. Thanks

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Bluemax43

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by heaveny38

 

I think the situation I was refering to before invovles

1) 10 Bit-torrents running
2) 1 Firefox window
3) MSN
4) Itunes
5) A few explorer windows
6) Then something was uninstalling

I think I'm simply reaching the limits of the processor, and I'm not too sure how much good the extra ram will do because the start up time of applications is excellent.

I may just use the laptop in conjunction of the desktop via remote desktop, and mount the desktop's HD as a network drive.

I rarely do any media encoding, and the majority of the task on this computer is just programming, and net stuff...

As far as my taskbar is concerned, I have the bare minimum applications running, thing such as
1) Norton Anti-Virus
2) Blue Booth Driver for my Logitech MX900
3) Style XP

Now I have stopped configuring the laptop, its performance seems acceptable, and it is running rock solid!!!

Cheers

Ming

 

macming:

Regarding CD-ROM access, if you mean that while the drive spins-up, your accessing application freezes, tht's perfectly normal, because laptop drives always stop spinning to "save power", but everytime you need something on it, it has to spin up, which is pretty slow.

About slowing down when using 4 or 5 applications, do you mean 4 or 5 applications that tend to use CPU much? Because personally, I can run a lot of applications without a hit on performance, but where it hurts, for example, is when running a media encoding task with something else. Keep in mind that the Pentium-M is not a very good multi-tasker, so tasks heavy on CPU will tend to suck all its power leaving not enough power for other tasks.

However if you mean 4 or 5 light applications (Office, Internet Explorer, Winamp, MSN, etc.) then I'd check either the hardware or the number of other running programs (in the backgorund) or your windows installation, something is amiss.

Toshiba Satellite M40 - Pentium-M Sonoma 1.6ghz - 512mb DDR333 - 60gb 4200rpm - GeForce 6600 128mb - 15.4" BrightView WXGA TFT LCD

 

Hmmm... just like that, are you using Azureus to download your torrents? Because, if so, 10 torrent downloads is already something, and Azureus runs through the Java virtual machine, I guess that alone makes for some noticeable CPU load. And if your internet connection is especially speedy, it can also become a burden on both your RAM and hard drive.

Your other appz must not be a problem, but uninstalling in these downloading conditions, with Norton Anti-virus on top of it, I can imagine it must not be the fastest thing in the world

It's all about balance, hehehe!

Toshiba Satellite M40 - Pentium-M Sonoma 1.6ghz - 512mb DDR333 - 60gb 4200rpm - GeForce 6600 128mb - 15.4" BrightView WXGA TFT LCD

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by heaveny38

 

Hmm... i never had a problem with "slowdowns", but if you knew you were going to do alot of multitasking, you should have gotten a P4 or P4-EE. I remember when extracting a huge rar/zip file or installing software, it does hog CPU, but when dealing with a single program or game I think the P-M Sonoma beats the P4-EE.

About the sound, make sure you have TruSurround activated. If you're using Winamp you need the plugin, but WMP has it built-in. It makes a huge difference. Also, its the speakers that suck, get some quality headphones and you're set.

 

Sky:

Yeah, but even then, there's a distinct buzz when hearing sound with headphones, it must surely has to do with a poor SNR of the integrated sound card. This buzz is inaudible with the speakers, but with the headphones, it's annoying when nothing is playing!

Toshiba Satellite M40 - Pentium-M Sonoma 1.6ghz - 512mb DDR333 - 60gb 4200rpm - GeForce 6600 128mb - 15.4" BrightView WXGA TFT LCD

 

You hear it through your headphones? Definitely need to take it back for a checkup. I just tried and i hear nothing. I havent done much workload in the past couple of hours though. When I do hear it, I *think* it comes from the left part of the keyboard, even when headphones are plugged in, but I have a window open most of the time with medium traffic so...

But I just tried it now, its not coming through the headphones or anywhere. I put my head on the keyboard and only hear the whirring of the fan.

 

well, I think I explained myself poorly sorry. It's not the same noise I'm talking about. The electronic buzzing noise coming from the upper-left part of the notebook varies and is the same as y'all talking about.

But the headphone noise is more like a constant background "SHHHHH", proof of a poor SNR coming from the sound chipset. My previous laptop had the exact same problem and I suspect many integrated sound cards on desktops must show the same symptoms, it must come from interference from other circuits on the motherboard.

Anyway it's not that bad either, I can only hear it when it's relatively silent in the room and when nothing is playing through. It's like if there is never a full silent state, always at least a low "SHHHH" Changing volume levels do very little to that noise.

Toshiba Satellite M40 - Pentium-M Sonoma 1.6ghz - 512mb DDR333 - 60gb 4200rpm - GeForce 6600 128mb - 15.4" BrightView WXGA TFT LCD

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Sky