New $650 laptop really slow...

[Chris2wire]

I bought a laptop for school use. Obviously, I did not expect much at all from a $650 brand new notebook... I plan to only use it for school, such as office type applications and web browsing. But I had read that a 1.4ghz Celeron M is not too far behind a 1.4ghz Pentium M, which is what my dad has. And his Dell system is fast.

So I buy this gateway... 1.4ghz Celeron M. Unlike his 5400rpm dell HD, mine is 4200rpm. BUT its the hitachi travelstar which is known to be much faster than other 4200s, additionally it was built as a great power saver. I just dont think this hard drive makes much of a difference... Maybe you know better though.

Additionally, his dell has 512mb ram. Mine has 256. Mine is DDR2 PC4200, im not sure what his dell is.

He may have graphics, I only have integrated. But remember this is only web surfing and things like that.

Heres my question... SOMETHING has to be holding this computer back so far that is unbearably slow compared to the similar DELL that seems as fast as could ever be needed.

Fast memory, but is it too small?
Could a 4200rpm hard drive be that far behind a 5400?
Could a Celeron M 1.4 be that far behind a Pentium M 1.4?

My guess is ram... But could an increase in ram really make that big of a difference?

Ill shutup now... Give me any opinions you may have...

 

[Abhi]

Honestly, I dont have any experience with gateway...

But my bet is that you problems will be solved if you do a fresh install of windows. This will get rid of the bloatware.

After that, it will be a good idea to download the install the latest drivers...

 

[alimoalem]

Originally posted by: Chris2wire
I bought a laptop for school use. Obviously, I did not expect much at all from a $650 brand new notebook... I plan to only use it for school, such as office type applications and web browsing. But I had read that a 1.4ghz Celeron M is not too far behind a 1.4ghz Pentium M, which is what my dad has. And his Dell system is fast.

So I buy this gateway... 1.4ghz Celeron M. Unlike his 5400rpm dell HD, mine is 4200rpm. BUT its the hitachi travelstar which is known to be much faster than other 4200s, additionally it was built as a great power saver. I just dont think this hard drive makes much of a difference... Maybe you know better though.

Additionally, his dell has 512mb ram. Mine has 256. Mine is DDR2 PC4200, im not sure what his dell is.

He may have graphics, I only have integrated. But remember this is only web surfing and things like that.

Heres my question... SOMETHING has to be holding this computer back so far that is unbearably slow compared to the similar DELL that seems as fast as could ever be needed.

Fast memory, but is it too small?
Could a 4200rpm hard drive be that far behind a 5400?
Could a Celeron M 1.4 be that far behind a Pentium M 1.4?

My guess is ram... But could an increase in ram really make that big of a difference?

Ill shutup now... Give me any opinions you may have...

i don't see how these two laptops are remotely similar. EVERYTHING is different

ram: different
hdd: different
cpu: different
mobo: who knows, probably different too
manufacturer: different

you can't do anything about your cpu so just put in a 512mb stick (i'd but 2x512) and sell your current hard drive and upgrade to 5400

 

[DaveSimmons]

256 MB RAM is the most likely bottleneck, try upgrading that first before spending money on a new hard drive.

Get a 256 or 512 MB stick, one source is the memory selector at www.crucial.com

 

[stevty2889]

256mb of ram isn't really enough for windows XP, it uses practicaly that much at idle, meaning it will be paging a lot..and a slow 4200RPM drive is going to make it extremely sluggish when it's paging. Need more ram. And for power savings, you shouldn't have gotten a celeron-m..since the celeron-M doesn't have any of the power savings features of the pentium-m.

 

[Ionizer86]

Originally posted by: Chris2wire
Additionally, his dell has 512mb ram. Mine has 256.

Therein lies your problem. When I first got my noteboo, it had 256MB ram. Absolutely atrocious. I'd get deep into the page file all the time, as I multitask tons. I went for a 512MB stick the very moment that I could, so I now have 768MB ram. I'm still working off a 4200RPM disk and while disk intensive operations are slow, my laptop is adequately fast in general.

 

[Budmantom]

All that you've mentioned adds up, I had a 1.5 celeron M with 256mb and I upgraded to 512 and it was a difference but it was small.

I bought a Dell XPS (refurb) with a 1.83 pentium M, 80gb hd (5400), 512mb, wireless and a dvd burner for $675 shipped and it was much snappier.



Tom

 

[BlacKJesuS]

Its the celeron vs pentium

 

[Ionizer86]

Originally posted by: BlacKJesuS
Its the celeron vs pentium

Clock for clock, the Celeron M is almost exactly the same speed as the Pentium M. Performance-wise, the only thing the Celeron M lacks is half its cache (512K instead of 1MB for Banias Celeron M's and 1MB instead of 2MB for Dothan Celeron M's).

 

[modedepe]

A 4200RPM is slower than piss. I have a 4200 Hitachi and it is horrible. 256MB can run XP, but you don't want much stuff open at once; I'd upgrade it. Assuming just office apps, the CPU shouldn't be holding you back. If you had a Pentium M it would probably just be clocked down to ~600MHz doing that stuff anyways.

 

[Old Hippie]

i don't see how these two laptops are remotely similar. EVERYTHING is different

There's the WHOLE ballgame.
At least, double the ram to get ya near the ballpark!

 

[suicidalpigeon]

my new lappy has 256mb ram and a 5400 hd and i dont have any sluggish problem with it. perhaps it could be the ram with the addon of the 4200 hd. try turning up the virtual memory a bit and see if that helps any, because applications and internet shouldnt be a problem at all even at 256mb. i changed my video settings all to performance and reduced the integrated ram to 32mb if that helps at all.

 

[dawza]

I have a 3 year-old Presario 2100 with specs similar to yours- 4200RPM HDD, 256MB PC2100 RAM, integrated graphics (64MB dedicated, effectively dropping the amount of RAM available to 192MB)- although my lappy has an AMD XP1800+ CPU, but I doubt it is all that far off from a 1.4 Celeron for basic word processing, web-surfing, or app loading- at least not enough to make the difference between fast and slug-like.

The computer had slowed down to the point to where it was just unbearable- 5+ minutes to load windows, and another 5 to shut down, plus massive paging when opening applications. I finally got fed up and did a clean install of XP, and all problems were solved. So, before you go out and start upgrading hardware, see if you can't resolve your problem by backing up your files and reinstalling XP.

BTW- adding just another 128MB of RAM helped dramatially for overall function, so that is the first thing I would upgrade hardware-wise. I doubt the 4200RPM HDD is holding you back THAT much. And, if you can adjust the amount of memory dedicated to your IGP, try dropping it to the minimum and see if that improves non-3D performance- it will give you a taste of what more memory feels like w/o physically installing more RAM.

 

[mindwreck]

slower hdd and lower ram is whats lowering its performance. 4200rpm drive is noticeably slower than a 5400rpm. the lower ram is self-explanatory.

 

[WackyDan]

That drive is the problem... the ram isn't helping either.

I've got a 1.5 Pentium M with 512, and a 1.8" 4200RPm Hitachi, and it's very slow on bootup and multi-tasking even with the M and the 512.

 

[Chris2wire]

Wow thanks guys. You've all made good points.

Yes it pages ALOT, I bet ram will help alot. Remember, my REAL computer is an AMD FX based system, so I dont need this laptop working wonders. All I need is something capable of 'comfortable" web surfing, powerpoint developing, word processing and things like that.

Ill try ram...

And for the guy who has a Hitachi 4200 - Thanks for your input too. Will definately keep that in mind after I see what happens with new ram.

 

[Winchester]

If using Windows XP disable themes and use the Classic view. You would be shocked at the amount that helps on systems with low ram.

 

[Bluestealth]

If someone hasn't mentioned it already, disable the new login, or at least fast user switching. Single biggest performance boost you can pull out of XP imho.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Chris2wire
Wow thanks guys. You've all made good points.

Yes it pages ALOT, I bet ram will help alot. Remember, my REAL computer is an AMD FX based system, so I dont need this laptop working wonders. All I need is something capable of 'comfortable" web surfing, powerpoint developing, word processing and things like that.

Ill try ram...

And for the guy who has a Hitachi 4200 - Thanks for your input too. Will definately keep that in mind after I see what happens with new ram.

That's really it. RAM and the hard drive. RAM is your first priority for this machine; 256 is horrible for Windows XP. Give it a gig. If you're going to upgrade your hard drive, get a 7200rpm drive. $200 for a 7200rpm 100gb Hitachi laptop hard drive. Even 5400rpm is a HUGE improvement over 4200. Brought my old Thinkpad back to life simply by putting a 5400rpm drive in there. Sink $350 into this machine (ram & hard drive) and you'll have a great little portable computer.

 

[dorky82]

i agree with above.
its ram for sure.
going 256 to 512 changes whole computer speed.

 

[Splinter000]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Chris2wire
Wow thanks guys. You've all made good points.

Yes it pages ALOT, I bet ram will help alot. Remember, my REAL computer is an AMD FX based system, so I dont need this laptop working wonders. All I need is something capable of 'comfortable" web surfing, powerpoint developing, word processing and things like that.

Ill try ram...

And for the guy who has a Hitachi 4200 - Thanks for your input too. Will definately keep that in mind after I see what happens with new ram.

That's really it. RAM and the hard drive. RAM is your first priority for this machine; 256 is horrible for Windows XP. Give it a gig. If you're going to upgrade your hard drive, get a 7200rpm drive. $200 for a 7200rpm 100gb Hitachi laptop hard drive. Even 5400rpm is a HUGE improvement over 4200. Brought my old Thinkpad back to life simply by putting a 5400rpm drive in there. Sink $350 into this machine (ram & hard drive) and you'll have a great little portable computer.

A 7200RPM drive will kill any battery life that the laptop orginally had.

 

[n7]

It's the RAM.

I know the Gateway systems have enough stuff on them initially that they are using over 256 MB just sitting there.

Just throw in another 256 MB (or 512 MB if you're a heavy user), & things will improve drastically.

HDD speed is slow, but it's really a non issue overall.