Vista laptop slow - 1Gb memory

[bononos]

Never dealt much with Vista so - is 1Gb enough for a Compaq laptop (Core2, 1Gb, 32bit Vista)? I know that one of the gripes with Vista is that its slow but I've got a laptop that seems to take a long while to boot up or to start apps. Would 2Gb help out or would a reinstall with XP/Win7 be better? Edit- I made sure that the startup apps and tsrs are kept to the minimum, only 1 antivirus running and windows updates is set to notify instead of automatic install.

 

[nenforcer]

2GB makes a world of difference in Windows Vista.

I unfortunately made a new build in 2007 with Vista and only 1GB of memory and it felt slower than the system I upgraded from, which is in my sig.

When I upgraded to 2GB of memory I finally got the performance I was expecting.

You can either keep Vista and get a new memory chip, probably a cheap 2GB SO-DIMM, or switch to either XP or Windows 7.

Either of those operating system are much more optimized. It's easier to just drop in a new memory chip, though.

 

[Dahak]

2nd the adding more memory, 1gb for vista is unfortunate to little

 

[lxskllr]

An SDcard or thumbdrive used for ReadyBoost would help also. It's free to try if you have a spare drive. 1gb is marginally enough for Vista, but I'd consider 2gb the realistic minimum.

 

[pauldun170]

My dv9207us (Vista 32) originally came with 1gb
Tossing in another 1gb stick for a total of 2gb brought it up to where is should be.
VERY...VERY VEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRY noticeable improvement.

Bring your laptop up to 2gb (minimum for Vista) and call it a day.

 

[Charlie98]

I bumped up the memory in my XP laptop and saw a difference... I suspect you will see a tangeable difference with an added GB.

If you think your OS is dragging, and you don't mind the bother of a OS reinstall and configuration, I would also recommend that. After 6 years of use, my XP lappy was almost unuseable... a reformat (in my case, a new, bigger HDD) and fresh XP install with no Dell bloatware did the trick. From power on to navigate in 1 minute flat... all from a single-core Pentium M.

 

[Ketchup]

The title has the answer in it. 2 GB will make a good bit of difference, and since it is a laptop, 4 GB should make a good bit of difference beyond that. You generally want a laptop accessing the hard drive as little as possible.

 

[gmaster456]

1gb is pretty tight these days. Especially for Vista.

 

[postmortemIA]

what hard drive does laptop have? i hope it is 7200rpm. Vista is HD hog as well.

 

[bononos]

what hard drive does laptop have? i hope it is 7200rpm. Vista is HD hog as well.

Probably a 5400rpm drive, defragged fairly recently.

 

[bononos]

2GB makes a world of difference in Windows Vista.

I unfortunately made a new build in 2007 with Vista and only 1GB of memory and it felt slower than the system I upgraded from, which is in my sig.

When I upgraded to 2GB of memory I finally got the performance I was expecting.

You can either keep Vista and get a new memory chip, probably a cheap 2GB SO-DIMM, or switch to either XP or Windows 7.

Either of those operating system are much more optimized. It's easier to just drop in a new memory chip, though.

A world of difference eh... (thats what people said about Vista about bumping up to 1Gb from the 512Mb minimum requirement). XP worked just fine with 1Gb, so thanks for the advice and I'll upgrade the memory to 2Gb.

Edit- Not XP but Windows 2000 worked ok with 1Gb.

 

[lxskllr]

MS was on crack giving a 512mb minimum for Vista. I don't know about you, but I require more than booting to a desktop for a usable system.

 

[bononos]

MS was on crack giving a 512mb minimum for Vista. I don't know about you, but I require more than booting to a desktop for a usable system.

Bah my mistake - I meant Win2000 was good with 1Gb.

 

[Charlie98]

A world of difference eh... (thats what people said about Vista about bumping up to 1Gb from the 512Mb minimum requirement). XP worked just fine with 1Gb, so thanks for the advice and I'll upgrade the memory to 2Gb.

I went from 512Mb to 2GB on my XP laptop... life is good now!

 

[SimMike2]

If you just installed a fresh copy of Vista, it can take a few days or a week of use before the drive gets optimized and starts running faster.