XP installed? What now for best performance?

[LeighP]

Hi everyone.

Have XP SP3 installed, all the drivers from this site and upgraded to 2Gb of memory. (1.2Ghz processor)

Does anyone have any suggestions for good performance? Tweaks? etc???

All suggestions appreciated and will, no doubt, help others.

Leigh....

[juan david]

You could turn off the paging file, sice you have 2 GB of ram, to do this:
right click on my pc, propieties, advanced options tab, click on the first configuration button (i dont remember the word this section in english), go yo advanced options tab, and click in the button to change the virtual memory settings. Then disable de paging file.
Some programs may give you trouble with this, but it generally works fine, if you encounter trouble then enable the paging file again.
You could also look in a search engine for windows xp tweaks of windows xp optimization guide, and some ideas are sure to surface.

[LeighP]

Ermmm... thanks - was hoping to hear what has worked for others with their HP2133 rather than having to re-invent the wheel via Google searching.

Leigh.....

[ZBoater]

The things you would do to get the maximum performance out of the 2133 with XP are mostly the same as with any other PC.

1. Removing software you dont need.
2. Removing/disabling startup programs you dont need.
3. Defragging the hard drive
4. Making sure you have the latest drivers

etc.

I haven't seen anything special for the 2133.

[LeighP]

hey - thanks - will have a 'hack' around with my settings, etc, this weekend and sit on my hands before pressing 'Ok'!

Leigh.....

[simon917]

Hve you ever tried a windows XP unattended edition? they have pruned all the microsoft things that only bother your perfomance, and added lots of useful programs

[eto]

I have upgraded the HD to a new Fujitsu 400GB HD (250GB per platter) and I think it is a little bit more responsive now.

However, the best advice I can give is to use software, which does not need too much cpu resources. As you already have 2GB of ram, the CPU is your main limitation in terms of performance.

The 1.6GHz version seems to be as fast as a 800MHz Intel Celeron, your 1.2 Ghz might be in the range of a 600MHz cpu. Although this sounds extremely bad, it isn't really. These old original CPUs did not have the advantage of having 2GB of ram and hard discs with more than 70GB/sec transfer, so although the cpu performance is bad, the overall (felt) performance of the mininote isn't.

However it is a good idea to select the software which was designed for CPUs with less than 1GHz to get the best experience of your MiniNote.

My personal advise is:
- use old versions of software if these fit your needs, e.g. prefer an old version of office over office 2007 or winamp 2.9x instead of winamp 5 (2.9 uses 2-3% of my cpu, while v5 uses 15-20% while playing)
- use optimized tools, e.g. smplayer instead of windows mediaplayer
- only install things you really(!) need
- keep autostarts to an absolute minmum, especially don't install tools/services, which regularly scan your hard disc
- if you're using an antivirustool, go for the fastest one (with good security), my current personal advice is Avira (available in a free edition with ads) which seems to be extremely fast compared to the other antivirus tools while being very secure (not the best, but ok)


I'm currently using my 2133 for real development tasks with Eclipse and, except for some short hangs now and then, I don't experience any problems with it.

[mikez]

Ermmm... thanks - was hoping to hear what has worked for others with their HP2133 rather than having to re-invent the wheel via Google searching.

Leigh.....

Oh, a no effort improvement?
Just upgrade to a distribution of Linux with a lightweight GUI.

[memorymoon]

Ermmm... thanks - was hoping to hear what has worked for others with their HP2133 rather than having to re-invent the wheel via Google searching.

Leigh.....

Oh, a no effort improvement?
Just upgrade to a distribution of Linux with a lightweight GUI.

Which distro are the best out there for a mini note? :-)
And simple for a Linux beginner

[LeighP]

Ermmm... thanks - was hoping to hear what has worked for others with their HP2133 rather than having to re-invent the wheel via Google searching.

Leigh.....

Oh, a no effort improvement?
Just upgrade to a distribution of Linux with a lightweight GUI.

Not quite the reply I wanted but somewhat expected....