Tips for improving performance?

[Windows 2000]

Hello everyone.

I'm running Windows XP on an old Pentium 4 Mobile, ThinkPad T30 laptop and it is running smoothly but I'd like to know ways in which I could make it run even better. Any tips, tricks, patches? I'd also like to make that laptop live as long as possible so any tips for that would also be greatly appreciated too.

Thanks in advance.

[Monroe]

I own some old ThinkPads myself (three) and they are still in use in 2018. They are my main computers for everyday use ... I rotate their use.

If you are not aware of the IBM ThinkPad forum, I will post here about it. The people there are very friendly and will jump in to help with any problem. I had to replace a fan on one machine and with help from the forum and Youtube videos ... everything went smooth.

My only problem was that initially ... I hadn't yet discovered the ThinkPad forum and I ordered the wrong fan from an eBay seller. I found the forum on Google and went there for assistance. Got help right away ... was told there are 'long fans' and 'short fans' for various models. The picture on eBay seem to look like my fan but it was a "long fan' and my T41 takes a 'short fan'.

Very glad I discovered the forum, had the fan problem fixed in two weeks. There are also members there that repair ThinkPads and have parts for sale ... some also sell ThinkPads known as FrankenPads ... A mix of everything but great machines.

ThinkPad Forum

https://forum.thinkpads.com//

... they also have a special section for ThinkPad T30 laptops ...

ThinkPad T2x & T3x Series. NOT for T25-Retro

https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewforum.php?f=28

... my ThinkPads are all T4x models, so much of my time is spent there but there are many interesting sections.

Maybe you already knew about the forum ... there might be others that didn't.

...

Edited September 29, 2018 by Monroe
sp, add

[Windows 2000]

I didn't really know about that forum and to be honest, I'm quite glad you told me about it. There are in fact some quite useful things there which could help for some rough days. Appreciated.

So, with that done I'd only also like to know how to optimize Windows's performance? Any tips for that?

[Monroe]

Further down the ThinkPad Forum home page that I listed in my earlier post, there are sections for various OSs .... perhaps you will find information there also.

Windows OS (Versions prior to Windows 7)
Operating System, Common Application & ThinkPad Utilities Questions

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Operating System Discussions

Windows 10
Windows 10 on Lenovo hardware
        
Windows 8
Windows 8 on ThinkPads
        
Windows 7
Windows 7 on ThinkPads

Windows OS (Versions prior to Windows 7)
Operating System, Common Application & ThinkPad Utilities Questions...

Linux Question
Linux on ThinkPads

...

Edited September 30, 2018 by Monroe
sp

[sdfox7]

On 9/29/2018 at 9:44 AM, Monroe said:

I own some old ThinkPads myself (three) and they are still in use in 2018. They are my main computers for everyday use ... I rotate their use.

If you are not aware of the IBM ThinkPad forum, I will post here about it. The people there are very friendly and will jump in to help with any problem. I had to replace a fan on one machine and with help from the forum and Youtube videos ... everything went smooth.

My only problem was that initially ... I hadn't yet discovered the ThinkPad forum and I ordered the wrong fan from an eBay seller. I found the forum on Google and went there for assistance. Got help right away ... was told there are 'long fans' and 'short fans' for various models. The picture on eBay seem to look like my fan but it was a "long fan' and my T41 takes a 'short fan'.

Very glad I discovered the forum, had the fan problem fixed in two weeks. There are also members there that repair ThinkPads and have parts for sale ... some also sell ThinkPads known as FrankenPads ... A mix of everything but great machines.

ThinkPad Forum

https://forum.thinkpads.com//

... they also have a special section for ThinkPad T30 laptops ...

ThinkPad T2x & T3x Series. NOT for T25-Retro

https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewforum.php?f=28

... my ThinkPads are all T4x models, so much of my time is spent there but there are many interesting sections.

Maybe you already knew about the forum ... there might be others that didn't.

...

I currently own six ThinkPads (1999 600E, 2001 T23, 2003 T40, 2004 T41, 2007 R60, and 2011 SL510). The SL510 is the only one I own with HDMI which is uncommon in the T series even today. Many other laptops came with HDMI well before ThinkPads. 

I am a member on that forum. There is a wealth of knowledge and many of the members are veterans with excellent information.

[Monroe]

sdfox7 ... agree about the forum ... I would like to own another ThinkPad or two but I will stop at three. Several members there have made their own FrankPads and some are for sale from members. They sound interesting with better stuff installed.

Some of those people there really own a lot of ThinkPads ... there is a thread titled: How many ThinkPads is too many?

https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=125215

One member says he has 32, another says 20 ... that's a lot of ThinkPads !!!

...

[cc333]

19 hours ago, Monroe said:

One member says he has 32, another says 20 ... that's a lot of ThinkPads !!!

Wow! And to think, I only have one ThinkPad!! (can't recall the model#, though it's old enough to have native support and drivers for 98SE).

c

[Mathwiz]

Getting back to the original question (improving XP performance), the following link should be of interest: http://www.prime-expert.com/articles/a06/performance-tuning-of-windows-xp-on-ssd-based-netbooks.php

It was written for the specific case of improving XP performance on SSDs, but since its focus is on reducing disk writes, its suggestions should improve performance even with plain-old HDDs too.