My laptop got nicked a while ago, so I picked up a Compaq/HP nx6110 for next to nothing.
Herewith her vitals: running MS Windows XP SP 2, Intel Celeron M 1.4, 503MB RAM, 40 GB HD (partitioned, C: 10G, D: 30G). Software: MS Office (Word, Excel only), Nero 7 (full package), CCleaner, AVG (free edition), Spybot, Windows Live Messenger, Mozilla Firefox.
I have permanent broadband running at 100Mbps.
Any suggestions for improving her performance or including/excluding software. I’d like to run some software for downloading music, movies too. Haven’t downloaded Skype or Winamp yet.
I mostly use her for internet, saving/editing music and pics, Word and Excel doccies.
I also have an external 80G HD, quarter full of pics and music.
I know I can’t expect miracles from her, she’s doing alright, but I aint know prof when it comes to computers so your advice would be most welcome…
Well, hardware-wise about the only thing you can do usually is upgrade the RAM, but I see you already have 500MB, which isn’t bad. If you COULD up it to 1000MB, then that might help sometimes.
I would tend to give C more than 10GB, btw, but that’s just me.
As for software, well you might want to go thru Office and delete what you don’t use.
Nero’s a hog too. A lot of redundant stuff in there you could remove. In fact you could remove it completely and use a different burning tool (see the thread about a Nero replacement here: forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?t=68554 ).
If you REALLY want to speed it up, you might consider looking into a Linux OS, although I know this isn’t for everyone. You did ask though, and I am a fan of Linux. These days, distros such as Mint are so simple to use you wouldn’t believe it.
Finally, there are many ways to speed up Windows XP. I’ll let someone else suggest something.
Irishstu’s on the money here - I have Mint, a Linux distribution, running happily on a crappy old PC at home which previously groaned under the strain of Windows XP. One of the complaints I had with other Linux distributions like Ubuntu is that you have to install a few third-party drivers to get things like mp3s or most movie formats working properly. I understand why they do that (to keep the basic distribution clear of “unfree” non-open-source code), but it’s frustrating to a new user who knows nothing about Linux and just wants the damn thing to work without having to mess around. Mint is very simple - install it, use it. No fuss. I found the whole OS very intuitive, even having not really used Linux before.
You can also use a LiveCD - essentially this lets you try the OS out before installing it. If you like it - go ahead and install it. If you don’t, eject the CD and go back to Windows. Nothing to lose.
Zenwalk Linux would run pretty snappy on that thing. I find Ubuntu based linux distros to be a bit resource heavy for older computers. I have Zenwalk Linux running on an older computer than that, and it works pretty well. Although its not quite as user-friendly as Ubuntu for beginners, its not that difficult to learn either. http://www.zenwalk.org/ It’s got a nicely pre-configured XFCE desktop and artwork as well. You could try Arch Linux with the XFCE desktop if you are the kind of character to sort through wiki’s on how to set things up correctly.
Zenwalk has really improved over the past year or so. They have really good documentation and nicely laid out walkthroughs with screenshots. You will be surpised how easily you can pick it up. The problem is if something really doesn’t work well, say the wireless card, it can be a real pain in the arse to get it working. The community forums are also pretty helpful.
