... Okay any ideas to this problem are more then welcome ...
I'm the proud owner of a Toshiba Satellite 1800 laptop, that is over three years old now. It has a 1 Giga-hertz processor and 256mb memory. The operating system is Windows XP Professional...
Problem is that the processor speed appears to be simply not fast enough anymore. Kazaalite++ on it's own (depending on the number of concurrent downloads) takes up to 100% of the processor up. Needless to say that working with the laptop whilst downloading becomes a pain (even playing chess at RHP is considerably slower then)...
But even without Kazaalite++, the laptop seems to become extremely processor heavy (if you know what I mean). I can hardly play any Friends or Sex and the City, without the films stopping for sec. throughout.
Any ideas how to tweak the performance a little?
Thanks heaps
Boris
Originally posted by trekkieBut when I hit ctrl alt and del to look at the task manager it sais processor usage 100% ... Ram seems to be fine, or am I naf here ?
RAM RAM RAM and more RAM
Get as much of that stuff in your computer as your can, though that is not always as easy as it sounds with a laptop.
When my PC starts to slow I can stuff up to 2Gb worth of RAM in it to help it along.
Originally posted by The Slow PawnBoris
But when I hit ctrl alt and del to look at the task manager it sais processor usage 100% ... Ram seems to be fine, or am I naf here ?
Its quite possible that you are running loads of unnecessary processes on the computer.
One of the biggest causes of this is Norton, so if you are running Norton Anti-virus or/and Norton Firewall, uninstall the and use free ones that are just as powereful.
Zonealarm firewall form zonelabs.com is pretty good and doesn't use that much computer resourcse, also free updates to keep things sweet.
As for antivirus, there are quite a few out there, I personally use AVG from Grisoft.com. THis also uses minimum resources and has free updates of virus definitons.
There are plenty of little tweaks you can do to improve performance (I may dedicate a page on clan website for this, just for the techies)
Adjust your vitual memory settings and set the pagefile to 64mb min and 512mb max.
The best place to look to tweak performance is the services menu.
Start/Run and then type services.msc
You really need to be careful you know what you are disabling in here, so check it out before disabling any particular one.
I found a couple of safe ones to disable are
Alerter service
Error reporting is not a bad one to disable too.
Little things you can do is adjust your computer for best performance, Right click My computer, select properties, click advanced tab, in performance click settings button and then select for best performance. This will disable any fancy stuff like graphical enhancements to the O/S start menus, windows etc. but can increase performance.
There are literary loads of tweaks, I will try and sort out a comprehensive list for you, but there is no substitute than a hardware upgrade.
Robbo
Originally posted by The Slow PawnMmmm...ctl/alt/del is the "soft boot'' command, usually in response to a freeze, which indicates that the OS has bogged down.
But when I hit ctrl alt and del to look at the task manager it sais processor usage 100% ... Ram seems to be fine, or am I naf here ?
A more accurate way of determining the problem is to "right click " the task bar, > Task manager > Applications, to really look at whats running in the backroom. Shut down what is not required to play.
Another little tip is to nuke all those "quick launch" icons on the task bar. The OS uses valuable RAM to monitor them at every key stroke which is a serious loss of memory. If you have "Nortons" ixnay it. Its a memory gobbler. Go for AVG. The only icon that should be on that task bar is the "start" prompt and the clock. Period!
Tidy all that up Boris and see if it makes a diff.
BR's .Michelle
Originally posted by skeeterIsn't all this what I said. the most likely cause will be the processes rather than the applications running. Have a look in task manager with no programs open. You will probably see loads of stuff running in the processes which gobbles more resources than anything else running.
Mmmm...ctl/alt/del is the "soft boot'' command, usually in response to a freeze, which indicates that the OS has bogged down.
A more accurate way of determining the problem is to "right click " the task bar, > Task manager > Applications, to really look at whats running in the backroom. Shut down what is not required to play.
Another little ti ...[text shortened]... the clock. Period!
Tidy all that up Boris and see if it makes a diff.
BR's .Michelle
Also- if it is a laptop, keep it cool- I know that sounds nuts, but trust me- laptops are built to adapt to temperature conditions- the more you puush a ircuit in a given unit of tie, the more heat you create- in general laptops are engineered with not melting as one of their design goals- an't really blame the designers for that. Kill unneccesary processes. Plug it in- some laptops run slower on battery power.
As a last resort install some flavor of Unix- my PII 400 is pretty speedy running Debian- 196 Megs, but it worked pretty well with 64, back in the day- I develop a website that has had as many as 5 million users a day on it. Of course we deploy on something a little better 🙂
Just caught Robbo's post and it's right on the money. Instead of "Spy-Bot" I opted for "Ad-Aware" same package diff title. And a defrag sometimes solves a few probs. If all else fails install more RAM ( 512 is good ) and/or run the "repair" option from your XP system CDRom.
Michelle
Originally posted by skeeterI agree with Michelle, its often overlooked but defrag is so important. Sepecially for you Boris as I know you are big into downloading music and movies. Your hard drive is definitely going to be somewhat crammed. A periodical defrag will help a long ways.
Just caught Robbo's post and it's right on the money. Instead of "Spy-Bot" I opted for "Ad-Aware" same package diff title. And a defrag sometimes solves a few probs. If all else fails install more RAM ( 512 is good ) and/or run the "repair" option from your XP system CDRom.
Michelle
Skeeter wrote:
"A more accurate way of determining the problem is to "right click " the task bar, > Task manager > Applications, to really look at whats running in the backroom. Shut down what is not required to play. "
My experience has been that there is not always an accurate way of determining things like this under Windows. Running ad=aware is a good idea though, performance aside. Cleaning your registry thouroughly is also a very good idea, if you have the knowledge neccesary to do it. Back it up first!
But- knowing something about the WinAPI, I can tell you that if I feel like it I can set up processes on your machine that you _will not be able to find_... unless you are an expert... - this is less a problem with the underlying OS, than a problem with confused roles, and bad software. You might want to reinstall- your cpu usage may be caused by a worm that is mailing thousands of worm laden trojans out...
Boris
I also have just noticed that you use Kazaa. I must stress using spybot removers as soon as. Like Michelle said Adaware or Spybot S&D. I don't use kazaa or any other peer2peer service and I find even running Adaware on a regular basis, usually once a week I still contrat the odd spyware. I be surprised if your laptop isn't riddled with them
Mitiege iss spot-on with regards registry cleaning, I do this myself but I am very comfortable editing the registry and playing around with it, so don't try amending anything in there unless you know exactly what you are doing, backup the registry before messing with it and always backup everything.
eyegpc writes:
"I also have just noticed that you use Kazaa. I must stress using spybot removers as soon as. Like Michelle said Adaware or Spybot S&D. I don't use kazaa or any other peer2peer service and I find even running Adaware on a regular basis, usually once a week I still contrat the odd spyware. I be surprised if your laptop isn't riddled with them"
I know I'm repeating myself here... this is good advice as far as it goes, but... it is not enough.
What programs like adaware do is look for _known_ spyware systems... for the last few years that has been enough to handle most of what is out there. It is not anymore.
So this is both good, and bad, advice.
2 years ago, when _commercial_ people wanted to trojan your system they wanted to do pretty simple stuff, and they went about it in a pretty predictable way... so you could write a program like adaware that could find their stuff, and kill it- at least a lot of it.
This is no longer the case. The specifics are very technical, but.... trust me on this- there is no way a program like adaware can keep you safe from what is being written now... a good comparison is the virus and the retrovirus- easy to immunize against one, not so easy to immunize against the other. The answer is- _don't get infected_- just like the difference between the clap and AIDS.
The big difference is that people have realized that your computer is useful for a lot more than just spying on you- it can be used to send spam, and to compromise other machines- it can be used to host illegal child porn sites. It can be used in a lot of different ways, now that you have broadband, and are using a supposedly robust OS. Guess who goes to jail when the kiddie porn shows up on your hard drive? It is not the hacker in Russia.
Don't screw around- stop using outlook, be careful what you download, reinstall the OS if you have any doubts. Learn to understand firewalls, be _particularly_ careful if you have bought or warezed W2kServer- shut IIS off if you're not using it, and patch it if you are.... remember that innocent Windows users like you took _all_ of South Korea off the internet for a whole day last year- and it was entirely their fault. Your computer is your responsibility, when it is hooked up to the internet, like your car is when you drive it on the highway.
This is all correct Mitiege, but for the reason that we don't know the extent of Boris's technical knowledge maybe all this will be over his head.
Boris originally asked for tips in tweaking his performance then I think we should do that. Unless Boris wants to get very technical and deep then this is ok.
And you are right about the likes of adaware not being completely effective but your comments could disuade Boris to use this and that would be a mistake, although they are not a 100% deterrant I think is is safe to recommend there usage.