My Compaq Presario

Hi all dont know where to put this but il try here, sorry if it is in the wrong part !!

Ive got vista running on my laptop at mo but il having troubles with loading and logging off, Shutdown and restart. Basicily it is running very slow.. Its taking minutes from logging in to get the the desktop and from then it still takes few minutes to even logg on the net..When i shut down the laptop its still takes a long time before it decides to turn off..

My spec are as follows :

Compaq Presario C500
Intell Celeron 1.86ghz
1014mb Ram memory
120gb hard drive
Vista Basic edition
(if u need more details let me know)

Ive tried removing all the programms that i dont use and scanning for viruses that may be on laptop and been defragmenting every other week.. Im struggling to do things on this but is it best i format and install XP at all??

I hear its becoming a common problem with this at mo and people are installing XP will this solve my problems??

If any one can help me on this issue it would be very greatfull indeed

Many Thanks

Hannah

 

Put more RAM in, you have what is considered to be the bare minimum to run Vista (although people claim it'll run on 512MB), ideally you need 2GB (2048MB).

Obviously remove any unnecessary applications at startup (use msconfig.exe for this) and remove any unnecessary services (use services.msc). Google for "speed up vista" or something similar and you'll come across loads of helpful websites with instructions on how to do that.

Biggest thing you can do is chuck more RAM at it though.

 

Mine wasnt that bad in Vista Ultimate...(specs in sig)
Clean install might help you.

 

Nah she'd be better off putting more RAM in. My mates Compaq was running slow with 1GB of RAM, he put in 2GB and it started running faster, coincidence? I think not.

The best thing to do is go through, remove all unnecessary services that run on startup, any unnecessary apps that run on startup and chuck more RAM at it.

People tout a clean install as a miracle cure all, but in my experience all it does is lose your apps you had installed and costs you time for very little benefit, especially if you only have 1GB of RAM...

hannah11 may also consider putting SP1 on as well, I got a speed boost from doing that on my Vista Ultimate install that was running a bit slow...

 

Its not terrible with 1GB RAM, and it isnt like that for sure.
Clean install with SP1 is a must.

 

Make sure SP1 is installed. (Control Panel > System & Maint > System)

Go to Control Panel > Programs & Features > Programs. Uninstall any crap that came with it that you don't need. (Maybe you did this already....)

Also, go to Control Panel > Programs > Stop a program from running at startup > Show for all users. Disable whatever you don't need.

You can try downloading and running CCleaner if you want. And definitely run defrag. (If you have access to a Windows disc, do a clean install instead of all the program removal stuff I mentioned.)

Oh yeah, add RAM if possible. A 1 gb stick of laptop RAM costs about $20. That combined with one of the 512mb sticks you've got should get you to 1.5 gb which should be enough.

 

XP would be optimal for your specs. Do a clean install of XP. I guarantee that your system will be fast and responsive.