Korean Job Discussion Forums

[lotuseater]

Just wondering if someone out there that is more tech savy than I could shed some light on why my computer is so slow. I figured I would put some more ram in it but ended up pulling one of the ram chips hot (long story covered in another thread) I did not end up frying the ram however and it was just a case of the ram in this computer is really hard to seat properly so it was not reading it as connected so the computer would not start.

Anyway, my real question is how much will a boost of ram improve the speed? I have 738 installed at least that is what the computer is registering. I have a 512 and a 256. I have heard rumors that mismatched ram will run at the speed of the slower chip. Is that true?

The computer is a Toshiba with Duo core and it is just a year and a half old.
738MB of RAm and a 1.66Ghz processor.

Seems to me it is far to slow for its specs. Ill give you an example. It takes the computer a full two minutes to go from cold to ready.

It takes about a minute to start photoshop cs3.

Most days after running lightroom and Photoshop the computer slows to the point that to switch from a msn messenger coversation window to a firefox window takes a good 30-45 seconds.
The strange thing is it is after I close photoshop and lightroom and not while they are running.

The computer never seems to be working overly hard when I am looking at the performance window. Ctrl,Alt, Del. It never really seems to get above 25% capacity except when I start a new program when it jumps to 80% above for a very short spike and then returns to normal.

I am just wondering what the best course of action would be to speed up the computer and if anyone out there has any tips and tricks. I am not that good with computers but I do give it a regular defrag and I don't run anything in the sys tray that is not necessary for me.

Ram, re-load windows, chuck the stupid thing out the window and get another one?

Thoughts anyone?

[JAWINSEOUL]

I just reformated my hardrive and my PC works great. I'm sure you have tons of programs you don't use. You could also move some of your graphics over to a portable server.

[Gatsby]

I presume you are using a laptop. Are you using Vista? If so, you don't have enough ram.

If you are doing photo editing, that can use enormous amounts of ram, depending on the size of the photo files and number of changes held in temporary files. If you are doing RAW photo files, even XP will run out of memory.

Even if your cpu is not at 100 percent, your hard drive can be churning to act as ram, slowing down your computer.

As far as I know, using two different sized ram chips is a big no-no these days, but someone else may know more.

You need to start over, make sure your ram is the right speed, specs, etc for your computer. If not, you might as well throw out your chips and get a matched set of two 1 gb chips if you have Vista. Even if you have XP this might help for photo editing. But make sure your computer can handle this size ram.

Most important, do a scan with a good anti-piracy program about once a week, or more often if your computer slows down.

A computer with your cpu should not run that slowly, in general. If necessary, start over and reload your OS for a clean install, then immediately do a full update of Windows. This will give you a baseline for what to expect of performance.

There are things you can do to improve performance by altering Windows settings. But this is too complicated for me to go into. Try doing some research online. I prefer to turn off indexing service, though.

Also, what is the rpm and cache of your hard drive? A drive with 8 mb cache and 5,400 rpm is good. If your specs are less, a hard drive upgrade will speed up performance.

You should do some research yourself with your computer's instruction manual or info online about RAM.

[lotuseater]

Sorry I should have added more info.

The computer is a Toshiba Satallite A100 but I can't find the exact make because it was purchaced in thailand I am having trouble locating the make of the one I have.

I am running XP home. Which in the course of my research I have found about an equal number of people saying it will take advantage of the duo core and a that it won't take advantage of the duo core. If I press ctrl alt del it has only one cpu usage graph and I have heard that there should be two with duo core working???
however in BIOS it says that both are enabled.

I would do more research as to what system I have but unfortunately my manual is in Thailand as well as the boot disc so I can't even do the research as to what the system is using or the reboot till I have those back. I belive the hard drive is a 7200 rpm but I have no idea what the cash size is.

I do a lot of photo editing mostly in RAW with Lightroom and Photoshop, the system drags a little while running these programs but it REALLY slows down after I shut them down. That is when it takes a full minute to switch between an msn window and a firefox window. But it does not do it all the time only most of the time.

I run daily quick scans for spy ware etc. and weekly full systems scans.

I do a twice monthly defrag.

[eamo]

AFAIK, the only meaningful ways to improve system performance with a laptop is to upgrade RAM and re-install Windows.

I know you're thinking of upgrading the RAM. I doubt you would want to re-install Windows. Is the language of your Window menus Thai?

I have used a program in the past called Tuneup Utilities. It seemed to do a lot of things but I was never sure if it actually sped up my system like it promised to.

[lotuseater]

No the language is in English the only thing stopping me from doing a reinstall of windows is the actuall disc is in Thailand right now so I don't have it with me. As soon as I get it I am going to wipe the computer and reinstall everything.

[SHANE02]

You will need to find the model number. Turn over the machine, it's usually got the model number next to the serial.

Max out the ram. Find how much it can take and max it out. Use the same size ram.

Then go to the manufacturer's website and download all the drivers for everything (buttons, sound, the works) and burn them all to cd or put them on other external media.

A program like Driver Genius http://www.driver-soft.com/ can help to back up all the drivers the system is using. But it's better to get them from the laptop makers site.

Do a clean XP install.

Install drivers.

Install programs you use.

When it's all nice and fast, make a backup image using Norton Ghost or Acronis or similar.

Good luck!