Slow Crappy Laptop

[DrFaroohk]

I have an HP laptop, runs windows XP, and it runs like crap. Its slow as hell and really, really glitchy. All sorts of random crap keeps cropping up.

Some of it is that I mistakenly let my 5 year old play with it, and he likes to get into places he's not supposed to go and delete things and alter things and whatnot. It's also just fairly old, and a piece of crap.

I've been thinking that maybe a format might help out with a bunch of stuff. Problem is, once I format it, then what? I bought the laptop second hand so I don't have any of the windows software, and my other computer never came with any cd's either. so I'm guessing I'll just have to go out and buy a damn copy of windows.

if I do have to do that, would it be beneficial at all to put a lesser version of windows on it, like windows 2000 or something so as to lessen the workload on it?

[RichS]

First off, what are the specs, especially memory?

Just a model name and number of the laptop should do - should be able to look up the specs from that. On older laptops that had XP, manufacturers sometimes skimped on the memory, sometimes as low as 128MB. I personally wouldn't run XP on less than 1 GB (1024 MB) of memory.

An option, since you don't have restore disks, is to see if HP still offers them for your laptop. That would definitely be cheaper than a new copy of Windows.

[DrFaroohk]

I'm not sure which of the many series of letters and numbers and words on this thing are the model number, but would it be "Pavilion N5445"?

I got that SIW program that tells me what a lot of my specs are....

It says its a Hewlett Packard Omnibook N32N-101

Intel Pentium 3 Mobile 1066 mhz, 512 ram.

Sorry I sound like an idiot. If I know specifically what to look for I can probably find it, so if that's not enough let me know.

Thanks!

[Dreamstalker]

Yup, Pavilion N5445 is the model number. Go to HP's site and plug that in and you should find something.

Alternately if you think you can handle the learning curve you could put Ubuntu Linux on it and set permissions for the user accounts (Windows has this capability as well, but I find Linux file permissions to be more flexible).

[DrFaroohk]

Can linux do most of the things I wanna do like go online and play games and stuff?

I did go to HP's website, and looked up help for it...I thought I was lucky when it told me that some HP's have a system recovery thing built right in, so you can just format and it'll reinstall windows itself. Unfortunately, mine seems to have no such capabilities.

[RichS]

That's probably too old to have restore CD's available for it, unfortunately.

One possibility already mentioned is a version of Linux - my favorite distribution is Ubuntu ATM.

Another, at least for the meantime, is the Windows 7 Release Candidate. It's available for download here until July, and it's good until March 1 of next year. If you do decide to get it, get the 32-bit version. I usually don't recommend Microsoft beta/release candidate anything, but this has to be, hands down and IMO, the best Windows version I've used, so much that it's my main OS on my notebook. Haven't tested it as far as Windows games, though.

In either case, or if you buy another copy of Windows XP and you're thinking of keeping the notebook for awhile longer, you might want to look into boosting the memory. 512MB is OK, but believe me in that you'll see a good performance boost going from 512MB to 1 GB.

[lordlundar]

One possibility already meAnother, at least for the meantime, is the Windows 7 Release Candidate. It's available for download here until July, and it's good until March 1 of next year. If you do decide to get it, get the 32-bit version. I usually don't recommend Microsoft beta/release candidate anything, but this has to be, hands down and IMO, the best Windows version I've used, so much that it's my main OS on my notebook. Haven't tested it as far as Windows games, though.

Windows 7 is right out with 512 MB of RAM, especially in a laptop. (often used as video memory as well) Don't get me wrong, It's very nice(I'm running it right now) but the minimum requirements are on par with Vista, and that's too high for his machine.

Ubuntu would be my choice. It is easily the most user friendly build of linux and is no where near as dependent on the command line. Most popular hardware manufacturers have a linux build for their drivers as well, so it is a viable option. That said, while it is the most user friendly, to pull of the same level of use as windows will require some creative thought. Games for example, if I remember right will work on WINE in Ubuntu with surprisingly high regularity.

Not trying to be a downer, just explaining his options.

[DrFaroohk]

Wow that all sounds so complicated. Whatever happened to the good old days of Dos 6.0 and Windows 3.1? I was like a freakin' wizard with those things. Now its so damn hard

[ferebee]

I can sympathise. I've had two second hand pc's, with no XP install discs. At least with my current baby, if XP goes belly up, I can take it back to the local computer storewhere I got it, and get it formatted and reinstalled. The first one I had there was no such option, so I started dual booting with linux as a backup option in case of massive XP failure. Now I only really use XP for itunes.

Have you given XP a good cleaning? Disk Cleanup, Defrag, spyware/malware scans? Clean up any unwanted files or programs, clear your caches, temp internet files, etc? That can help with performance a bit.

I nth the Ubuntu rec, if you do go the Linux route. It's my favorite, but Mint is nice too. Ubuntu and Mint are LiveCd/install cd's, meaning you can give them a test drive first without touching your hard drive at all. Very helpful for figuring out if Linux can do what you need it to, or if you will have hardware conflicts.

[Yfandes]

If you or a family member is afiliated with a University, you might want to check out the cost of a WinXP disk there. We pay a whopping $12 per install.

I second the vote for more RAM as well - its cheap nowadays.

Edit to add: I have had luck with calling the manufacturer and telling them that I lost the install CD's, I gave them the serial number and they sent me the disks. Worth a try.

[Der Cute]

Also look for XP Media Center - I dont think that one's discontinued like XP is.

You can look for discs online - but buy from a retailer, not from your neighbor. You don't know if the program key has been used as of yet.

Up the ram, to 1 gb minimum.

Can you call HP and tell them you *ahem* lost the restore disks?


Cutenoob

[DrFaroohk]

So as for this linux thing, is this something i can just download onto the laptop, and then like...delete everything, except for linux, and then I have linux and its all better?

[RichS]

Windows 7 is right out with 512 MB of RAM, especially in a laptop. (often used as video memory as well) Don't get me wrong, It's very nice(I'm running it right now) but the minimum requirements are on par with Vista, and that's too high for his machine.

Yeah, that's true. Could boost memory to 1 GB, but there's still the P3 1GHz. processor.

I have to admit, though, it runs pretty speedy on my 5-year old laptop (Athlon 64 3000+, 1 GB RAM), where Vista Business ran like molasses.

As far as installing Linux, it's like installing Windows, in that when you download it, you'll have to burn it to disk. Then, you boot from that disk, and install the distribution of Linux you choose onto your laptop. As ferabee described, some distributions even have the option of running off of the disk, so you can try it before you install.

If you can't burn to disk, there's usually an option to order it on disk for free.

[Blade_Raver]

Something you might want to try on the laptop:

Start > Run > msconfig > OK

Click startup tab

Uncheck everything in there (except for anything necessary to run in the background like anti-virus software)

Click Apply, OK, Yes to restart.

After it restarts, put a check in the box that pops up that reads "Don't show this again" or something like that.

See if that helps.

512MB of RAM with Windows XP SP2 or later is asking for a slow running machine though.
I'd recommend at least 1GB.

[Dreamstalker]

You'll need to burn the Linux ISO file onto a CD, boot from the CD and then install from there. I usually do a dual install (keep a Windows partition in case I need it; also Linux uses a different filesystem). Keeping the Windows partition is very useful for finding needed drivers and ironing out kinks (also, if you just decide that Linux is too much to mess with you can always go back).

Games, you'll need to install WINE, but it seems to have issues with some games that are picky with requirements (hardware or Microsoft-specific software dependencies).

http://www.ubuntu.com has the latest release, download and install instructions, etc. I haven't had any problems getting online with it (except in the Repair Shop From Hades where the router would seem to deny non-Windows connections).