hi guys, my friend's latop comes with vista preloaded and is really slow
and slugish. the laptop has only 1GB of ram but the task manager reports
only 0 free usually ( sometimes 8 to 16 MB free but 0 most of the time)
and about 120 cashed. I tried to disable some of the stuff that runs on
startup that is rarly used, using the msconfig command on the startup
tab. there is lots of stuff in that list, I tried to keep it to a bare
minimum. when I look at the process memory usage I Noticed the sidebar
processes that are taking about 20MB each, as well as the desktop
windows manager, what happens if I disable those would that be a good
idea? then we will not be able to see those gadgets right? anything else
that we will not be able to do?

The laptop is R61i lenovo, pentiun4 dual core CPU. it has office 2007
installed as well as IE8 and firefox, along with skype and MSN. not much
software is installed but it does come with the usual thinkpad
utilities, which I have disabled from auto-starting as they are not used
much and take up system-tray space and maybe I could free some memory
with them disabled, but did not help much. the laptop is still very
slow.

should I consider disabling superfetch? or another services? we are
considering a memory upgrade to 3GB, but my friend is not yet sure she
wants to do that. if we do get the upgrade to 3GB do you think there
will be a big boost in speed? like starting up and shuting down, and
starting programs? currently it takes above 4 min for complete startup
and above 2 min for complete shutdown ( sometimes more). starting IE or
firefox can take a minute after complete startup.

thanks for any help!


--
akramh

your friend would definitely benefit from a RAM upgrade. i looked up
that model number, and both come with 2GIG. is it possible the computer
has a defective module?


--
kword88

kword88;1110882 Wrote:
your friend would definitely benefit from a RAM upgrade. i looked up
that model number, and both come with 2GIG. is it possible the computer
has a defective module?
there is a number of R61i models actually, I don't have the exact
type-model number with me at the moment, but I did goto the lenovo site
to download the latest drivers and I had to enter the type-model and
from what I read the r61i models can come with upto 2GB on some models
you are right. now if there is 1 defective module this means there is 2
memory modules in it with 1 GB each right? if there is only 1 model then
it should confirm that there is nothing defective. not sure how to open
the laptop to check what is there actually...

EDIT: actually just checked and I still have a bookmark of the place
where to download the drivers for that particular model, and it does say
it's only 1GB ram so that rules out any defective RAM modules, here is
the location of the 'driver download section for the r61i 8932-A59'
(http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si... lidate=true),
it might say windows XP on it as I was checking XP drivers for dual boot
at the time. she didn't like XP so I had to remove that, and kept vista.


--
akramh

well, then you would definitely increase performance with a RAM upgrade.
other than that, there are some adjustments you can make to speed things
up.


--
kword88

Vista needs RAM - more than CPU. You should definitely upgrade the
laptop. I have done the upgrade a while ago for my wife's laptop and it
made a big difference. Scan the laptop with this website and you will
know what your options a 'RAM Memory Upgrade: Dell, Mac, Apple, HP,
Compaq. USB drives, flash cards, SSD at Crucial.com'
(http://www.crucial.com/index.aspx?gc...20081213201317)


--
whs

kword88 wrote:


well, then you would definitely increase performance with a RAM upgrade.
other than that, there are some adjustments you can make to speed things
up.

Do you know what those adjustments are, or are you just guessing that
they exist?

Hello akramh

Try checking your services by going to services.msc in the run box. Check
your processes running. Most people have processes starting they don't need
and stopping services you don't need goes a long way toward helping speed
your system and your boot Defrag regularly. If you have services starting
you don't need,they will impact your boot. You can go to msconfig's startup
tab, and eliminate items starting that you don't need to start up. If you
need them, they'll turn on when you call up the app(s).

You can google for a definition of services and processes on Vista to match
against what you need to run.

Luckily BV is up and running again:

http://www.blackviper.com

Click on the links for Service Configurations. They can be an invaluable
help.
-=-

You may also want to check out Windows Vista Services Guide
http://www.tweakhound.com/vista/tweakguide/page_7.htm
-=-


Good luck
-=-


"akramh" wrote:


hi guys, my friend's latop comes with vista preloaded and is really slow
and slugish. the laptop has only 1GB of ram but the task manager reports
only 0 free usually ( sometimes 8 to 16 MB free but 0 most of the time)
and about 120 cashed. I tried to disable some of the stuff that runs on
startup that is rarly used, using the msconfig command on the startup
tab. there is lots of stuff in that list, I tried to keep it to a bare
minimum. when I look at the process memory usage I Noticed the sidebar
processes that are taking about 20MB each, as well as the desktop
windows manager, what happens if I disable those would that be a good
idea? then we will not be able to see those gadgets right? anything else
that we will not be able to do?

The laptop is R61i lenovo, pentiun4 dual core CPU. it has office 2007
installed as well as IE8 and firefox, along with skype and MSN. not much
software is installed but it does come with the usual thinkpad
utilities, which I have disabled from auto-starting as they are not used
much and take up system-tray space and maybe I could free some memory
with them disabled, but did not help much. the laptop is still very
slow.

should I consider disabling superfetch? or another services? we are
considering a memory upgrade to 3GB, but my friend is not yet sure she
wants to do that. if we do get the upgrade to 3GB do you think there
will be a big boost in speed? like starting up and shuting down, and
starting programs? currently it takes above 4 min for complete startup
and above 2 min for complete shutdown ( sometimes more). starting IE or
firefox can take a minute after complete startup.

thanks for any help!


--
akramh

You dont mention anything about what AV is installed, whether MS Update has
been run, what junk was preinstalled and auto starts, whether you have
updated any drivers from MS Update, a very bad idea, and how the PC runs if
started in safe mode
All in all I have to say, without wishing to be rude, that you are a meddler
with knowledge probably based on win9, dual boot winxp???????????? what were
you thinking?
I purchased a low spec Lenovo laptop for my daughter which is surprisingly
speedy, Vista Bus with 2gb, certainly no 4 / 2 min problems

"akramh" wrote in message
...

kword88;1110882 Wrote:
your friend would definitely benefit from a RAM upgrade. i looked up
that model number, and both come with 2GIG. is it possible the computer
has a defective module?
there is a number of R61i models actually, I don't have the exact
type-model number with me at the moment, but I did goto the lenovo site
to download the latest drivers and I had to enter the type-model and
from what I read the r61i models can come with upto 2GB on some models
you are right. now if there is 1 defective module this means there is 2
memory modules in it with 1 GB each right? if there is only 1 model then
it should confirm that there is nothing defective. not sure how to open
the laptop to check what is there actually...

EDIT: actually just checked and I still have a bookmark of the place
where to download the drivers for that particular model, and it does say
it's only 1GB ram so that rules out any defective RAM modules, here is
the location of the 'driver download section for the r61i 8932-A59'
(http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si... lidate=true),
it might say windows XP on it as I was checking XP drivers for dual boot
at the time. she didn't like XP so I had to remove that, and kept vista.


--
akramh

DL;1111550 Wrote:
You dont mention anything about what AV is installed, whether MS Update
has
been run, what junk was preinstalled and auto starts, whether you have
updated any drivers from MS Update, a very bad idea, and how the PC
runs if
started in safe mode
All in all I have to say, without wishing to be rude, that you are a
meddler
with knowledge probably based on win9, dual boot winxp???????????? what
were
you thinking?
I purchased a low spec Lenovo laptop for my daughter which is
surprisingly
speedy, Vista Bus with 2gb, certainly no 4 / 2 min problems

"akramh" wrote in message
...

kword88;1110882 Wrote:
your friend would definitely benefit from a RAM upgrade. i looked up
that model number, and both come with 2GIG. is it possible the
computer
has a defective module? there is a number of R61i models actually, I don't have the exact
type-model number with me at the moment, but I did goto the
lenovo site
to download the latest drivers and I had to enter the type-model
and
from what I read the r61i models can come with upto 2GB on some
models
you are right. now if there is 1 defective module this means
there is 2
memory modules in it with 1 GB each right? if there is only 1
model then
it should confirm that there is nothing defective. not sure how
to open
the laptop to check what is there actually...

EDIT: actually just checked and I still have a bookmark of the
place
where to download the drivers for that particular model, and it
does say
it's only 1GB ram so that rules out any defective RAM modules,
here is
the location of the 'driver download section for the r61i
8932-A59'
('Lenovo Support & downloads - ThinkPad R61i 8932-A59 support'
(http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si... lidate=true)),
it might say windows XP on it as I was checking XP drivers for
dual boot
at the time. she didn't like XP so I had to remove that, and kept
vista.


--
akramh

Avira anti-vi is installed, don't have the full list of programs
running at start-up now as I am not with my friend but from my memory it
is:
roxio drag & drop to cd/dvd tool
logmein ( now disabled )
Thinkpad tools ( 3 or 4 of them ) now disabled
avira antivir
there is lots of other stuff but now cannot remember...

Windows update is enabled on it, but by default I think it doesn't
update the drivers because they are considered optional updates. I
updated the Intel Wifi Driver from Intel site though. all the rest of
the drivers I think are the ones which came preloaded as per factory
defaults.

in safe mode, startup and shutdown is fast and smooth. also running
normal tasks is faster..

after disableing some stuff yesterday , today she says the machine is
running a bit faster...

What do you mean by "medler"? sorry my english is weak. also I never
heard of win9.... win7 is barly released so I guess your making a joke
here, and what's wrong with dual booting xp? xp is still used by more
than 70% of people in the world so it is still a very popular OS and is
much more memory efficiant than vista is. she didn't like the XP
interface as she got used to the friendly vista interface so I removed
XP.


--
akramh