Slow Vista laptop

Having difficulties with AvCanada Forums, the internet etc.. ask your questions here.

Moderators: sky's the limit, sepia, Sulako, North Shore

Post Reply
J31
Rank (9)
Rank (9)
Posts: 1234
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:21 am

Slow Vista laptop

Post by J31 »

Question one: I have an Acer AMD 64 laptop, 1 gig of RAM with Vista ready Windows XP. I recently upgraded to Vista Premium and now it is very slow to start up. I think it has a lot of items on the startup menu but I am not sure how to weed them out. Any input?

Question two: The same computer now shows 766 MB of RAM whereas 1 gig is installed!? What gives?

Thanks.
---------- ADS -----------
 
Louis
Rank 8
Rank 8
Posts: 997
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2004 7:28 pm
Location: CYUL

Post by Louis »

Hello,

I can't answer question #1 yet (haven't upgraded to Vista yet, don't know when I will either although I do have the required DVDs).

But, I can answer question number 2: On many laptops, and on some lower-end desktop systems, graphics card memory is a chunk of "shared" system RAM. In your case about 256 megs are assigned to the graphics card.

Better graphics cards have their own dedicated memory chips.

Goodbye,

Louis
---------- ADS -----------
 
User avatar
LostinRotation
Rank (9)
Rank (9)
Posts: 1048
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2005 11:54 pm
Location: Cloud #8

Post by LostinRotation »

A) Vista isn't a better O/S in my opinion and makes moderate systems weak.

B) If it was an install on top of your old O/S instead of a format and fresh install it's like mashing two DNA's together and expecting a normal animal. It's ALWAYS best to do a fresh install.

C) The ram question was anwsered ...... your system (incl your vid card) is using it, therefore it's not free. If you look under "system" in the control panel *if it exists in Vista will show you the full amount installed.

-=0=LiR=0=-
---------- ADS -----------
 
Sometimes I think it's a shame when I get feelin' better when I'm feelin no pain.

Image
J31
Rank (9)
Rank (9)
Posts: 1234
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:21 am

Post by J31 »

Thanks very much for the input guys! I discovered the shared RAM after I made the post.

As for Vista I am using it on another system and it works very well, nice updated looks and new features.
---------- ADS -----------
 
pika
Rank (9)
Rank (9)
Posts: 1078
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2004 11:33 am

Post by pika »

To see what is starting up type msconfig under Start/Run. Last tab on the right called startup has it all listed. Uncheck the box to stop an application from running when you start.
---------- ADS -----------
 
User avatar
LostinRotation
Rank (9)
Rank (9)
Posts: 1048
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2005 11:54 pm
Location: Cloud #8

Post by LostinRotation »

J31 wrote:Thanks very much for the input guys! I discovered the shared RAM after I made the post.

As for Vista I am using it on another system and it works very well, nice updated looks and new features.

I would lay $$$ on the fact the "other faster system" your using it on is relatively more powerful and can handle Vista alot better. Prolly a desktop.

Some less expensive laptops are rather underpowered and ill-equipped to handle vista, yet they are "Vista-certified". As soon as you load them up with proggies and info...they bog down to a crawl.

-=0=LiR=0=-
---------- ADS -----------
 
Sometimes I think it's a shame when I get feelin' better when I'm feelin no pain.

Image
zigzag66
Rank 0
Rank 0
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2007 5:07 am
Location: NB
Contact:

Post by zigzag66 »

i have the same laptop?! its garabage man absolute garbage, ALSO DO NOT UPDATE YOUR GRAPHIC CARD REPEAT DO NOT UPGRADE CAUSE IF YOU DO YOU WILL HAVE TO REFORMAT... like me...I stayed away from vista..it takes a lot to run a lot of memory etc, If i were you i try to get another one very very soon...
---------- ADS -----------
 
J31
Rank (9)
Rank (9)
Posts: 1234
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:21 am

Post by J31 »

LostinRotation wrote:
J31 wrote:Thanks very much for the input guys! I discovered the shared RAM after I made the post.

As for Vista I am using it on another system and it works very well, nice updated looks and new features.

I would lay $$$ on the fact the "other faster system" your using it on is relatively more powerful and can handle Vista alot better. Prolly a desktop.

Some less expensive laptops are rather underpowered and ill-equipped to handle vista, yet they are "Vista-certified". As soon as you load them up with proggies and info...they bog down to a crawl.


Actually the other system is an Acer laptop Pentium duel core with 1 GB of RAM running Vista Home Premium and it works very well. Vista while requiring more RAM is a very nice system to work with and a dare say I think it is more stable than XP.
-=0=LiR=0=-
Actually the other system is an Acer laptop Pentium duel core with 1 GB of RAM running Vista Home Premium and it works very well. Vista while requiring more RAM is a very nice system to work with and a dare say I think it is more stable than XP.
---------- ADS -----------
 
J31
Rank (9)
Rank (9)
Posts: 1234
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:21 am

Re: Slow Vista laptop

Post by J31 »

J31 wrote:Question one: I have an Acer AMD 64 laptop, 1 gig of RAM with Vista ready Windows XP. I recently upgraded to Vista Premium and now it is very slow to start up. I think it has a lot of items on the startup menu but I am not sure how to weed them out. Any input?

Question two: The same computer now shows 766 MB of RAM whereas 1 gig is installed!? What gives?

Thanks.
Well I managed to get this laptop up to speed as Pika suggested. As with XP I went into the start up menu and turned off several programs. (Start-Control Panel-Programs-Change Start Programs) There is a lot of stuff starting that is not necessary.

Another interesting thing that helped the start up speed was creating a “User” to log into. (Start-Control-Panel-User Accounts-Add or Remove User Accounts) I have mine set up with one user and a password. It works really well when traveling as I just close the lid and the system goes to sleep. When required I pull it out, turn it on, type in the password and in less than 15 seconds it is up and running.
---------- ADS -----------
 
Post Reply

Return to “Internet and Computer Help”