# Very slow laptop



## UncleTom (Jan 24, 2003)

New problem with the Gateway laptop. It became very slow to boot up after i reloaded the O\S on it. It worked good for a while. This is the one i put a used hardrive in. It was so slow i decided to reformat. What should take 30 minutes to do took hours. Even after i loaded the O\S again, it takes a long time for it to install the drivers. What should take seconds to install is now taking 10 minutes. What is wrong? Hardrive going bad? Thanks


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## UncleTom (Jan 24, 2003)

So slow, Double click on an icon and it takes 5 minutes for it to open. Reboots are still really slow. Thanks


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

My bet is the disk drive is going bad and your slowness is due to the disk having to re-try re/writes over and over until it gets them to commit.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

What operating system are you using? Can you give us an idea of what processor you have and how much memory is installed?


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## UncleTom (Jan 24, 2003)

It has the Intel centrino chip 1.5 gig 512 mb ram, and XP pro. I got this thing running and it was pretty fast i thought. Then it took a turn to the worse. It takes forever to just do anything simple now. Im thinking new hardrive but would like to know more about the problem first. It all started when i restored it to a different restore point.. But i have formatted the drive and reistalled the O\S since then. What should have taken 20 minutes took hours to install.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

UncleTom said:


> It has the Intel centrino chip 1.5 gig 512 mb ram, and XP pro.


With the current service packs and updates for XP, 512mb of memory isn't going to do it anymore. The good news is that 1 gig of memory should only cost youu about $15 to $20.


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## Kari (Mar 24, 2008)

UncleTom said:


> It has the Intel centrino chip 1.5 gig 512 mb ram, and XP pro. I got this thing running and it was pretty fast i thought. Then it took a turn to the worse. It takes forever to just do anything simple now. Im thinking new hardrive but would like to know more about the problem first. It all started when i restored it to a different restore point.. But i have formatted the drive and reistalled the O\S since then. What should have taken 20 minutes took hours to install.


I highly doubt this is an operating system problem or related to RAM/CPU as even with only 512 MB of RAM there would not be this much sluggishness.

Check the operating system event logs. Click Start>>>Run and type in eventvwr then press enter. The* system event log* will show if there are any hard drive problems. Check specifically for any "Bad Block on disk xxx", or "Windows delayed write failure" or a message (depending on the drive controller) that there are issues with the hard driver controller such as "a disk controller reset was needed"

If you see any of these types of messages, post them here so we can review.


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## OntarioMan (Feb 11, 2007)

Use the "Drive Fitness" software - available on the net and free. Basically, it creates a boot CD and checks all aspects of your drive. Memtest is similar, but it checks memory. Since both create boot CDs, you won't be using (or even require) an operating system.


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## UncleTom (Jan 24, 2003)

Karihwanoron, That sounds good, There are so many things i learn on here. I wish i would have know that before i formatted. I will try that. 
Thanks


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## Kung (Jan 19, 2004)

What Karih and Ontario said; if it takes *THAT* long, something's seriously wrong. Nevada is right - IMHO, you DO want more memory. However, it shouldn't have *that* big of an effect.

In the System log, you can also look for an "I/O error" or something like that.

If you're not sure what you're looking @, you can right-click on that log, select "Save As..." and then send it to one of us.

BTW, HDTune is another program you can use - www.hdtune.com.


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## UncleTom (Jan 24, 2003)

Well right now it is taking about a month to boot up. And it seems like it would take a year to finish putting drivers in. I just formatted it again and havent really finnished it yet. It has been running all night reinstalling the O\S, and hasnt finished yet. Thanks


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

UncleTom said:


> Well right now it is taking about a month to boot up. And it seems like it would take a year to finish putting drivers in. I just formatted it again and havent really finnished it yet. It has been running all night reinstalling the O\S, and hasnt finished yet. Thanks


Come on, live a little. Order some extra memory. It'll change your life.


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## Kari (Mar 24, 2008)

UncleTom said:


> Well right now it is taking about a month to boot up. And it seems like it would take a year to finish putting drivers in. I just formatted it again and havent really finnished it yet. It has been running all night reinstalling the O\S, and hasnt finished yet. Thanks


You have a sick computer there. An install of any operating system will not take all night. If the install has actually finished, before wasting time installing drivers,..(and before buying more memory) check the event logs as I suggested last night. 

512 MB of memory on a *tuned pc* that is used primarily for the home user surfing the web, using MS Works etc is fine. My old desktop running XP SP3 only has 512 MB of RAM and runs perfectly fine for this purpose. More RAM never hurts, but until you figure out the issue here with your pc, there is no sense in throwing in more RAM to fix an unknown and yet to be determined problem. The first rule of any good pc troubleshooting is determine and isolate the issue first...not throw more variables at it.


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## Kung (Jan 19, 2004)

Yup - that's one area that I'll disagree with Nevada a bit. While I'm definitely squarely on the side of 'more memory', if you tune up the PC, make sure it is kept clean, and all that fun stuff, 512Mb will do the job.

If you have any other computer available, I would use it to download one of the aforementioned tools. You *NEED* to test the hardware components of your computer first. While it's always "possible" that it could be something else, I doubt it; and as Karih said, don't throw more variables at it yet.

IF you have

- time
- a Windows XP CD
- and another computer handy

what you can do is build an Ultimate Boot CD. Go here and start at the steps that say "Downloading and Booting the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows." It's a little advanced but the information is very clear. It's what I use to test most of my computers, that and a few other utilities, and it works very well.


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## UncleTom (Jan 24, 2003)

I was really happy with it when i put the used hardrive in it. It seemed fast enough for me. I have other desktops. This is a learning project for me. And that a laptop would be nice. Here are some pictures of the screen. This is right after i booted it up for the first time after installing the O\S. One picture doesnt mean anything to me but the second one kinda says the hardrive is bad. Am i right on that? At this point i havent even installed the drivers yet. Hope the pictures work.

<img_src=http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c234/uncletomm/skidoo002.jpg>


<img_src=http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c234/uncletomm/skidoo001.jpg>


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## UncleTom (Jan 24, 2003)

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## Kari (Mar 24, 2008)

Just as I thought, a bad hard drive. Don't waste anymore time with this drive. Go out and by a new one....or hope there is one under the tree in a couple of days.


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## UncleTom (Jan 24, 2003)

Karihwanoron, Thanks. I guess the used hardrive i took from an old HP laptop was on its last leg. A NEW one is in order. I think that the old Gateway laptop is worth fixing. Like i said, it has been a learning project.Thanks everyone for the guidance. Have a MERRY CHRISTMAS.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

UncleTom said:


> I was really happy with it when i put the used hardrive in it.


This used hard drive; could it be a SCSI drive?


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## UncleTom (Jan 24, 2003)

No, i think it is just a standard IDE drive. Nothing special. 10 gig.


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## Kung (Jan 19, 2004)

Yeah, a lot of times a hard drive will report having a 'bad block.' Your message is actually WORSE. Suffice to say that when it says it's imminent, it probably means it - go back your stuff up now if you haven't.


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

UncleTom said:


> No, i think it is just a standard IDE drive. Nothing special. 10 gig.


 YIKES That is why heck XP with SP3 takes up a LOT of HD space and you only have a 10 gig drive????
Oh my. THAT is the biggest issue right there. Too small. My very first HP 10 yrs ago had a 10 gig well a 8.9 one. That went in the dump many years ago.


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## UncleTom (Jan 24, 2003)

Well , that is a small hardrive, but it wasn't updated to sp3 yet. It worked really good for a week and then it went down hill from there.


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