Should I drop Vista for XP?

Ive got a new Dell e6400 (have ahd for 3 months now) and I am not happy with the performance AT ALL.
Ive got a top of the line model too: core duo at 9600, 250GB HD at 7400RPM and 4gigs of ram and the computer is just not fast.

Im thinking about downgrading to XP to maybe speed things up a bit.

Thoughts?

 

Did you try all the Vista tweaks? Might help. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532

 

you'll definitely get better performance, yes. of course, it's up to you to decide if you want to lose the looks, features etc of vista or not

 

No, try a clean install of Vista without all the Dell junks first.

It's not fair to compare a clean installed XP to Vista + Dell bloatware.

 

I suggest not giving up on Vista just yet. Do a fresh install of Windows to get rid of all of Dell's bloat. If you're still hating it, THEN go to XP.
Vista gets a bad wrap that it often does not deserve, it's really a great OS and a huge improvement over XP.

EDIT: Stewie beat me by 1 minute...

 

What do you mean by "not fast?" Is it not fast, or are you expectations just not realistic? If you don't actually use that power, you won't notice any difference in web surfing between 2 GB ram and 2.0 Ghz and 4 GB ram with 3.0 Ghz.

 

Have you tried a clean vista install or uninstalled whatever junk dell pre-loaded and then run a registry cleaner? With your specs vista should be running pretty quick, so you just have to ask yourself some questions. Are you willing to spend what is essentially between 10-12% of what your laptop cost for a new OS that will soon be replaced by another $150-$200 OS (Once Windows 7 is released I imagine MS will very quickly drop XP support).

 

TO ALL (thanks for the speedy replies)

-I have already done a clean install.
-What I mean by slow performance is that Itunes constantly stalls, Outlook has started to slowdown and all in all, it takes a good 10 seconds to populate the Control Panel screen, etc. The computer is just not quick (outside of internet-which aint fast either).
-What are the advantages to Vista?
-Maybe im missing something but my computer in the office on XP with half the specs blows my laptop away. I dont know if its Vista or not, but 4 gigs??
When I bought this thing I thought it be lightning quick and capable of handling multiple programs at the same time.

Its downright slow and im not even throwing anything heavy at it.

Lastly, with all of my fan issues (which make me want to chuck this thing out of the window) I was hoping maybe a slightly less load on the CPU might bring the temps down and stop this high speed fan.

PRESCOTT-ive seen the tweak thread but im scared to any of those things b/c im just not tech savvy enough to correct anything that I might mess up.

 

You know, my SZ which is a bit below yours (in specs) gives me a very good performance.

Have you tried leaving your laptop on overnight so Vista can organize itself?

Advantage to Vista - full support.

 

iTunes is really big and slow and bloated. Ditch it.

You can try XP if you like, but I certainly remember a lot of XP's flashlight waving back and forth from when I used XP.

Is your office computer a desktop by any chance? Desktop hard drives are way faster (even at the same RPM) so it's going to feel snappier in general. If you don't have another laptop to compare it to... it's not a great comparison.

I guess it's possible.

Go ahead and try XP if you want to... I mean it is a little bit snappier overall, I think.

 

Another thing I can think of.

For me, overall Vista runs more stable than XP.
Now that is Vista SP1 vs XP SP2 & SP3

 

As far as tweaking Vista is concerned ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532)-should I be worried about doing anything thats included in that thread?

What are the "must dos" to increase performance if one owns Vista?

 

If Vista is running so incredibly slow that you absolutely cannot stand it, "tweaking" it won't suddenly make it dramatically faster.

There seems to be some real problem with your computer, either it's something with a driver or your perception of it. One thing I recommend trying, just to check, is to disable CPU power management by setting it to High Performance. The system will run full bore and you can see maybe if it's something with how it's stepping down that maybe you are sensitive to.

I also recommend checking for any updated drivers, and not just on Dell's site. They have never been known for having the most up-to-date drivers.

 

Does the fact that I score a 3.5 on "Desktop performance for Windows Aero" mean anything (Windows Exp. Index) and ive got above 5's for everything else.

 

Ya i say get rid of the bloatware trust me that slow you as hell. Right now im on vista its a little slower on booting up (ya i disabled things) but its still fast i havent tweaked up vista yet . Like i said give another try fresh install of vista take out all the bloatware and tweak it up.

 

No, not really.
Actually that's similar to mine.

Vista needs time to settle.
Use it a couple of days, let it running overnight, clear out temp files, defragment.

Edit:
By the way, although it gives an indication, the Windows experience index is a very bad benchmark.

 

Thats what I thought.
When you say "Settle Down" what are you referring to exactly?
Ive had the OS for months already.

 

Well it can take one or two weeks - several months sounds bad.

On another note:
Antivirus?
Kaspersky just about bogged my system down until I did a full system scan, ever since my laptop is working much, much faster.

Also - let it run overnight.

Other maintenance I mentioned above?

 

I think everyone forgot the simplest solution to try: Update Drivers.

I recommend that when you clean install Vista, do not get the drivers from Dell's site. Instead, go to the manufacturer's site for each device/component and download the drivers. I did this for my ASUS G1S and it was night and day difference.

Hope this helps.

 

What does letting it run overnight do?
I use Symantec for anti-virus

Speaking of drivers-there is an "Urgent" driver update for "Dell System Software" for the e series laps.

What exactly is that?

 

Letting it run overnight means it idles, so the laptop will rearrange bootfiles.
I thinkg ever Wednesday at 1 it'll defragmet itself.

Symantec - does the software ask for a full system scan??

 

That provides hotfixes and performance tweaks specific to that model of notebook. It's important that you install that. They wanted you to install that first before any other drivers, but you should be fine installing them now.

From the various E-Series owner's threads, I've heard that Dell Control Point (the replacement for QuickSet on Dell's business models) can be quite bloaty, esp. compaired to QuickSet.

Also, have you disabled SuperFetch? Try reenabling it and see if performance improves, you may have to wait a few days to notice a difference.

 

Dont know what Superfetch is; downloading that driver as we speak.

 

Superfetch is Microsoft's name for the functionality that pre-populates unused RAM with data and code that the system's algorithms indicate you're most likely to be using next or in the near future. Unless your usage patterns are essentially random, I doubt if you're going to see much of a performance gain, if any, by turning superfetch off.

 

It doesn't matter if Superfetch is turned off, since it still releases some free RAM for a new program to use anyway. It's better to have all RAM used, than wasted.

 

yup

*ten char*