Need help with Vista laptop. Have few options?

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Hi, my friend has given me the chance to fix up his laptop, which is slow to to start, sluggish in operation and has something going on where it will barely play a youtube video.

I've scanned with SpyBot, Malwarebytes and Avast in safe mode which cleaned some stuff off. Also ran ccleaner. The puter runs a bit better but not well. Windows update is on and everything seems up to date.

I inquired about going to a variant of Linux and he wasn't too interested. Nor does he want to spend $$$ on ram or hdd. I believe to upgrade to Win7 is $$$ too, right? After all, nothing is free from Micr$oft.

Laptop is an HP G50-102NR, running Win Vista Home Basic. Specs are an AMD Sempron 2gig processor and 2 gig of ram.

What other options do I have? What else is there to do to speed it up? I know I can go through a lot of the processes and switch them to manual, in fact I have already do that somewhat... But there's got to be something else I can do...
 
Go to TPB, Download a Windows 7 Ultimate ISO and Window's Loader
Burn to a DVD or setup using a flash drive install
Format the Drive and install 7, Activate with Windows Loader

Tell him to save for a SSD and more RAM.
 
Hand it back to him and say it's old, it's slow as snot because of the million security updates since 200X, have fun using it.
 
Has he even seen a linux distribution?

To dismiss it as an option, especially when it may do everything he wants, is just foolish.

Computing these days is about what you can do with it, not what OS does it.
 
Is that legit?

BTW, money isn't an issue. He just doesn't see the need to spend money. To him the puter is just a tool that needs to work.
 
Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Has he even seen a linux distribution?

To dismiss it as an option, especially when it may do everything he wants, is just foolish.

Computing these days is about what you can do with it, not what OS does it.


Actually, yes. He/we run Ubuntu 12.04 on the shop laptop, which is the same machine as I am trying to fix. I told him that I could install Mint, which is about as close to anything Windows as I have seen, and that the learning curve is just about nill.
 
It has been a very long time since I have had to stick my grubby lil hands into a Windows machine; but I used to take a look at what applications or services were beginning at boot-time (through the Services section of the Control Panel, through items listed in the Start Up section of the Start Menu, through the registry's sections for startup, and by running msconfig and examining what is starting at boot) and disable whatever I can.

Also, I would clear out anything and everything in the various "temp" folders Windows creates and uses. CCleaner probably does that.

I would always, 100% of the time, define the swap file by setting the minimum and maximum sizes identically. Having Windows decide to re-size a possibly multi-GB swap file can slow tings right the heck down.

I have zero experience troubleshooting Vista onward; but I am sure you can take measures to disable 3D UI effects. That might make things feel snappier.

Defrag the HDD. I used to run a recording studio using my Windows machine(s) and I used to format the HDD's NTFS with 4096 bit block sizes to somewhat mitigate against fragmentation and make getting and streaming large files a bit more efficient. I wonder if there is wisdom in making the block sizes larger or smaller to cater to the types of data on the HDD in question,

Minimize the number of anti-malware, anti-virus, anti-spyware business you have running. These things run in real-time and can really, really slow stuff down.

I wonder, too, if letting the thing boot up and work itself out for a while. Perhaps it is checking for and installing updates? I installed Windows 7 for someone once and it took over an hour for that piece of &^%$ to run through various updates and reboots; and the machine barely functioned during this process.

Keep suggesting Mint and/ or Ubuntu. ;^)
 
"it will barely play a youtube video"

Standard def or HD? Old laptops with old video subsystems choke on HD video. Standard def only, even then the CPU will spike up.

Make sure the latest video drivers are installed on the machine, the latest flash player, etc. Shut off all A/V as a test, then try again once the computer has been fully updated.

Other than that, there's not much you can do with a computer that has an older video subsystem.
 
Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
Make sure the latest video drivers are installed on the machine, the latest flash player, etc. Shut off all A/V as a test, then try again once the computer has been fully updated.


Does the Flash plugin need to be *told* to use hardware acceleration or is that on be default?
 
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
Make sure the latest video drivers are installed on the machine, the latest flash player, etc. Shut off all A/V as a test, then try again once the computer has been fully updated.


Does the Flash plugin need to be *told* to use hardware acceleration or is that on be default?


It's on by default; unchecking it can help diagnose problems. If Firefox is the browser, disabling hardware acceleration at the browser level can help as well.
 
Guys, I think I may have happened into something. I was sitting there, vegging out staring at the screen, when it glitched. Kind of a blink, with some lines running vertically. It would do it periodically, but not always.

Is this a sign of a failing GPU, and would this affect it's ability to play videos? Is there any simple tests I can do?
 
Maybe something going on with the GPU, maybe it's failing or overheating, maybe try a temperature gadget see what it shows. If you have a spare fast usb drive, maybe try readyboost and see if that might speed things up.
 
its an old pos laptop
the processor is a
2.00 GHz AMD Sempron SI-40 Single-Core Processor

the 229$ notebook deal I posted is nearly 4x faster.

https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/3255056/New_Laptop/notebook_229$#Post3255056

another laptop for 229$ now if prefer 14"
http://www.microcenter.com/product/426830/X401A-BCL0705Y_14_Laptop_Computer_-_Black


I have a dual core turion and sometimes it studders on 720p video. and its over twice as fast and has gpu acceleration

the best you can do with it is put mint or some other distro of linux on it. run no antivirus etc and it might play 480p video and facebook ok.
 
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I suppose the GPU is onboard the main board?

I tried taking it apart to blow it out, but stopped as I'm not familiar enough with it to monkey with someone else's puter.

I'm leaning toward handing it back to him as another member said and tell him what you guys told me. I'll try to get him to run Mint or Lububtu or something like that, but I'm not holding my breath.
 
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