Several questions: Laptop lower speed of cpu? Page file size? UMA size?

[Chris2wire]

First question: My laptop has an option of power "profiles" where you can set various things like screen brightness, cpu speed etc... Im looking to get the longest life out of this laptop as possible... Is setting an LCD dimmer going to help with life? Or does it still get the same aging anyways? And will setting a CPU slower, like half its speed, help lengthen its overall life?

Second question... People say set your page file at the same size as physical RAM, or even more. I ask why? I figured page file was slower, therefore it should only be there for the computer to use when ram is running low. Therefore if you have more than enough ram shouldnt the page file be set as small as possible, if even any at all? Maybe just give me an explanation.

Third.... This laptop has the Ati xpress 200M. UMA sizes are 32,64,128. Whats the best setting? I only do regular apps, no games, but I have 2gb of memory so should I give max to the video?

Thanks

 

[Matthias99]

Is setting an LCD dimmer going to help with life? Or does it still get the same aging anyways?

It might help with the backlight's lifespan, but it's hard to say.

And will setting a CPU slower, like half its speed, help lengthen its overall life?

Possibly, if it results in it running cooler. However, they are generally built to last a LONG time at 'stock' speeds, as long as the cooling is adequate.

Second question... People say set your page file at the same size as physical RAM, or even more. I ask why? I figured page file was slower, therefore it should only be there for the computer to use when ram is running low. Therefore if you have more than enough ram shouldnt the page file be set as small as possible, if even any at all? Maybe just give me an explanation.

Short answer: Let Windows manage it in WinXP/2K.

Longer answer: The more RAM you have, in theory the less pagefile you should need. It will, indeed, only actually be used if you run out of physical RAM. Letting Windows manage it will cause it to start out relatively small and then grow if it is needed. It is not recommended to completely disable it, since this can break some applications that try to get fancy in terms of memory management. There are LOTS of threads in the OS forum on this.

Third.... This laptop has the Ati xpress 200M. UMA sizes are 32,64,128. Whats the best setting? I only do regular apps, no games, but I have 2gb of memory so should I give max to the video?

Probably doesn't matter very much. If it's setting that amount aside permanently, I'd say to make it as small as possible if you're not running games (so you have as much memory as possible available for your programs), but if it's dynamically allocated, it won't really matter.

 

[Chris2wire]

THanks for your help. mucho gracias.