Compaq P233 armada slower than my crappy PC!?

[theplanb]

My dad uses his Compaq Armada 1592DT (P233MMX). It's got IBM DTCA23240 mobile Harddisk (DMA2 enables.) and 32MB EDO dram.
On the other hand, I got a P200MMX pc with 32MB Dram.
When i install win98 to both machine (clean), It's very noticable that PC is a lot faster in booting and also during web briwsing. PC also finds the network faster than the notebook.
Hard disk capacity is also very similar (and I assume old PIO5 mode quantum fireball is slower than the IBM in the notebook).
I don't understand why this is so. It's not because I preload TSRs on the compaq. Th resource rate at the booting is also similar. (about 93%)
The swap file is not very different between two either.
What am I missing here?

 

[bozo1]

Notebooks are almost always slower - they intentionally slow things down to save battery life. (Even with all the power savings stuff off.) I have a 550MHZ Dell laptop at work that performs disk stuff much slower than a 233 PII desktop I have.

 

[yellowperil]

I think notebook HDD's are slower than desktop HDD's, to conserve energy and generate less heat.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Laptop hard drives are also slower because they have smaller physical dimensions, usually as you get towards the outside of the disc speeds increase, on a normal hard drive you may have a 3 and 1/2 inch disc, Laptops usually have smaller diameter discs, so its going to be slower for that reason as well

Also the Dram on the 200MMX also will be faster then the EDO in the laptop

 

[Smbu]

Most laptop hard drives right now have a spin at 4200rpm's. Even though your pc is old the hd is probably still at 5400rpm, making it faster than the laptop hd.