How to make Vista run faster?

so my cousin bought a (budget) laptop that runs vista basic. (it came with it)

basic spec:
Intel Celeron M 520 1.6 ghz
1 GB ram
80GB hard drive
intel graphic card

so vista is running super slow.. is there any tweaks or ways we can make vista run faster? vista is pissing me off already..


stupid vista is a memory hog... microsoft is dumb to release an OS that requires more.. it's basically killing all the budget laptop market cause it's making it unusable.

thanks for the help. much appreciate it.

 

The start would probably be to up the RAM since the CPU is probably not changable...

You're only going to get so much out of those specs though...

What MS did is evolutionary and something they've always done. They release a OS that runs well on mid range systems on release and overtime the hardware market matures around the OS bringing the budget line into focus with the new OS.

You can also try turning off stuff like indexing and system restore as well as any Anti-Virus and Firewall apps.

 

not going to upgrade the system. 1GB is sufficient. even adding it to 2GB wouldn't make much different in my opinion... vista is a piece of crap. it's not evolutionary at all.. i remember when xp came out, it didn't required that much cpu or memory at all.. (consider the specs back then)

vista is asking too much. there's already a people going back to xp because they can't take the slow speed anymore. i'm not surprised and that tells you a lot abotu vista and it's quality.

 

Did the laptop come preinstalled with Vista? If yes, Then we assume it is Vista Ready. Vista does require alot of resources, resources that in XP werent probably being used. Even with a Budget chip like a celeron with XP your CPU usuage stays under 10%. With Vista, your OS is off doing things trying to prepare for your next move (prefetch). It takes a while for Vista to "learn" your tastes, give it a while. Also try searching the net for Vista tweaks and do what frazell recomend and turn off some of the eye candy.

Me, personally, I think its the celeron sticker on the laptop thats causing your problems, try removing it, see if it helps. GL

 

If you want a cheap computer, XP is the way to go. If you want a moderate computer, get 2 gigs of RAM. That's like what 80 bucks? I would've killed to get RAM for that cheap a few years ago. I mean it used to be 50 bucks for a 512 meg stick

 

Have you tried turning off the Aero interface? If not, then that could possibly be sucking up a great deal of your system resources.

 

Kill windows defender runing :> is all good way speed it up

 

it's pre-installed vista. it's basic so there shouldn't any aero in it.

 

turn off indexing, remove some start up processes that u feel u do not need

ram idle/not used = dead ram
vista is a much better/efficient memory manager than any other windows os

vista needs a few days to learn ur system environment and ur working habit. it will speed up and performs well with time

cheers ...

 

Adding memeory WILL help. Why is it you think adding memory won't help when reports all over the internet are to the contrary?

Your memory of XP is fuzzy, when it came out everyone with a then mid sized machine (speed and ram) complained how bloated it was, what a hog it was etc. It's deja vu all over again.

Gary

 

Upgrading to 2GB will most definitely help and you'll probably get the most performance improvement from this.

Other than that you can try the following but don't expect miracles.

- Turn off search indexing, UAC, system restore, hibernation
- Turn on write caching. Go to Device Manager, Disk Drives. Right-click on your SATA hard drive and click Properties. Click the Policies tab, and click Enable Advanced Performance.
- In control panel, Programs and Features, Turn Windows Features on or off, uncheck:
Indexing Service
Remote Differential Compression
Tablet PC Optional Components
Windows DFS Replication Service
Windows Fax & Scan (unless you use a modem for faxing
Windows Meeting Space (unless you use the Live Meeting Service)
- In Control Panel, Administrative Tools, System Configuration, Services Tab, uncheck:
Offline Files (unless you’re using Offline File Sync)
Tablet PC Input Service (unless you have a tablet PC)
Terminal Services
Windows Search (If you have already disabled indexing)
Fax (unless you’re using a fax modem)
- Clean up startup programs. Type msconfig, look in the Startup tab.
- I had a 4 gig flash drive handy so I used readyboost. With just 1GB, of memory, readyboost will also help.
- Use Vista Basic instead of Aero

See
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2110595,00.asp
and
http://mostlysavingmoney.com/2007/06...-speed-tweaks/

 

Step 1 back up all data, step 2 uninstall Vista, step 3 install XP, problem solved!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FVbf9tOGwno

 

As stated above, 2Gb of ram will definitely speed it up. It's recommended that you have 2GB for Vista.

And XP wasn't what it is now when it was first released. It takes a little time for an OS to mature. Vista will eventually be better than XP.

 

The problem with Vista is that it is filled with bloatware and takes twice the computer to get the same performance of XP.

 

Very True. People don't remember that when XP came out technology was a lot further back then it is now. Tasmonkey, you remember XP as it is now when the hardware is ahead of the OS, and not when it first came out when the hardware was behind the OS. Vista is less than a year old, and the hardware just hasn't caught up with it yet. Microsoft however, created an OS that is a little bit ahead of the hardware. Also, I've heard from many people that with Vista you need 2GB of RAM to run efficiently. It's only $80 to upgrade your RAM, and it will help a lot.

People need to realize that as technology advances the processes and the OS you run will require more power which will require better hardware.

 

Budget laptops when XP was out did not run XP very well with 128megs of RAM compared to Windows 98.

RAM will help a little. However your single core, non-hyperthreaded 1.6ghz low cache memory Celeron CPU is killing you. 1 gig of RAM with a Core duo or Core 2 duo will out perform your Celeron with 2gig or RAM.

Vista is alot more multi-core aware than XP. Basically adding another gig will OVERALL give you maybe 2-5% performance boost.

 

People need to realize that as technology advances the processes and the OS you run will require more power which will require better hardware.
By then they then a new OS will be out.

 

it's a budget computer. who the hell wants to upgrade budget computer to 2GB? it's my counsins anyway. he bought the budget laptop for a reason.. to save money. i told see a huge difference in performance if you upgrade it to 2GB since the cpu still sucks.

i guess i will tell her to wait and download that new SP1 for vista. i hope they increase the performance...

 

oh and thanks for all the advices.

 

You can try http://www.blackviper.com for some tweaks. He has done a very good job with XP and is currently working on Vista. I have used a significant amount of tweaks and have seen a lot of improvements with my systems.

 

Who wants to upgrade a budget computer? Someone who is complaining that Vista is too slow and only has 1 gig installed.

So you "told see a huge difference in performance if you upgrade it to 2GB since the cpu still sucks", which I assumes means "told her she would not see a huge...", right? And you did this despite all the advice you got to the contrary? And in addition, your advice was to wait until SP1 comes out, which won't be until 1st quarter 2008, so your poor cousin is going to limp along until then because you know better than all the folks here who told you to upgrade the machine to 2 gig? Great advice. Hope you cousin has enough sense to seek a second opinion.

Gary

 

I wouldn't waste my time upgrading a budget computer, hell just get a newer better one, besides most laptops can't be upgraded anyway other than memory.

 

Thats true, I remember when I bought a laptop in 2001. It was a sony with 1.2ghz PIII mobile, 128SDram and 30GIg 4200RPM HD. It was slow but worked farily well and still does today.

 

Doubtful that SHE will be buying a new one, this one was a new purchase. And the upgrade being suggested is to add memory.

Gary

 

yeah.... upgrading it to 2GB won't give you a huge increase in performance. unless you're going to tell me that upgrading it to 2GB will give you a 50% increase in performance.

 

Depending on what your cousin is trying to do it very well could! If she is in a situation where memory is being continuously being paged out, the difference could be amazing. But your mind is made up. You obviously know better than we do. And since you do know so much more, I am curious why you came here to ask how to speed up Vista?

Gary

 

i'm asking for tweaks not memory upgrades. duh!

 

That notebook probably only has one slot for a single dimm, so its stupid to go out and try to upgrade to 2gb since you need a 2gb dimm

I'd just turn off all the useless processes in the registry, services, and misconfig. Then go out and buy a 2gb flash drive for readyboost.

Just don't give up, do all you can before declaring it a lost cause.

 

I did a lot of these things right when I first got my laptop, but a few days ago, I turned Aero back on.

I've got more than enough processing power and RAM, and I've removed and trimmed tons of crap. I like the way Aero looks, and since I've turned it back on, I haven't noticed any slowing down. I think Aero is one of the really cool features of Vista.

 

Ok, first it was "tweaks or ways we can make it faster" and now it is just "asking for tweaks". Well, tweak away bud. Good luck.

Gary

 

There is no aero interface in Home Basic.

 

look here: http://www.tweakvista.com/

 

didnt bill gates once say that all you would ever need was 64 mbs of ram... *sniff i am naivee i still believe in that dream

anyways i think 1 gig of ram is running fine on vista.. no problems here just the boot up could be alittle faster but other then that its a okay..

 

The quote, often wrongly attributed to Bill Gates, ACTUALLY came from the folks at IBM! Yes Vista will run in 1 gig. But almost all MEASURED reports indicate 2 gig is much better.

Gary

 

This Work's For me and two Friend's of mien's

 

hmm interested i didnt know that one xD
Hmm i wonder if i would notice the difference with 2 gig of ram I grew up with 128 mb of ram on my desktop i think 1 gig is kinda to much for me as is.

I think to boost performance is if you defrag your hard drive that should speed up a bit.

 

Clearly you can't appreciate the fine help these people are offering.

1 gig upgrade would be the difference between night and day.

Vista is a huge update and upgrade to windows, and as such still has it's issues. Nothing unlike past operating systems. Even XP went through this for a bit. With the latest updates Vista is running great.

 

If this is the original install then you'll want to remove the inevitable crapware that the OEMs install when you get a new PC. A clean install always helps, as well.

It's been generally agreed upon that 2GB is optimal for Vista. If you're unwilling to go that route then you have a couple of options. If you have a USB key floating around somewhere you can try using Readyboost. Another possibility-- since memory usage will be at a premium install programs with smaller footprints that do the same job. For example, for anti-virus don't install Norton or McAfee, use a free program that isn't a memory hog like Avast, Kapersky or AVG. If you have burning software like Nero, ditch it for WinAmp or something smaller, or if you must tweak Nero to get rid of all its memory-hogging features like Nero Scout. As others have mentioned go to Black Viper's site and disable unnecessary services.

These are just suggestions, but ultimately it is up to you to look at what you have installed and optimize it.

 

This thread has a lot of good info to help speed things up. Some of the people here probably ran the beta versions of Vista. Don't dismiss any ideas without at least trying them IF you can afford it. Stopping unneeded services is a good way to take some of the load off the system resources too. This has all been mentioned in this thread.

Jim

P.S. Stopping the Tablet PC Input Service also disables a Vista feature that I like. The "Snipping Tool" goes away after this service is stopped.

 

...and the original quote was actually 64 K of RAM. Hahaha!!! I've got text files larger than that.

 

Wow! You are right! I didn't even catch the fact that the person wrote 64MB instead of 64KB. But then again I programmed machines with way less than 64 KB even. ...big ol' grin...


Gary

 

Basic uses Aero Express which is missing glass(transparency), flip3d, live thumbnail, but other than that its identical to whats in Premium, business and ultimate

 

Believe me, if you are running Vista you WILL notice the difference between 1 gig and 2 gig. It is, as was suggested elsewehere, day and night.

Gary

 

personal experience from my desktop computer - going from 1gig to 2gigs of RAM will make a HUGE difference with Vista. multitasking will not cripple the system, the page file is used a bit less and everything just flows a lot smoother. i'd recommend it.

 

I think we are targeting the wrong people here. Its the laptop manufacturer who put vista on a incompatible system and they deserve the bashing.

Also, the Notebook makers load the machine with a zillion crap software and startup programs. If you remove them, and remove the heavy antivirus,
home basic will run on 1 GB.

Personally I see no reason why we should upgrade the RAM again just to run the OS, especially when my celeron 700 Mhz, 128 MB SDRAM system runs XP so well and with heavy applications like photoshop and Matlab.

A very good idea would be:
Get rid of Vista, install ubuntu. And in such cases where windows is a must,
install the free VMWARE player and run vista as a virtual machine. You will be in the most secure environment.

 

I wouldn't recommend this at all. I've been running Vista with Ubuntu for a while now. Ubuntu is far more confusing to operate than Vista which by the sound of things, wouldn't really help. Ubuntu also appears to run far less smoother and with greater difficulty on my hardware than Vista does. It takes longer to boot up and shutdown and doesn't multi-task as well. Running a virtual machine will tax the hardware even further if its even compatible with the processor in the first place.

 

Running behind it with a Whip might do the job - but results will vary

- Jordan

 

Actually, the cpu doesn't suck. People think it sucks because the brand name says "Celeron", and they have this mental association that Celeron = suck. Intel kind of likes that since it gets a lot of people to ante up for their more expensive CPUs. But this is a 1.6 GHz Merom core. Same core as Core 2 Duo, but only one core, and less cache. Should give perfectly respectable performance if you can get past the "Celeron" branding.

Also, Vista is mostly RAM hungry, not CPU hungry.

Also, you should be able to go to 1.5 gb and see some significant benefit. You can get a 1 gb stick for about $40 and add it to one of the 512 mb sticks that's already in there.

Oh yeah, there's a Vista hotfix out that helps it use memory more efficiently... you could give that a try.

Finally... well, I don't have Vista yet, but on XP I noticed Windows Defender makes my computer slow when it does a scan, so I configured it to scan once a week instead of daily. (This is in addition to the real-time scanning, which doesn't seem to affect much.) It's much better this way. Also, if you're running an antivirus program, you may want to look at the configuration options.

 

Let's look at the consequences of running Vista with less than 2 gb of ram.

Everything is super slow, boot up, launching programs, multi tasking, anything. It's fair to say (if you use your computer daily) You'll spend 10 minutes per day (assuming only one boot up per day) waiting on things to load up with 1 gb instead of 2 gb.

10 min per day x 365 days per year / 60 = 60.8 wasted hours per year.

Now ask yourself this: Waste 60 hours per year or go get 2 gb of ram. Personally I'd chuck Vista and go with XP on that system.

 

A Celeron 1.6 GHz can certainly benefit from a 2GB RAM upgrade under Vista; no amount of software tweaks can beat that (unless its loaded with bloat ware and a resource hogging security suit like Norton). You’ll be amazed how lack of RAM can cripple a PC.