Dinosaurs move faster than this
April 1, 2013 2:25 PM Subscribe
How do I speed up my old laptop? I cancelled my cable and I want to use it for streaming TV shows and Windows gaming.
I cancelled my cable because I watch most shows online after the fact. However, my primary laptop (a Macbook) is what I use to be productive. I want to get all of my non-productive pastimes onto my old laptop.
The laptop is ~2007, HP Pavillion dv9000, Windows Vista. It contains no personal information and I've done everything I know how to speed it up without modifying the hardware (basically, delete everything, defrag, another thing or two). It is still really sss---lll---ooo----wwww and I can't stream videos without lots of pausing. My internet speed is adequate to handle what I'm trying to do.
What is the best software solution to getting it up to snuff?
I cancelled my cable because I watch most shows online after the fact. However, my primary laptop (a Macbook) is what I use to be productive. I want to get all of my non-productive pastimes onto my old laptop.
The laptop is ~2007, HP Pavillion dv9000, Windows Vista. It contains no personal information and I've done everything I know how to speed it up without modifying the hardware (basically, delete everything, defrag, another thing or two). It is still really sss---lll---ooo----wwww and I can't stream videos without lots of pausing. My internet speed is adequate to handle what I'm trying to do.
What is the best software solution to getting it up to snuff?
That sort of streaming video and gaming are going to be very dependent on the hardware, primarily the video card and RAM. If you're only looking at the software, you're going to have some pretty limited options, and you may just not have a sufficiently powerful laptop. My only suggestion would be to run a malware/adware clean (Malwarebytes and Search & Destroy) just to make sure you don't have anything like that slowing you down.
posted by tau_ceti at 2:33 PM on April 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by tau_ceti at 2:33 PM on April 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Have you tried completely reformatting the disk and reinstalling windows?
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 2:33 PM on April 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 2:33 PM on April 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
You may need to add more RAM in order for your aged laptop to play nice with modern software.
Failing that, a full reinstall usually helps speed things up - back up everything you want to save, reformat the hard drive, re-install windows from scratch.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:34 PM on April 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Failing that, a full reinstall usually helps speed things up - back up everything you want to save, reformat the hard drive, re-install windows from scratch.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:34 PM on April 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I should mention I don't want to spend money on this. I just want to get content as playable as possible with the existing setup. The laptop was infected with malware at some point, and I did my best to clean it up at the time, though the laptop noticeably slowed down after that.
posted by DoubleLune at 2:45 PM on April 1, 2013
posted by DoubleLune at 2:45 PM on April 1, 2013
Best answer: In that case, absolutely wipe and reinstall.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:46 PM on April 1, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:46 PM on April 1, 2013 [3 favorites]
You also might think about installing Ubuntu or something like that. I got a few extra years out of a crappy laptop by switching to Linux.
posted by thewumpusisdead at 2:49 PM on April 1, 2013
posted by thewumpusisdead at 2:49 PM on April 1, 2013
Yes, get all the malware under control. I suggest doing a reinstall, installing Microsoft Security Essentials and calling it done. After it does the thousand updates, anyway. If you have a spare Windows 7 license, install that.
Then, if you are still having trouble, uncheck "enable desktop composition" in the advanced tab of advanced system settings, under the performance button. (I'm looking at Win7, so it might be different. Google it if I'm wrong. ) It won't look as pretty, but it will work much faster.
Next step is to look for where your bottlenecks are. Fire up a video and look at the system performance tab of the task manager. See what (if anything) is getting maxed or zeroed out.
Memory shouldn't be an issue for just streaming video. If you are using something like XMBC or Media Center, they want as much memory as possible.
I can run Netflix just fine on my old Dell D600 with a Pentium M 1.5ghz and 1.5gb of ram. So your hardware should be up to the task, unless you have a really bottom of the line processor. But video is always a pain in the ass, and there are so many things that can affect it. Specifically, your network speed and quality.
posted by gjc at 4:04 PM on April 1, 2013
Then, if you are still having trouble, uncheck "enable desktop composition" in the advanced tab of advanced system settings, under the performance button. (I'm looking at Win7, so it might be different. Google it if I'm wrong. ) It won't look as pretty, but it will work much faster.
Next step is to look for where your bottlenecks are. Fire up a video and look at the system performance tab of the task manager. See what (if anything) is getting maxed or zeroed out.
Memory shouldn't be an issue for just streaming video. If you are using something like XMBC or Media Center, they want as much memory as possible.
I can run Netflix just fine on my old Dell D600 with a Pentium M 1.5ghz and 1.5gb of ram. So your hardware should be up to the task, unless you have a really bottom of the line processor. But video is always a pain in the ass, and there are so many things that can affect it. Specifically, your network speed and quality.
posted by gjc at 4:04 PM on April 1, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Jairus at 2:33 PM on April 1, 2013 [1 favorite]