Why is this laptop so slow!?!

[vaio-fx]

I have an old laptop (Compaq Preasrio 1500), it's been in storage for a long time but I had to get it back after my current laptop failed. I decided to install Windows 7 on it, but it was very slow at performing even basic tasks. So I decided to wipe it and install XP back on it. Now this is what I don't understand, XP is equally as slow, if not slower!! The spec is as follows:

Intel Pentium 4 2.4ghz
1024MB DDR Ram
ATI Radeon IGP 340M 64MB
30GB IDE HDD

I know this is hardly the most powerful laptop ever, but I'm sure it should be a lot faster than it is, I'm sure it should be able to run Windows 7 too, let alone Windows XP (an old Celeron/768MB ram pc I had could run vista). Any idea whats wrong, could it be the HDD? There are points on both 7 and XP where it will be really quick for like 30 seconds or so.

EDIT: I have taken it appart and cleaned out all the dust too

 

[Jesusfrk611]

With those specs it sure won't be fast with 7... When it was new it might have worked well with XP, but laptops seem to age lots faster than desktops in my experience, so it gets slow faster. I'd say the first thing to replace would be the hard drive. It's probably a pretty slow speed to begin with and is now pretty old and slower, so it reads and writes slower. That's my thoughts.

 

[CBrooks]

With those specs it sure won't be fast with 7... When it was new it might have worked well with XP, but laptops seem to age lots faster than desktops in my experience, so it gets slow faster. I'd say the first thing to replace would be the hard drive. It's probably a pretty slow speed to begin with and is now pretty old and slower, so it reads and writes slower. That's my thoughts.

I agree with your thoughts.

 

[Gamputer]

I would say the major major problem is the RAM.
It only have 1GB memory and who knows what the clock speed is.

 

[rohan23]

You may have a bad stick of RAM or your HDD may be failing. Download HD Tune and Memtest and run those on your system. Tell us what the programs say after the tests fully complete.