[dba-Tech] Laptop should run faster

Lol.  You really must believe me, I've been there.  Replacing my hard disk
made the whole thing feel faster.  Adding memory minimized swapping.  Taken
together they made a significant and noticeable difference.

In a few years the 4200 rpm drives will not be used anymore.  They were used
to minimize operating current, but the new 5400 and 7200 rpm drives don't
use that much more current now.

As for the memory, 500mb is not really all that much, especially if the
video is taking some.  And WinXP is a memory hog too.  I was really unhappy
with my laptop performance (after the first few months ;~), and swapping
that hardware made it a real machine, every bit as fast as an equivalent
desktop machine.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com 

Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause:
http://folding.stanford.edu/

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Rocky Smolin -
Beach Access Software
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 2:15 PM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Laptop should run faster


Ack!  Hardware!  Maybe I'm not in as much of a hurry as I thought.  :)

But thanks for the lead.  I wonder if doubling the memory would be 
effective?

Rocky

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John W. Colby" <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com>
To: "'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'" 
<dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 11:02 AM
Subject: RE: [dba-Tech] Laptop should run faster


> First thing to do is go get a 7200 rpm drive.  I am serious Rocky.
> Laptops
> come with 4200 rpm drives and they suck for access speeds.
>
> http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-146-020&d
> epa=0
>
> Get a usb port connected shell that holds the hard drive (the form 
> factor
> is
> important here, laptop hds are smaller).  Then attach the new drive to 
> your
> laptop.  Ghost the contents out to the new drive.  Swap the internal with
> the new one.  It took me about 1 hour (plus the transfer time of the ghost
> operation), dead simple to do.
>
> After that get a 1gb dim.  I bought this one for my EMachines:
>
> http://shop1.outpost.com/product/4158153
>
> My laptop now performs like it should.
>
> John W. Colby
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>
> Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause: 
> http://folding.stanford.edu/
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Rocky 
> Smolin - Beach Access Software
> Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 1:55 AM
> To: dba-tech
> Subject: [dba-Tech] Laptop should run faster
>
>
> Dear tech:
>
> My laptop doesn't run as fast as I thin it should (who's does?).  I 
> recall vaguely some tips about things that can be turned of in windows 
> that tend to bog things down.  Some kind of logging, or indexing, or 
> audit trailing, or something.
>
> Anyway, if anyone has any hints I'll give them a try.  It's a 64bit 
> Athlon processor running with 512MB RAM and WXP Home.  Seems to be 
> doing a lot of disk swapping when starting or terminating programs.  
> Also slow startup when changing user accounts.
>
> Any tips appreciated.
>
> Best,
>
> Rocky Smolin
> Beach Access Software
> http://www.e-z-mrp.com
> 858-259-4334
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>
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