Laptop under preforming.?

Question

My sister purchased a laptop off a friends company about a year ago im not sure of the exact specs its a pioneer. CPU is AMD turion 64 mobile 1.60gh its got 480mb of ram.

1st problem it says its got 480mb of ram it said 512 when we got it but im told its shared with the video card that make sence to anyone?

It also has alot of preformance problems it general runs slow often runs out of ram very quickly freezes easly stuff like that ive ran lots of anti virus scans on it and freed up as much ram as i can it still seems to run out. One of my desktops a Athlon 1.2 with 256mb of ram runs more smooth most of the time than this laptop despite the laptop been alot better.

video card is a ATI Radeon xpress 200m ive not had much to do with computers in the last couple of years so fallen behind is this any good? and does it use shared memory? I know my laptops 64mb card does yet ive never had any problems like this and ive had it a couple of years now.

So anyone got any bright ideas? im out

Answer 1

I have never heard of PC RAM that gets shared with a video card. Unless the video card is an integrated card (which it isnt), there is no chance of it splitting the RAM with the video card. Just imagine how bad the performance would be had the data been forced to travel via the RAM to the video card constantly. Even integrated video cards seldom share RAM. You may want to see if the RAM chip is configured properly (if there are any defective slots, etc). However, had the ram been sharing memory with the video card, it should still display its full 512 (usually shows 511 Mb) capacity during startup before windows is started.

As for poor performance, there are a lot more factors to consider than just plain old viruses. For instance,
1. Go to Start - Run - "msconfig" and go to the last tab called "Startup". Check to see what things are constantly running in stealth in the background. Uncheck all that you know are third party uneeded applications.
2. See if there are any programs that are not functioning properly, hence not removing itself from RAM after being exited. You can do this by simply pressing CTRL - ALT - DEL and see if any traces of the old application still remains. If so, you may want to try twitching around with that application's settings (if applicable) or try to reinstall the program.
3. You may also want to check if the laptop is overheating or not. This is often the case with decent processors though poor cooling systems. If you can hear your fan constantly cranking in overdrive or just plain hot when you are not doing anything on it, you may want to consider investing in a cooling pad for the laptop (around $30 US...). Too much heat in a system can cause poor performance.

If none of these options work, you may want to look into alternatives. For example,
1. You can consider going to www.download.com and getting a free program called "RAMBooster" which allows you to somewhat control the amount of RAM your system has... It is somewhat helpful if you are sure the issue is with the RAM.
2. You can go to the control panel, System, and under Performance, select for best performance rather than best look.
3. If there is a large hard drive, you can assign greater parts of it towards virtual memory. You are able to designate this as well in the control panel - system settings.

Good luck.

Answer 2

Just for starters.

Open Tools on your (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape) browser and Delete old Temporary Internet Files and Cookies.

Run Antivirus and Spyware checker,

Run Disk Defragmenter

Press Ctrl, Alt, Del. In the task Manager click on Applications. Look to see what is running in that window.

Then go to Start/Control Panel/Add Remove and see if there is any stuff that isn't really important.

Like a dozen different versions of the same thing.
One in particular I remember is having six updates of JAVA and it really only needs the newest version.

When anything that is supposed be the same has more then one file in Program Files it can cause headaches.

Same goes for browsers, I downloaded IE 7 as instructed and discovered it had flaws. I looked in there and saw that version 6 was still installed. Not only there but in Add & Remove Programs.


I removed both IE 7 and version 6, then went to program files and deleted the old IE Program file for 6.


I reinstalled the latest version of JAVA works much better.

Reinstalled 7 and it worked allot better, but i still wont use it.

Answer 3

- Many users are not aware of how much RAM is used by wallpaper and a screensaver full of graphics. They run in the background and eat memory.
- How many programs do you load at startup? Maybe you should check it out and ensure you are running just what you need.
To do this: cl Start, cl Settings, cl Taskbar and Start Menu.
- cl Start Menu, cl Customize, cl Remove.
- cl the icon for the program you wish to remove
- then cl Remove.
- This will prevent the program from loading at startup, but will not remove the program from the hard disk.
- Are you in a large file? If so, save frequently to restore full memory access. (Your work remains in memory until you “save” it to disk.)

1. Did you run an error check? Open My Computer,
Right-cl on C:, Select Properties, Tools – Run an Error Check ( checkmark “check all and fix); then run a Defrag

2. Are you using Yahoo Toolbar? Run a full Norton Antispy.

3. From IE, click Tools, Internet Options
delete cookies
delete files (offline files)
clear history (set days to save to 0 if you want)
click o.k., and Restart

3. click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools – run Disk Cleanup

4. click Start, Run ipconfig renew (type ipconfig space renew)

All these things should be done regularly. The more frequently they are run, the less time they take.
- Note: Games and videos are mostly graphics. Graphics create large files. If this doesn’t help, you should consider getting more memory.

Answer 4

i've got in no way been able to have faith Norton, neither have some people i understand. It has made a number of my previous structures somewhat sluggish and nevertheless capture threats with out it even ever detecting them. it may sound such as you're turning out to be some style of virus or something is utilizing up all your memory, lower back that must be a achievable virus. ought to objective rebooting? If no luck consistent with danger in case you already know somebody who knows slightly approximately laptops ought to check out it. in my opinion i could get rid of Norton and set up something greater useful, yet once you have in basic terms offered Norton along with your new computing device i can work out you desirous to push aside what i in basic terms reported haha, wish you get appeared after :)

Answer 5

I can give you a link that deals with hard drive problems.
Some drive problems can be easily fixed by yourself using easily available tools. I found the info at http://fixit.in useful. Try this site, if you can get what is required