2 basic Laptop Q's.

[~ Sea Chief ~]

Hi chaps. 2 quickies Q's..

1) old sony vaio fx401 works still fine www etc, apart from sticky/ glitchy youtube, or liveleak for eg (or such relatively 'light ish' sites). Ram is a very humble 256mb, hardisk iirc pretty lowly too. Its max RAM is 512mb: if I get another 256 thingy that is. Q: would this additional 256mb be the idea? it only needs a 'boost' Im certain of that to get it just running that little better.. rather than some huage 2gb injection of Ram or HD would be better sure, but I just need give it a nudge for as cost-effectively as I can.

2) I've a newer (still old for you prob!) dell d600 runs YTube stuff ok for eg (it has 1gb xyz/ more oomph than above sony which tho less powerful, loads a page in a jiffy in comparison). Issue is a general slowness to load a page, getting more bogged down longer in day its on eg poss as long a 25 secs- most annoying: another symptom (?) is my back bttn on Hotmail doesn't work, oddly, it does on any other site/ as usual. Q is why, simple as/ how can I go about sorting it out.

Im sure its straightfwd in addressing both minor issues, & Im good at fixing stuff in general (my gaggia for eg!).. so its the diagnosis I need help with to start with.

If anyone can help- Id be very grateful. Thanks, Chief.

[CoffeeMagic]

My advice would be:

1. You probably won't be able to find RAM that small any more - recycle it
2. Could probably do with a defrag, file clean up or general re-install. If it is running XP then I would leave it with that, as it tends to run faster than Win7. Clean out all your temperary internet files, history and cookies (optional) and install the latest version of the browser you use.

BTW this site can be slow at times - see Off Topic posts.

[Glenn]

Thanks for the heads up about the site. Will take a look at the OT section and see if we can speed it up too

[~ Sea Chief ~]

Thanks Mr Magic, in fact I can find lowly 256mb whatsits still, and for only £5.. doing the crucial.uk scan etc to see which precisely.. thing is the scan said the sony laptop can only do 2x 256MB's max (it has currently 256/ 128, was hoping it'd say 256/ 0, so I could bung another 256in).. oh well for a fiver I'll see if the extra 128 gives the little boost it just needs.

Im still stumped on the 'bettter' dell d600 general slowness. Ive been advised to do th defrag/ cleanup before.. and done so a good few times on occasions.. all seems to be 'defragging' away, lots of info all going on: trouble is the laptop -never- runs any better after such cleanup procedures on each occasion: so Im stumped, hence my Q here.

Any other advice on this one (my 2nd Q/ laptop in the OP) welcome. thanks chief.

[MonkeyHarris]

I do this for a living. My advice would be..


1/Dump the Sony.
2/Save your data off of the Dell to an external hard drive (If you want to keep anything) and then run the built in factory restore to put it back to how it was when new. This is the best possible thing you can do. Nothing else will have any effect at this stage.

To do a factory restore/reset depends on what version of windows it's running and a few other factors with Dell laptops but I think for your one pressing the ctrl key and F11 at start up (when the blue DELL logo appears) will take you through to the recovery partition where you can perform a factory reset. If this doesn't work you might have to go on Dell's website and see how you perform a factory reset for your model as they do vary a bit (It's very easy though). Once you've done it make sure you reinstall antivirus software (NOT NORTONS) and run all the windows updates over and over until it's upto date.

[MikeHag]

For faster performance go to the windows control panel, all control panel items, performance infirmation and tools, click adjust visual effects, select adjust for best performance. This unchecks unnecessary visual effects that make a big difference to speed. I tend to add back a few, like font smoothing.

[~ Sea Chief ~]

Thanks chaps- Ill go thru the procedures for the dell mentioned/ Mikes seems the 1st port of call/ done the defrag again to no avail.

Wouldnt dump the sony- its doing excellent duties: I set up an older gentleman of 84 into the www world with it, and its almost perfect tbh, bar the slight 'boost' it needs (afaict) to just get YTube for eg running smoother ie as 'normal'.

(Glad re the Gaggia fix Mike- in fact I think mine needs the same! what did you do it with btw?)

[MikeHag]

Just ran a piece of ribbon around the top of the pump and tied it up through the holes at the back of the machine, to stop the pump leaning and rattling against the left side. Nice n quiet now :)

[~ Sea Chief ~]

You see Id never have thought of such simplicity- Id have gone all scissors/ sponge/ ties, swearing and general faffing about for same result! great idea.

cheers chaps.