Best upgrades for a HP pavillion laptop XE4800 (AMD 2800XP?)

[Mook Johnson]

I have a HP pavillion ZE4800 and its starting to feel slugish with basic
internet and office apps.

I've run spybot and adaware as well as AVG antivirus and Auslogics optimizer
and it still feels slugish.
Taskmanager had been run through adn all background processes have been
checked for legitimacy. Nothing extra running in the background. all search
optimizers, file scouts, etc. have been turned off.

Still seems like every click makes requires hard drive activity.

It currently has 512meg of memory and is running Windows XP home. The
Laptop came with 256K and I added aonther 256K. The computer uses shared
memory (64MB) for the video so My Computer only reports 448Meg, which I
tought would be plenty. The processor is a AMD 2800XP and the 4200RPM HDD.

What would be some best bang for the buck upgrades for this laptop to speed
up basic application loading times and responsiveness.

I'm looking at the following areas.

1) increase memory to 1Gig (~$50)
2) upgrade to 5400RPM HDD (~$60)

I see now that there are 7200 RPM HDDs. any word on their reliability/Heat
generation?

Would any of these be wise drop in upgrades and make a noticable difference
in speed?
Any other recommendations besides a new laptop?

How about a better software optomizer than the Auslogics?

thanks

 

[The Seabat]

A fresh install of Windows would be the most beneficial, IMHO.

 

[DonC]

I have a HP pavillion ZE4800 and its starting to feel slugish with basic
internet and office apps.

I've run spybot and adaware as well as AVG antivirus and Auslogics optimizer
and it still feels slugish.
Taskmanager had been run through adn all background processes have been
checked for legitimacy. Nothing extra running in the background. all search
optimizers, file scouts, etc. have been turned off.

Still seems like every click makes requires hard drive activity.

It currently has 512meg of memory and is running Windows XP home. The
Laptop came with 256K and I added aonther 256K. The computer uses shared
memory (64MB) for the video so My Computer only reports 448Meg, which I
tought would be plenty. The processor is a AMD 2800XP and the 4200RPM HDD.

What would be some best bang for the buck upgrades for this laptop to speed
up basic application loading times and responsiveness.

I'm looking at the following areas.

1) increase memory to 1Gig (~$50)
2) upgrade to 5400RPM HDD (~$60)

I see now that there are 7200 RPM HDDs. any word on their reliability/Heat
generation?

Would any of these be wise drop in upgrades and make a noticable difference
in speed?
Any other recommendations besides a new laptop?

How about a better software optomizer than the Auslogics?

thanks

Before answering your question, it would be beneficial to know a couple of things:

1) How big in GBs is your hard drive and what percentage is used. A high percentage (80% +/-) could slow down disk function as the system hunts for free space. And given that you have only 448MB of RAM available, the computer will be using the disk based swap file frequently.

2) "What's running?" Download the program here: http://tinyurl.com/2drss9 and run it. If any program or process is using more than a few % of cpu time, it could be your problem. I've seen Norton packages using as much as 25% to 75% of cpu in spurts. Shutting down Norton solved the problem in such cases. But it sounds like you're using AVG so Norton is probably ruled out.

 

[Mook Johnson]

A fresh install of Windows would be the most beneficial, IMHO.

I was thinking the same thing but this is the wifes notebook and she has her
office VPN installed and it tool a LONG time to get that setup right. She
doesn't want to redo that. Otherwise that would be my fist option.

thanks

 

[Mook Johnson]

<SNIP>
Before answering your question, it would be beneficial to know a couple of things:

1) How big in GBs is your hard drive and what percentage is used. A high percentage (80% +/-) could slow down disk function as the system hunts for free space. And given that you have only 448MB of RAM available, the computer will be using the disk based swap file frequently.

2) "What's running?" Download the program here: http://tinyurl.com/2drss9 and run it. If any program or process is using more than a few % of cpu time, it could be your problem. I've seen Norton packages using as much as 25% to 75% of cpu in spurts. Shutting down Norton solved the problem in such cases. But it sounds like you're using AVG so Norton is probably ruled out.


1) 40GB using about 20GB (50% utilized) This has bn defragged with the Auslogic with all of the free space consolidated at the end of the drive.
2) I'll give that program a try

thanks

 

[Victor]

I have a HP pavillion ZE4800 and its starting to feel slugish with basic
internet and office apps.

I've run spybot and adaware as well as AVG antivirus and Auslogics optimizer
and it still feels slugish.
Taskmanager had been run through adn all background processes have been
checked for legitimacy.  Nothing extra running in the background. all search
optimizers, file scouts, etc. have been turned off.

Still seems like every click makes requires hard drive activity.

It currently has 512meg of memory and is running Windows XP home.  The
Laptop came with 256K and I added aonther 256K. The computer uses shared
memory (64MB) for the video so My Computer only reports 448Meg, which I
tought would be plenty.  The processor is a AMD 2800XP and the 4200RPM HDD.

What would be some best bang for the buck upgrades for this laptop to speed
up basic application loading times and responsiveness.

I'm looking at the following areas.

1) increase memory to 1Gig (~$50)
2) upgrade to 5400RPM HDD  (~$60)

I see now that there are 7200 RPM HDDs.  any word on their reliability/Heat
generation?

Would any of these be wise drop in upgrades and make a noticable difference
in speed?
Any other recommendations besides a new laptop?  

How about a better software optomizer than the Auslogics?

thanks

You best speed increase will be from a new 7200 drive.I've been
running one( HITACHI Travelstar) for 2 years with no issues.Heat is no
problem.If you keep more than a couple programs open more ram could
help.Since ram is so cheap I run 2 gig.

 

[DannoXYZ]

Download CPU-Z and see how fast your CPU is running. There's a bug
with ACPI and power-savings settings on that computer where the CPU is
only running at 25% no matter what you do with the settings. HP is
pointing their finger at Microsoft and Microsoft is blaming HP.
Doesn't matter who's fault it is, you've got a 450mhz machine.