Help, is there an answer other than you need more memory

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

I have recently purchased a second hand laptop running windows xp. It's a Celeron 450mhz with 64mb ram and 6gb hard drive. It works well, all-be-it a little slow. However, whenever I connect to the internet either through dial-up or broadband it has a tendancy to crash. It copes with e-mail and surfing of basic sites but whenever you ask it to do anything complicated it crashes

I'm not a whix at these things and I'm told that it's memory I need. Being a little strapped for cash I don't really ant to shell out any more cash

Does anyone have any ideas

I do have an OEM Win 98SE from an old machine thats packed up. Could I load this onto the machine? How easy is it to format and start a fresh

Thanks in advance for you replies

Scott
 
Scott D said:
I have recently purchased a second hand laptop running windows xp. It's a
Click to expand...
Celeron 450mhz with 64mb ram and 6gb hard drive. It works well, all-be-it a
little slow. However, whenever I connect to the internet either through
dial-up or broadband it has a tendancy to crash. It copes with e-mail and
surfing of basic sites but whenever you ask it to do anything complicated it
crashes.
I'm not a whix at these things and I'm told that it's memory I need. Being
Click to expand...
a little strapped for cash I don't really ant to shell out any more cash.
Does anyone have any ideas?

I do have an OEM Win 98SE from an old machine thats packed up. Could I
Click to expand...
load this onto the machine? How easy is it to format and start a fresh?
Thanks in advance for you replies.
Click to expand...

The guy who runs this site has an underpowered computer also, and offers
advice and many helpful links about how to make XP run as well as it
possibly can anyway: http://users.accesscomm.ca/gbraun/wxp/index.htm You'll
at least want to make sure that you have as few programs running as possible
at startup. This list may help identify what is what:
http://www.3feetunder.com/krick/startup/list.html

Regards,
Ian.
 
I have recently purchased a second hand laptop running windows xp. It's a
Celeron 450mhz with 64mb ram and 6gb hard drive. It works well,
all-be-it a little slow. However, whenever I connect to the internet
either through dial-up or broadband it has a tendancy to crash. It copes
with e-mail and surfing of basic sites but whenever you ask it to do
anything complicated it crashes.

I'm not a whix at these things and I'm told that it's memory I need.
Being a little strapped for cash I don't really ant to shell out any
more cash.

Does anyone have any ideas?

I do have an OEM Win 98SE from an old machine thats packed up. Could I
load this onto the machine? How easy is it to format and start a fresh?

Thanks in advance for you replies.
Click to expand...


Win98: It would run better on the laptop BUT the copy you have is OEM (tied
to the machine it came installed on) and it won't have any special drivers
needed for the laptop.

WinXP: Additional RAM is needed for better performance as 64 MB is the bare
minimum. In the meantime, try System Properties> Advanced> Performance>
Settings> Visual Settings. Check that "best performance" is selected. Also,
your main bottleneck seems to occur while connected to the internet.
Barring the presence of any viruses or other malware that mucks up an
internet connection, updating the modem drivers *might* help.

If the system uses a winmodem, you may want to try an external modem as an
alternative connection device. Not as expensive as additional RAM and the
improved connection performance of an external modem may be sufficient to
eek out the lifetime of this laptop a little longer.
 
On Sat, 8 May 2004 03:56:03 -0700, "Scott D"
I have recently purchased a second hand laptop running windows xp.
It's a Celeron 450mhz with 64mb ram and 6gb hard drive. It works well,
all-be-it a little slow.
Click to expand...

It can be expected to be slow! The RAM's low, as is the processing
power, tho "450" suggests 100MHz RAM bus, which helps.
However, whenever I connect to the internet either through dial-up or
broadband it has a tendancy to crash.
Click to expand...

Folks may attribute that to RAM, but I'd worry more about your patch
status. If you don't have two particular code defects patched as per
July/September 2003 (RPC, exploited by Lovesan/Blaster etc al) and
April 2004 (Lsass, exploited by Sasser et al) then you WILL crash
whenever connected to the 'net unless you turn on XP's built-in
firewall, or install and use a 3rd-party firewall.
It copes with e-mail and surfing of basic sites but whenever
you ask it to do anything complicated it crashes.
Click to expand...

That smells like memory. How much free HD space? How big is the
pagefile? XP's pagefile sizing algorithm is a bit brain-dead, as it
uses 1.5 x RAM when small RAM needs *more* pagefile. I'd set it so it
can grow to 512M at least - if HD space is less, you're in trouble.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Click to expand...

As above - also, verify your hardware is OK before spending further.
See http://cquirke.mvps.org/9x/bthink.htm with particular respect to
excluding defective RAM and physical hard drive.
I do have an OEM Win 98SE from an old machine thats packed up.
Could I load this onto the machine?
Click to expand...

Don't do that while things are hairy.
How easy is it to format and start a fresh?
Click to expand...

"Easy", but doomed if the hardware's flaky or you can't get drivers.


---------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
Click to expand...
Certainty may be your biggest weakness
 
Back
Top