eeepc 900 Dirt Slow on XP

[formulav8]

I just installed WinXP Pro on an Asus eeePc900 netbook and the 8gb ssd drive light stays on basically all the time. The computer is dirt slow when doing even stuff like opening the control panel or the file explorer.

What tweaks can I do that will truly speed up the computer? The netbook came with WinXP so it should be able to run it ok.

Thanks for any help! Thanks


Jason

 

[sm625]

You should install flashfire. It was made for that machine. But you need to make sure you're not running out of ram and constantly hitting the swap file. Make sure you have at least 25% ram free at all times. Flashfire does use ram.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,82815-order,3/description.html

 

[formulav8]

It has 2gb of ddr2 ram. I also disabled the swap file/virtual memory and I think I disabled write caching.

I was wondering if its possible to take out the ssd and put in a regular hard drive instead?

I will check out that flashfire app as well. Thanks

 

[DaveSimmons]

Look at what processes and services are running, there may be some programs and services you can stop from running at startup.

 

[sm625]

If you have 2GB of ram then yes flashfire will be a godsend. Just make sure you do regular backups because if you lose power or crash before the software cache is flushed you could get into trouble. I think its worth the risk considering how fast it makes your computer run.

 

[wirednuts]

with only 2gb of ram, shouldnt you have a swap file? couldnt that be the reason why its constantly writing, because you dont have a swap file enabled?

 

[formulav8]

I tried with and without a swap file and no real difference either way. sm625 was definitely correct about flashfire! The lappy is actually usable now! Thanks alot for the help. If theres something else I could do, I want to know. You can Never have to much responsiveness and speed.

 

[mfenn]

The "SSDs" in the original Eee PCs were SSDs in name only. They were more like glorified USB flash sticks stuck inside the chassis.

 

[Fox5]

You could put in a new SSD, if that's possible.

Also, Linux is way better on systems with constrained memory or disk drive performance. Think about giving Ubuntu a try? I'd bet you're not doing anything on the computer that wouldn't be supported in Linux.

 

[formulav8]

When I got it it had Easy Peasy. It worked perfectly fine with it. It originally came with Windows XP so thats why I went the xp route. It now runs much better with XP but still not as good as easy peasy. I'm still not 100% sure what to do in the long run....

 

[formulav8]

I also put a 4gb SD card in it. Can it be used for caching or something else to help wih performance? Just wondering if extra storage space is all I can use is for...

 

[Fox5]

I also put a 4gb SD card in it. Can it be used for caching or something else to help wih performance? Just wondering if extra storage space is all I can use is for...

Running Linux is probably going to be the biggest performance improvement you could make. Windows Vista and 7 can use SD cards for their ReadyBoost caching feature, but I don't think XP can. It didn't help much anyway.

Hardware wise, can you upgrade ram or replace the SSD?