Slow, I mean dog slow.

I just got my new dv9500t this past week. It's amazing how much computing power you can get in a notebook these days. Here are the specs:

Core 2 Duo @ 2.0 Ghz
2.0 GB DDR2-667
2x 100GB 7200rpm hdd
NVidia 8600M GS
DVD-RW

Anyhow, I powered it on, waited while Vista did it's 'first boot' setup thing. Waited a few more minutes while Vista 'determined the performance of my computer'. Got to the desktop and waited some more, the HDD light was solid on although nothing was displayed on the screen. Then started to browse through this new Windows and poke around. WOW this Windows Vista is slow. Dog slow. It's horrible. On a high-end entertainment PC with fast dual-core CPU, 2 GB of RAM, and 7200 rpm disks, a freaking *operating system* should not run this slow. What a piece of crap. It's a scam that they're forcing this new OS onto new computer buyers. A new PC buyer is expecting a shiny fast new computer and gets one that's slower than their old one - all because of this Vista crap.

I'm not exaggerating at all when I say this next thing: I still have my old Pentium II 366 laptop with 256 MB, running Windows 2000, and it is snappier and more responsive than this new dv9500t with Vista installed. Boots faster too. That's the truth.

Needless to say, I promptly canned Vista and installed Linux. Why do people put up with this crap??

 

Maybe you are lacking some drivers? Is Aero enabled? If it is not, then chances are you need some graphics drivers.

 

I didn't say the graphics were slow, I said the general usability of the machine was slow. Booting up, running programs, browsing files and folders, clicking on things, etc.

And why would HP ship a new laptop that didn't have drivers installed? Makes no sense. I didn't install Vista - it was pre-installed on this brand new high-end computer that I bought brand-new from HP. This is their top of the line model, no reason for it to be slow.

Linux is nice and snappy though, glad I kicked Vista to the curb. Just wondering why others put up with this crap. They didn't even offer XP or 2000 as an option.

 

I use a dual core 64bit machine with Vista HP 64bit. I've not had any major problems with it at all. It's quick to boot up, no lag, programs load up nice and fast. I guess 64bit may help there but I have to agree with Budding, it sounds like you are missing some drivers somewhere. I also agree with you it should work propperly straight out of the box. Did you contact HP about it? It may have been a known issue with a simple solution.
I use an OEM version and installed it myself, I had a slight glitch until I found some up to date drivers for my sound and graphics but had no problems since.

 

Interesting suggestion, but I have a hard time believing any drivers, missing or otherwise, would have an impact on general system usability. System worked fine, no '?' or 'X' in the device manager, all good. Was just slow and unpleasant. It's gone now, as is the special restore partition (what hp uses instead of restore CD's) so it's all Linux for me going forward. I'm happy. In Linux I have my OpenOffice, Firefox, and Thunderbird, same as Windows. My main applications. Just wish hp would have given the option for something other than Vista. It's like the Ford model T: "You can have it in any color you like, so long as it's black!".

On a side note, I couldn't find anyone else running Linux on the dv9500t (probably because it's such a new model) so I created my own hardware compatibility page if anyone is interested: http://home.earthlink.net/~george164/dv9500t/dv9500t.html

Linux has better 3D desktop effects than Mac OSX or Vista 'Aero' anyways: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Fbk52Mk1w

 

Hmm strange? I've played with a similar HP model, spec'd similarly as well with Vista, and it was very responsive... perhaps there could be other issues? I have an older HP laptop I bought about 3 years ago with Windows XP - upon booting the machine it was incredibly slow and unresponsive, probably similar to your experience. I then did a clean reinstall of xp and suddenly the machine ran perfectly, to test it out, I also did a restore of the system using HP's restore cd's to its original state, and again, the machine ran horribly. I uninstalled all the bloatware it had and still found that it was incredibly slow, I concluded that it was probably a driver issue. And yes, drivers can have a major impact on performance on a machine. For example, I have a Sony desktop that cannot run without a specific driver, even the updated driver from the OEM part won't work, it simply has to have that specific driver in order to run smoothly.

A clean install of XP again got the HP laptop to run nice and smooth again. This might be the case with your laptop - so do a little research before outright dismissing Vista as the cause of your performance issues.. even though Vista may suck

 

It was probably the Windows Indexer doing its stuffs. Well, probably you can give it 3 days for it to finish indexing, and performance will be similar to that of XP. Removing uneeded applications will help too, the "bloatware."

 

More interesting technical tidbits, thank you for responding. But purely from a consumer experience standpoint, it seems like a total failure. When a consumer buys a new PC, they expect it to work. Not to have to purchase and install another Microsoft OS (XP) to make it perform satisfactorily. Even having to re-install Vista just to remove bloatware is unacceptable. Having to re-install the OS just to get a satisfactory user experience is entire unacceptable! That's my point here. Is it Microsoft's fault? Is it HP's fault? I don't care.

Also, it should perform from day 1. It shouldn't take 'days' for an operating system to do anything. It should just work. The operating system is there to enable me to run my programs. The point of the PC to let me run the programs I need, not to 'allow' me to run the operating system. The operating system should be a 'transparent' thing that runs in the background and lets me run my programs without getting in the way. Just my two cents. The fancy effects and indexing and drivers are all fine and well, but if they get in the way and impede my computing experience, that's when it becomes a problem. From my experiences with Windows, Windows 2000 worked as advertised. Vista does not.

 

Bloatwares. That's why the computer you have is cheaper compared to other brands.

 

Are you implying a correlation between quantity of pre-installed bloatware and notebook MSRP?

 

Not that the laptop itself is cheap as in build or quality, but cheaper as in price, as software companies (aka "bloatware) pay PC Manufacturers such as HP to preinstall them as a means of advertising - which in turn leads to a cheaper price.

And I agree lupin, computers should work from the moment you press the power button. Unfortunately, I've owned 3 laptops, one from gateway, hp, and alienware (granted alienware doesn't install much if any, but i've still had problems upon first bootup). All have needed to be reformatted with a clean install of the OS to get it to its optimal state. I recently bought a Dell desktop for my parents, which had to be formatted right away due to the incredible amount of bloatware and sluggish performance. (I find it easier to format and reinstall than to uninstall tons of programs - much better also as these programs almost always leave junk behind in the registry or on the HD).

I always recommend people do a clean reinstallation of windows especially if purchasing from one of the larger PC manufacturers: dell, hp, gateway, etc.

 

Shadedred, thanks for explaining that. I did notice a lot of icons on the desktop that I didn't recognise. Lots of programs starting up automatically as well when you power it on. I suppose that does make sense about the advertising dollars.

 

They do affect the price.. i think.
Like norton gives HP an amount of money to preinstall every notebook with shareware version of Norton.

 

I have a laptop that is half as powerful as yours and it runs Vista very well. My laptop is hardly slow, in fact boot times are fast, graphics look great, Aero looks great, and I love how Vista handles multitasking.

On my home machine I have Vista side-by-side with XP, and I can tell you that Vista is not slow. On all 3d benchmarks it runs within 4% of XP, in multitasking benchmarks it is faster than XP, and in real-world use it is never "slow".

Lets be honest, what we have here is another Linux fanboy coming here and spreading lies and misinformation about an OS that they have probably never used.

If you think Linux is so great, go to the Linux forums and quit coming here and spreading misinformation about how great Linux is.

 

I think you better delete the last two paragraphs. Vista has it's good and bad, so does linux. 1 thing linux is very good is with 64bits and you ll have to admit that the 64bit Vista have it's serious trouble of its own.

And the there's the fact that his system is slow becoz of bloatware, which he din knew before (which Linux comes with a loads of them but they are seldom active, thus not eating any extra memory). Linux is superior at 64bit using a 64bit cpu while Windows aint.

 

Vista 64 is hardly inferior to Linux 64. The only problem with Vista 64 is driver incompatibilties. Even with "bloatware" that system would hardly be slow. On initial start-up the indexing service may slow the system down a bit, but that is only a one-time shot. And even while Indexing was setting itself up on my machine it was hardly as slow as what the Linux fanboy described.

 

Just a quickie. Did you reinstall vista when u first got ur notebook?

 

just got a new laptop with very comparable specs to the original poster and have absolutely zero complaints with Vista. on a clean install Vista is snappy with 2 gigs of RAM and i don't notice any obvious hard drive thrashing or lack of responsiveness. even after two weeks of use, with my usual slate of programs installed, Vista boots in less than 45 seconds and i've yet to have any issues with its performance.

i think you were just saddled with endless trial programs from HP. that's apparently the standard now.

 

So you re-installed your operating system after buying the computer (which already had it pre-installed)?

 

well, the laptop came with XP, so i had to install it to use Vista, right?

 

Might just be Bloatware that HP is notorious for.

Probably got 25+ more services running for no real reason.

 

Just wanted to be sure. Is there anyone out there who has not re-installed the operating system on the laptop? Where it was just nice and responsive and snappy from the minute they took it out of the box?

 

it stands to reason that any dual core computer with 2 gigs of RAM should run Vista fine out-of-the-box unless OEMs saddle it with tons of programs that launch when run (such as google desktop on top of windows search, customized OEM apps, anti virus trials that make an immediate scan, etc). this goes for any computer using any operating system, and shouldn't be blamed on the base OS.

 

"Lets be honest, what we have here is another Linux fanboy coming here and spreading lies and misinformation about an OS that they have probably never used."

"Lies and misinformation?" Have you read any reviews about Vista? Last time I saw such negative reviews was when Windows ME was released! Btw, I have used Vista and I have to say that I agree; it is slow!

"If you think Linux is so great, go to the Linux forums and quit coming here and spreading misinformation about how great Linux is."

Actually, Linux must be pretty damn good. Why else do you think millions of users would agree with Lupin the 3rd and do the same thing?

It's pretty obvious that you've never used Linux before; how can you arrive at such dumb, narrow-minded conclusions (I'm not insulting you, this is an observation) when you've grown up using only Microsoft software?

 

CHeck your power settings in Vista, make sure it's on full, when my partner's laptop came pre-loaded with Vista it was set on medium and was horribly slow.

I've had the same issues with Vista messing with my partner's machine. It's a Core Duo 1.73 with 1GB ram, it should fly and in normal use it does but start loading things, installing, opening programs from the taskbar etc and it gets so incredibly slow that I start to lose my rag.

I like Vista in respect to the changes in looks and layout etc and the aeroglass looks great but it's just too slow and has too many bugs to be used well right now.

 

kinda obious your pentium 2 is faster my windows 98 pentium 2 500 mhz 64 mb RAM is faster than the system in my sig its because 98/2000 is smaller and has less features but you do get software compadibility and just give it a while itll get faster

 

You find it obvious that a Pentium 2 at 366 Mhz feels faster than a Dual-core processor at 2000 Mhz? Wow, must be some kind of new math you're using there.

 

yep, i got an asus g1 with vista ultimate, and it ran fine even with all the bloatware. however i did do a fresh install to get rid of all the crap that came with it.

Did you try fixing the problem? or did you just complain and do nothing about it. cause thats like breaking your arm and just sitting there and crying and not going to the hospital and getting it fixed.

 

You reformatted and reinstalled your operating system to get rid of some bits of undesirable software? That's like breaking your arm, and instead of fixing it, you cut the whole thing off and get an arm transplant.

Yeah, I did do something about it. I tried uninstalling things and that was slow too. So I blew it all away and I'm using Linux now. That's like breaking your arm and replacing it with a bad ass terminator-style robot arm. Like the 6 Million Dollar Man, better, faster, stronger!

 

I find it very ironic that everyone here who is chastising me for blowing away the factory installed Windows Vista, has in fact done the very same thing themselves, apparently for the same reasons.

 

nice, i got owned

actually i'd say it is more like having a few malignant growths provided by asus that i didn't want, and rather than picking them off one by one, i decided to ask god for a fresh one.

no more like strapping a twig to it. it might slightly resemble an arm, but it doesn't exactly replace all of its original functions. man you have a gaming laptop and now you can't play any decent games.

 

I don't see any missing functions. I don't play any games on my computer. That's what my Playstation is for.

 

than what's the 8600M Gs for? to warm your desk up?

 

Yes, that's it exactly, it does get a bit chilly here in the winter.

The 8600m is for 3D modeling applications, primarily Blender, VariCAD, and occasional Mathmatica. (All of which are available for both Windows and Linux, hence my lack of hesitation in kicking Vista to the curb).

It's also useful for OpenGL acceleration of certain 2D apps (Mplayer, ZSnes) and Google Earth.

Hardware 3D acceleration is not just for gaming you know.

(And anyways, Unreal 2004, Doom 3, Quake 4, and others are available on Linux if I ever decide to try my hand at becoming a gam3r)

 

at that sort of level it is.

what sort of 3d moddeling do you use with linux? about 95% are windows/mac supported only.

 

I guess Blender, VariCAD, and Mathmatica are the other 5%.

Blender and Mathmatica are required for some classes I'm taking. I used to use Blender on my SGI Indy (still have it, sitting on a shelf tho). That was back when Blender only ran on SGI IRIX. Now you can get it on Windows, Linux, and others.

I use VariCAD to design metal parts. I send the designs to a 'printer' who produces them. There are 'metal printers' where you put a block of solid metal (aluminum, brass, whatever) inside, you open your 3D design, and click the print button, and your 3D model is carved out of a block of solid metal. Direct metal printing is way cool. But way expensive. Machines are huge and way too costly to own, so you just rent time on one.

http://www.prometal.com/

http://exone.com/index_2.html

 

awesome, what do you do? i have done a bit, of 3d moddeling, more to do with transformer explosions and the designing of transformer enclosures, but that is with a custom made program that requires a physics card. we only need pretty average graphics cards though.

 

The VariCAD stuff is various parts for diesel volkswagen engines (tdiclub.com). Blender is 3D animation (like Shrek kind of stuff, but mine don't look nearly that good ) and Mathmatica is for boring college math courses.

Wow explosions and physics cards, that's cool stuff!

 

So you got an 8600 which best feature is that it is DX10 compatible? You do realize that there are 7000 series GPU's that will blow the 8600 out of the water?

 

I tried openSUSE 10.2 and Ubuntu 7.04. I still have openSUSE on an older computer in dual boot, but I haven't used it in months. Getting 3D acceleration to work was a pain, and Beryl crashed on me repeatedly. If you think Vista is slow, I guess my desktop with Vista is also slow when it records 3dmark 06 scores of 9000, does 155 FPS avg on HalfLife's Lost coast video stress test, and plays every 3D game there is with ease? Try that on Linux. Try playing BattleField 2142 on Linux then tell me how slow Vista is.

 

Or, you know, he might have bought the computer because it had the best performance/price ration, was available where he was, came with the other components he desired, or liked the looks of the computer it came in? I'm buying a laptop with an 8600GT in it by year's end, and DX10 is far from my mind, I find it a useless feature.

Actually, BF2142 does work in Linux, albeit with a couple of bugs.

 

Getting 3D acceleration to work was a piece of cake. In Gentoo, I typed 'emerge nvidia-drivers' at the command prompt and that's it. The nvidia drivers were installed and running. But I can see how that might be too complicated for a guy like you.

You might want to do a google search on Windows game performance under Linux before you comment on it. There are many published numbers showing a *higher* fps rate under Linux on the same hardware.

Besides, some of us don't really give a crap about games or Direct-X type of stuff.

 

"I tried openSUSE 10.2 and Ubuntu 7.04. I still have openSUSE on an older computer in dual boot, but I haven't used it in months. Getting 3D acceleration to work was a pain, and Beryl crashed on me repeatedly. If you think Vista is slow, I guess my desktop with Vista is also slow when it records 3dmark 06 scores of 9000, does 155 FPS avg on HalfLife's Lost coast video stress test, and plays every 3D game there is with ease? Try that on Linux. Try playing BattleField 2142 on Linux then tell me how slow Vista is."

I don't think Vista is slow, I know it's slow, from both personal experience, online reviews, and friends' and colleagues' opinions. It's indescribably slow; stalactites grow faster. Vista = Kia car. Linux = sexy Audi.

Linux powers most of the internet. Why do you think that is? Linux is the industry standard in 3D applications, where, in the consumer niche, MS claims to be superior. Why do you think that is? Funny, misleading world, isn't it? Linux may not have the cooperation and collaboration of game designers and hardware manufacturers that allow you to get 155FPS in whatever game, but man does it ever kick ass in every other respect known to man. Not every computer user needs games, but everyone does need the Internet, good servers, and professional level software.

And why the hell would you tell me all these performance specifications? Should I be impressed? I'm not impressed anymore, knowing that you paid more money for Vista instead of just using XP to get within the "4% performance margin", if not superior scores. No, I am not at all impressed.

 

whether linux powers most of the internet has nothing to do with it being a good desktop OS or not.

 

You are correct here. But then again, many people like to say Windows is a good desktop OS because it plays games. Same sort of argument.

 

I would say that is one of the criteria to choose what OS to be used on desktop as playing games is one of the thing people would do with desktop OS.

 

"whether linux powers most of the internet has nothing to do with it being a good desktop OS or not."

The Linux kernel that powers a majority of the Web is almost the same as the kernel running on my laptop. It's like any consumer of any good or service having free access to the best good/service for free. It's like a penniless car enthusiast suddenly gaining ownership of a Ferrari Enzo.

"You are correct here. But then again, many people like to say Windows is a good desktop OS because it plays games. Same sort of argument."

I believe that they are two distinct arguments. Any computer user can do without games, but the Internet powers billions of dollars' worth of commerce, allows for both communication between countries and communication within countries. Economies depend on the Internet.That's like comparing... words just fail me! They are incomparable, but this is another argument altogether.

 

So you're telling me that Linux is a good gaming platform? Maybe thats why noone uses it for gaming. Go to any of the leading gaming sites and show me one benchmark they've run using Linux.

The truth is you manufactured this entire thread based on nothing but lies. You come here telling lies about how slow a power machine is under Vista is when machines that are half as powerful run it just fine. The truth is I saw right through your masquerade and you know it.

 

what kernel is being used is not the sole criteria for good desktop OS(well here OS to me means a complete working desktop environment including the window manager etc. )

car enthusiast may appreciate the value of Ferrari Enso but for a soccer mom, they would pick minivan or toyota camry or a SUV if they can only use either one on a daily basis.

 

"What kernel is being used is not the sole criteria for good desktop OS..."

But it is one of the biggest contributor to making any user experience fast and reliable. This point is irrefutable, because, after all, the kernel is the heart of the OS. Are you possibly saying that the kernel has little say in the overall effectiveness of a desktop OS? I hope not.

Btw, forget my comparison with cars. Maybe it wasn't the best one.