Windows XP & Thinkpads

[Alexia97]

Hi,

I have an IBM thinkpad which has run slow since the outset, despite being protected up to the hilt with anti virus and spyware stuff. It takes ages to load up stuff like word and the internet.

PC World suggest this is because its operating programme - Windows XP was not designed to with the machine. But the keyboard even bears a logo saying 'designed for windows XP'!

Can anyone enlighten?

Alexia

[XPSlacker]

First, What model is it and how old is it? I have 2 T42's that are a year old, and at work we have been using 300+ R31 models (3years old) and 300+ R40 models (2 years old) that were originally shipped with XP Pro and they all run it fine with adequate speed.

So we would need to know things like how old it is, what model (i.e. R31 &/or 2657-99u), how much RAM, CPU type and speed, size and rotation speed of the hard drive, type of video card and if it has dedicated RAM or shared memory usage? This would help for starters.

Plus, does it still have a "restore" or "service partition" or has that been wiped out. If it is still available, have you backed up all of your data and files and then tried to restore it?

Have you tried to defragment your drive in it's current state? Have you defragmented it after restoring from the "service partition?"

-XPSlacker

[tap52384]

I don't know if this will help but, I have an IBM Thinkpad R31. However, I upgraded the hard drive to 60 GB (double the original capacity) @ 5400 RPM, and also added 512 MB SDRAM (for a total of 640 MB). At the moment, I have an nlited version of XP installed, but after recent tweaking, has realized that it is the service configurations that have a lot to do with system and boot performance.

At the moment, the only services set on automatic are:

DCOM Server Process Launcer

DCHP Client

Event Log

Machine Debug Manager (Visual Studio .NET 2003)

Plug and Play

Print Spooler

Remote Procedure Call (RPC)

Symantec Antivirus Definition Watcher (Symantec Antivirus Corp. 10)

Task Scheduler (only for BootVis)

Themes

Windows Audio

Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Wizard

Windows Management Instrumentation

Workstation

The rest are either manual or disabled. My boot time is approximately 27 seconds, after running bootvis and defragmenting my hard drive.

In all honesty, the only reason that I use nLite (besides the completely admirable ability to remove components completely and for free and because I can) is to reduce the source so that I can automatically install other programs and drivers like Adobe Photoshop and MSN Search Toolbar. If an R31 was able to read DVDS, I would probably leave the source alone and just tinker with the services. But then again, it is cool to not have to disable things, but can remove them.

[enuffsaid]

IBM makes great laptops, if not the best. I have a T20 myself, a golden oldie. I upgraded its RAM to 256MB and now run Windows XP flawlessly on it. I see NO reason why it shouldn't work for your model.

Try IBM's website and get any HDD drivers or Chipset drivers that may be relevant to your model Laptop.

Good luck!

[rabster1]

Perehaps check taskmanager to determine if It is lack of memory or cou cycles that is the problem.

Protecting to the hilt may be what is slowing things down. All those antispyware/virus programs use memory, cpu and disk accesses when they are running.

I would suggest that if you keep your XP uptodate and use an alternate browser and dont visit too many warez sites and be very wary of emails with file attachments you will be fine without all that stuff running!

Keep the xp firewall. Keep the virus and spyware programs to but don't let them run in the backgound continously.

IBM's website as enuffsaid mentioned is well worth a visit and one of the best for support and drivers amoung computer manufacturers.

Tweak your XP by turning off unnecessary visuals and startup programs, I also reccomend nlite.

XP can run great on as little as 300mhz and 128meg ram if setup properly. This spec can even play dvd's with some work as I found out last week when setting up a thinkpad last week...

PCworld don't know s**t.

[suryad]

rabster1 has said it the best. I would recommend using crapcleaner and running it occasonally and clearing out the registry and junk files as they accumulate a lot in XP. That will give you a boost definitely ...also memory is very important...the more memory you can afford to have the better. Also get System Mechanic Professional and you can comfortably tweak the startups and clean out the registry...cruft that crapcleaner misses it will get rid of...same thing with junk files from your hard drive. Try going into the windows folder then prefetch and deleting the stuff out from there as well.

But the major problem I would think is the protecting it to the hilt mentality. I never have any programs like that running...I dont get viruses or spyware or malware...I only scan my computer like once a week.

Also I have diskkeeper installed and set it so whenever my laptop goes into screensaver, it starts defragging my harddrive and that is a very handy feature. Hope all these suggestions in the thread helps.