Speeding up a laptop

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My wife's laptop (that she uses for work and Runescape) is running slow (according to her).

Vista OS with 1 GB of ram running Norton 360.

My question is - should I upgrade the ram or remove the Norton or use a flash drive to up the ram (Readyboost) or all three or something I haven't thought thought of.

NB. A good AV is necessary for her work.

 

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I would get rid of Norton, get AVG (or NOD32) on there. Delete all the temp files with Disk Cleanup, then do a defrag on the C: drive. Tidy up the Startup tab of MSCONFIG. See what its like after that.

 

Considering the operating system is vista I'd first increase the ram to 2gb. Secondly I would also uninstall norton av replacing with a freeware i.e. anvira anti virus software.

 

I agree with the above two posts largely.

1) Get rid of norton & install AVG Free. Norton is a resource whore.
2) If you have a flash drive at hand, use it for readyboost - but don't go out and buy one if you don't have one.
3) Use disk cleanup to get rid of all the temporary files. Delete Internet Explorer temporary files (if you're using IE).
4) Defragment the computer using windows' Disk Defragmenter.
5) Make sure you have all your drivers up-to-date. Use Microsoft Update (go into windows update, look around for the settings and choose the tickbox that says look for other software like hardware drivers etc).

Hope that helps! Also, consider backing up all her data and doing a clean wipe. The computer will feel brand new speed-wise if it's really slow at the moment. Suggest this to her and make sure she doesn't immediately say "no way" because it's not hard if you get some instructions, wont take long and really does make the difference.

 

agreed, I would also recommend downloading ccleaner as it gets rid of the crap disk cleanup doesn't. Also NOD32 uses hardly any processes the cpu usage is very low, so it's good for not taking over the cpu even when scanning.

 

OK, there seems to be agreement over Norton but how to remove it completely (I know it digs itself in deep and causes problems whenever you try to uninstall it)?

 

For starters disconnect from the internet so while you do this there's no possibility of your computer becoming infected. Then completely close down all Norton programs and any processes running in Task Manager related to Norton. Once you've done that, simply uninstall using Add / Remove program files. It might ask for a system reboot at the end of un-installation, so do it.

If you're bothered about registry keys, go to Start > Run and type in "Regedit". Press CTRL and F to find and type in "Norton". Just delete all the keys that have norton in there. Also do a search for "Symantec" - the company that makes Norton.

As long as you don't go deleting any registry keys that don't have Norton / Symantec in, you should be fine!

 

Thanks

 

http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039

get the norton removal tool. its much easier than combing your harddrive for folders and your registry for entries. actually quite thorough

also, for vista i'd recommend Avast as your anti-virus after using avg and NOD32 beforehand. Vista likes it a lot better. If you're willing to part with some money theres simply nothing better than Kaspersky. You get what you pay for.

also, RAM is dirt cheap at the moment. if you feel comfortable doing it and have the manual or an online guide at hand, add an extra gig of ram it makes a huge difference.

 

What I would say is that my girlfriend is having the same issues with a freshly built p4, 1.75 gb ram etc etc.

It's all been since Runescape brought in the High detail stuff earlier this week.

 

What's her graphics card?

 

Apart from what everyone has mentioned in removing Norton I would recommend running Vista with 2GB RAM as you will notice a big difference especially if your laptop has intergrated graphics as this will share some of the system RAM as well. I would personally never run Vista with less than 2GB.