Optimising Vista?

[Guest Noder]

I have a laptop running Vista which is unbearably slow.

Opening up the internet browser and even folders can take an unreasonably long time.

The whole thing is incredibly sluggish.

My question is whether someone knows how to get the best out of this machine?

It's less than a year old and should be more than capable of running Vista.

Any help?

Note: It's not long since I reinstalled Vista and I have run programs such as CC Cleaner to no avail.

[weEvil]

How much ram does the laptop have?

[Tarun]

Tried defragmenting?

[j03y]

whats your system specs?

[Kindovic]

is it like tat when u first bought your com??

[weEvil]

is it like tat when u first bought your com??

Not like tat, its a computer.

[fizban2]

I have a laptop running Vista which is unbearably slow.

Opening up the internet browser and even folders can take an unreasonably long time.

The whole thing is incredibly sluggish.

My question is whether someone knows how to get the best out of this machine?

It's less than a year old and should be more than capable of running Vista.

Any help?

Note: It's not long since I reinstalled Vista and I have run programs such as CC Cleaner to no avail.

To get the best out of your machine we first need to know the specs for it, every you can tell us would better allow us to help find the root cause for the machine's slowness

[Guest Noder]

Hi, thanks for all the replies.

I have tried defragmenting and it's currently set to do it every Wednesday.

Here are the specs:

Vista SP1

Home Premium

1.83GHz Core 2 Duo

2GB RAM

120GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s

Mobile Intel 965

Now, I've turned on Aero basic so it's not taxing the GPU so much but what else can I do?

[cluberti]

Well, the next question is (assuming you've already disabled superfetch/readyboost/windows search services), what do you have installed on the machine, and what does procmon say is happening on the box whilst you're waiting for periods of time for things to happen (disk accesses by which processes, which files, registry accesses, etc)?

[fizban2]

Hi, thanks for all the replies.

I have tried defragmenting and it's currently set to do it every Wednesday.

Here are the specs:

Vista SP1

Home Premium

1.83GHz Core 2 Duo

2GB RAM

120GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s

Mobile Intel 965

Now, I've turned on Aero basic so it's not taxing the GPU so much but what else can I do?

The HD will also definately be a bottle neck for you, 5400 rpm's are very slow, if possible look for a 7200 RPM drive replacement (or Solid state disk if you are feeling lucky )

[weEvil]

Hi, thanks for all the replies.

I have tried defragmenting and it's currently set to do it every Wednesday.

Here are the specs:

Vista SP1

Home Premium

1.83GHz Core 2 Duo

2GB RAM

120GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s

Mobile Intel 965

Now, I've turned on Aero basic so it's not taxing the GPU so much but what else can I do?

Aero Baisc is using the CPU only, meanwhile the GPU is just sitting there doing nothing.

Put the full Aero back on as it is heavily GPU based, then disable transparency if you are worried about battery life. You can also disable Min and Max animations for window resizing, and disable show contents of windows for extra responsiveness.

Your computer should run Vista very well, so the problem looks to be software.

Do the following:

Start > Type in "msconfig". Go to the Startup tab and give us a screenshot. It lists the software that is loaded on startup which usually runs in the background.

Also, how many gadgets do you have running in the sidebar? If you don't need them, get rid of them and disable the sidebar. It is a resource hog.

Also, you have enough memory. Enable superfetch and prefetch and leave them alone. Indexing you don't need to disable it, you can configure it to index only certain folders like "Documents" or your user folder. This way you get the benefits of indexing with a negligible performance drop.

Edited December 2, 2008 by weEvil

[infiniti25]

I found this guide(http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/81176-sp...ance-vista.html) quite useful, its actually a list of miniguides under the heading of "How to Speed Up the Performance of Vista"

[cluberti]

Aero Baisc is using the CPU only, meanwhile the GPU is just sitting there doing nothing.

Put the full Aero back on as it is heavily GPU based, then disable transparency if you are worried about battery life. You can also disable Min and Max animations for window resizing, and disable show contents of windows for extra responsiveness.

No, not true. That's an Intel 965 chipset, which means a GME965 with the x3100 video chipset. DX10 support, sure, but it's using the main CPU to do most of the work. Testing without Aero is actually recommended (not as a fix, but as a troubleshooting step) to see if this is taxing enough to cause the symptoms or not.

Enable superfetch and prefetch and leave them alone. Indexing you don't need to disable it, you can configure it to index only certain folders like "Documents" or your user folder. This way you get the benefits of indexing with a negligible performance drop.

Again, no. Disabling superfetch and readyboost limit disk access by the OS, and disabling indexing also removes the searchindexer.exe and searchprotocolhost.exe hits on the hard drive, making these valid troubleshooting steps.

Remember, we're troubleshooting, not "fixing". I recommend them to see if it's a disk issue, or a graphics chipset issue (especially with Intel onboard video), etc. Your suggestions of disabling startup items and sidebar gadgets are also good, but saying that the things I suggested don't hamper performance (especially on a laptop) are incorrect at best. These ARE good troubleshooting steps to narrow down the source of the "slow" behavior, and then troubleshoot from there.

[weEvil]

You're suggesting troubleshooting.

I'm suggesting possible optimizations for optimal performance and responsiveness.

You're right, troubleshooting first.

OP: We still need those startup items. And disable sidebar since it is known to cause issues like you mentioned with too many gadgets.

[Guest Noder]

I appreciate all the replies.

The sidebar hasn't loaded on start-up since the reformat.

Here are the start-up items:

EDIT: It is running strangely well at the moment.

I turned Aero back on but turned transparency off.

Edited December 5, 2008 by Noder