old laptop problem

dude_se

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UK
so my GF got a laptop off someone. 256mb ram, 1.6ghz processor, 40gb hdd. that kind of spec. had XP on it but sometimes it would just freeze up and be unusable for ages. i mean sometimes it would take about 10 mins or more to get to a working desktop. other times it would be usable and fairly speedy.

i wiped it clean and it was great from fresh, till i started putting stuff on it lol. it runs a lot better now, and on bootup its fine, but sometimes it will have over 100mb ram free, then all off a sudden the hdd will go crazy and the ram will be 0-10mb free, and the computer will barely be usable, then it sorts its self out in like 10 mins.

found a program to run a ram and HDD test (although it wasnt memtest, so not sure how good it was) and it said there was no problems.

not looking to spend any money on this, i was just wondering if its a case of an old crappy computer, or something more hardware related? ive used other pc's with this spec and they havent just randomly started to go slow unless under pressure. any ideas on how to generally speed it up? disabled some services and things but i want it as fast as can be.
 
hi, well 256mb on xp.
you need 1gb really and there will ben a limit on your hdd where it will start to slow things down, i would say arround 20-30gb so it will cost money im afraid.

but if your going to update it, get a program called CPU-Z and find out what type of memory it is and look it up on Ebay or www.aria.co.uk

so sorry there is not much of away arround this. you could try CCleaner. that will clear up unnecassery files using up space and you can clear up the registry with will speed up things massively.

hope i helped you. and good luck :)

-Leif
 
Yeah just like Rx2 said, more memory. youd be surprised how much faster a computer will be after you get more memory.
 
lol i know that, but its old, and it was given to her, and she has a netbook and a shared laptop (which is good), so if i can sort this out then great, but if not then im not wasting any cash on it.

ive already got ccleaner installed and disabled several services and stuff, but its still not quite there. as i said its fine sometimes, then just chooses to be really slow for a little bit for no obvious reason. once i sort that it will be usable
 
Did you turn off all the eye candy?
System Properties\Advanced Tab\Performance Settings\Visual effects Tab\Select "Adjust for best performance".
Just a thought...
 
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