PII laptop runs like Christmas!

[OC Guy]

My dad has a PII,not a PIII laptop. It runs(if wrong i will edit) at 400mhz. It has Windows 2000 Professional and sp2 and every other update we could find. The problem is that, it runs rrreeeaaallllllyyyyy ssllooww. Can anyone help us? ANY comments are welcome!

[Yar1182]

Add more Ram. Win2k really should have at least 128 mb of ram if not 256mb. Ram is sho cheap nowadays there really is no reason not to.

Second disable any programs running in the background. If you got norton systemworks, virus checker, etc that will slow your system down big time. how many little icons do you have in the sys tray (bottom right hand corner) that's a good indicator.

If you really want your system to run fast you need to do a format and clean install. Over time the registry get's really bloated with programs you installed and then uninstalled. I do a format clean install every 6 monthes wheather i need to or not. It really is the cheapest/ fastest way to get the most speed out of your system.

While your at it you can set up various tweaks. Such as setting up a swap partition (first partition created so it's on the fastest part of the disk), OS partition, Application partition, and Data Partition. this will help save time and work for future format's and clean installs. you can just whipe your os and app partitions and leave all your documents in place.

Then you can go to regedit.com and apps some speed tweaks such as eliminating sevices you don't use.

[OC Guy]

If i'm not mistaken, it has 200 megs of ram, and the only thing running is the OS and Novell client for windows 2000. As for the install, its only about a month old.
Thanks for the help!

AMD Thunderbird,proof GOD wants us to be happy!

[muno]

Novell slows things down, a lot. Also, if there is an interactive virus scanner installed it will be slow.
Adding ram didn't make much difference, at least in my case. I have toshiba sp4600 (667cel/128), upgraded to 196. This thing is slow but I think laptops are generally slower than desktops. Try modifying the power settings, at least with this machine I can alter the processing speed, cooling method and stuff like that. Max all those if it has equal things.
-M

[OC Guy]

It's a Compaq, you really cant modify the clock speed or fsb. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif
Oh well,back to the "drawing board".