I have a newish XPS 1530 with a T9300 2.5Ghz processor and 4gb of ram. My C drive has 150 gb free space on it. Surely that should be a pretty **** rapid laptop for itooning, internetin and maybe running a word document. But

Yet my laptop is running like a complete pig and constantly whirrs and seems slow. Its free of spyware, no viruses and no mcafee type software on it.

I spoke to someone recently who said what i needed to do was use some of my harddrive to allow Vista to work in…which would cost my harddrive space…but i have plenty anyway. I just want my laptop to run quicker…it gets hot and bothered at the slightest thing. I’m scared of playing with the memory settings myself incase i damage something by fettling.

Does anyone know what im talking about. I know macs and blah blah boo hiss Vista. Very good.

I think he means increase the virtual memory.
Should be no needas it’s size is controlled by the OS by default anyway.

Do a clean-up from the system tools list and run defrag.

Make sure defrag is not set to run scheduled (like once a week) as it will kill your fun.

Make sure you’ve downloaded all the windows updates.
My laptop with Vista runs like a pig when it’s trickling updates in but goes back to noral once they’re installed.
You could turn off automatic updates and check manually one a month.

Does AVG have a defrag’er. Can’t find it. Does windows defender have its own one?

It’s been a while since I’ve used Vista but from what I remember if you want all the bells and whistles then you need a pretty good graphics card as well as a good processor and a fair chunk of RAM. You could try to turn off things like Aero which, whilst pretty, doesn’t actually add that much to “genreally getting things done”. Try opening the task manager thingy and finding out what applications are using what in terms of CPU and memory. If you don’t need them (I always google it first to find out what it is) then kill the application.

Oh and unless you are running the 64bit version of Vista then you can’t use all the 4gb of ram, although 2gb with a decent processor and graphics card should be enough. It is on my PC.

Alternatively you might have a hardware problem.

Defrag is in Programs–>accessories–>system tools

AVG doesn’t have one and neither does Defender.

Do a manual windows update to be sure it’s not that (because that’s the biggest killer).

No. Its the 32 bit and i like aero. *Scratches Head*

Make sure AVG is not running a scheduled scan in the background also.

Set it to scan manual and just run it once a week when you’re not using it.

AVG is a pig, and kills laptop performance. Buy karparsky for £15 and you will get a massive performance boost.

run task manager, go to processes tab, click CPU and see which processes are using CPU time.

You machine should fly running Vista, no need to disable aero, increase VM etc. What I would suggest is that often Defender slows systems to a crawl whilst it is doing its scans. Temporarily disable it and see if the situation improves.

Also with 150gb free, disk fragmentation is unlikely to be a problem.

100% agree with retro it’ll be some scheduled scan or trickled DL that’s killing you, not Aero or VM.

I would go with a fresh reinstall, i have a machine with a lower spec that is fine, so maybe a fresh install and then just be sure to update everything.

And if you’re going for a fresh install then can I suggest upgrading to Vista 64-bit so you can use all of that memory?

use some of my harddrive to allow Vista to work in

That’s called virtual memory and it’s always on. Windows won’t work at all without it.

Don’t bother defragging it, it won’t have got that fragmented if it’s a newish PC.

Your problem is probably some sh*t that Dell has installed. They fill laptops with crap. If it’s running really slow and thrashing away it’s probably (as noted above) something scanning your PC. Some anti virus programs are good, some are not. You probably have norton or something, if it’s dell…?

If you have more than one user set up, you use ‘switch user’, and you hibernate it or just close the lid instead of fully shutting down, then a process from another user can crash and chew up all the cpu. Does the fan run all the time?

Get rid of vista and put a fresh clean XP install (or a free beta copy of Windows 7 which seems much better than vista) on it and only add what you need.
Then it should be shweet.

Do what glenh said. And then it will be sooooo fast, like you on a bike.

Not my experience. I upgraded from XP x64 to Vista 64 and I find Vista considerably faster than XP, especially at startup and shutdown.

And I think most independent benchmarks would agree with me.

Get rid of vista and put a fresh clean XP install

No, don’t. A world of pain for those that don’t know what they’re doing, and pointless as Vista isn’t slow (I own two fast Vista machines). It’s your set up that’s causing the problem. Some other software running and killing it – and btw this can happen on XP too, and any other version of windows.

Why are they going to release 7 if Vista is that good?

I am installing Mint on an old laptop tonight – bet its faster than Vista 😉

ehy;re doing a new version for many reasons, vista has bad rep even tho it is really a nice system so need to get rid of the repuatation. Windows 7 is recommended and is based on a lot of vista. Minor tweaks rather tan new core. Windows will work without virtual memory…. you can disable it…
I would honestly try and get some hardward testing done, maybe download some tests off the nett like the pi cpu test, make sure something isn’t wrong there!

Why are they going to release 7 if Vista is that good?

why don’t we all run windows 3.1, or even better stay with DOS?

…and ride fully rigid bikes with one gear. oh, some do! 😉

agree, AVG has had a reputation for slowing vista down to a slug. i use kaspersky, and it’s GREAT! it’s worth paying for IMO. It’s the only anti-virus i’ve paid for, having used AVG free in the past on XP. AVG just didnt get it right in vista, IME.

I’d install Windows Defender and then go to the software explorer tab and disable all the uneccessary applications that start up when you boot the machine. Then reboot.

Also install cleaner to clear out all the rubbish that clogs and slows down your machine. This free app. also allows you to clear up the registry.

Both are available free online. Just google them.

If you need free anti-virus then Avast! runs just fine on my Vista box.

He won’t have AVG on a new Dell laptop now will he? It’ll be norton or something. Pants. And a load of other spyware that dell install.

That’s all it’ll be.

He won’t have AVG on a new Dell laptop now will he? It’ll be norton or something. Pants. And a load of other spyware that dell install.

he mentions AVG, and says no mcaffee or anything (which i take to mean no norton either)… no spyware on my dell. or ‘load of other spyware that dell install’

Is norton really that bad?

Yep Norton absolutely kills your PC speed.
It makes your boot about 50% slower and makes ALL disk access around SIXTEEN times slower!

Read http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000803.html

If you really think its slow then backup your stuff and re-format it. Then first thing uninstall everything you don’t want that came with it from Dell. Just leave Roxio and Quickset, the Dell webcam, you don’t even have to have Dell Support Center.

Then uninstall the anti-virus that comes with it, Norton now is it? Dunno. Get rid of it whatever it is. Get a copy of Kaspersky Internet Security, (download a fully working demo then buy if you want) you can get this cheap from scan.co.uk, just buy the oem version (get a 3 license version if you have other computers, its good value). Kaspersky is the best one on Vista for not slowing machines down, plus its not overly fussy to monitor what its doing for people who don’t know all the jargon that comes with software firewall rules etc.

Once you’ve got all that on there then just let vista do all its updates for god knows how many reboots!

Then go to dell.co.uk and install all the new drivers and bios stuff you can get your mitts on.

Don’t install software you don’t use, not even to try it then uninstall. Consider using Firefox for the internet.

It will run like a rocket if you do the above. I’ve got an XPS M1330, the one with the smaller screen, only got a 7500 cpu and 2Gb of Ram and it runs really fast, it never pisses me off one bit. Don’t bother wasting money on 64 bit Vista, if all you’re after from it is proper use of the last little bit of your Ram then forget it, it won’t be worth it in the slightest. Spend that money on beer instead.

dare i pop my head up and whisper ubuntu 🙂

no spyware on my dell.

Dell had did install loads of totally intrusive marketing ware for quite a while. Dunno if they’ve stopped now. I say spyware, I mean marketing bolx that annoys the hell out of you and slows your machine down.

Probably not worth doing tweaks like installing firefox for speed.. I mean if it’s runing like a dog then there’s something majorly wrong. My guess is antivirus or something.

dare i pop my head up and whisper ubuntu

No! Back in your box, geek!