WHY IS MY AAO 150 SO SLOW?

I am running XP and it runs so slow, almost like a Pentium 2, I upgraded the ram to 1.5gb and noticed no difference, I deleted McAfee and cleaned up start up but its made no difference, I have had to use Google chrome as IE and firefox are so sluggish. I updated the BIOS hoping that would do something but no, and the fan is noisy and constantly runs. Any advice? I have a 120GB HDD by the way, not a SSD

 

My advice to you is delete XP, and install Gentoo + LXDE desktop, that was the first thing I did after first boot of my AA1. :lol: Works really fast even on that AA1 hardware.
If you still need Windows applications, you can use Crossover office for applications, or Crossover Games, for games.
I may share my kernel-config with you if you have same hardware.

 

The AAO 150 is not that slow. The fact that your fan runs all the time sounds like something is running in the background and taking processor and disk time. Try control alt delete and see what is processes are running. Click on the CPU colum and see what percentage pops up on what process.

Also click on my computer/properties/hardware/IDE ATA. Right click on primary IDE Channel then properties/advanced settings. Make sure "DMA if available" is selceted.

 

Did your AA1 always run slow? Do you have a retail copy of XP? Do you have the restore CD/DVD's? How much space do you have left on your HD? Have you done a good virus check? When was the last time you defragmented your HD?

If your AA1 did not always run slow then you may have too much stuff and there not be enough room for Windows virtual memory or you could have a virus or you could have so much fragmentation that your HD is being accessed too much (which may cause you fan to over work to compensate for the increased heat). There may be other things that are software related but we don't have enough information to answer your question.

 

I only got it last week, The HDD has over 100GB free, I have Avira Premium Anti Virus, I don't have a retail copy of XP, I hardly have anything installed on the Netbook yet, infact, I removed McAfee, MS Office and haven't installed anything yet bar Avira.

I don't know if the fan is just noisey or if its running all the time, there is always a hum but it does get louder on occasion, I ran a BIOS update that was supposed to fix this but it made no difference

 

What are you comparing it to when you say it is so slow? In what way is it slow, boot time or how fast the applications open or something else? could you give some numbers showing it being slow in a certain process?

 

Take a look at the stuff I typed above. I think you have a rouge process going or PIO IDE is turned on.

 

I am comparing it to another Acer Aspire One I have seen with 1gb ram running Windows 7, Mine is sluggish opening programs etc, start up is ok, about 1-2 min or so until I can get online, but its just sluggish opening programmes etc. I might try Windows 7 myself, it seems better than XP

 

You know what.... I'm going to stop typing stuff. My bet it is one of the 2 things I suggested.
If you are just going to ignore people trying to help just post that ahead of time.....
Installing Windows 7 is going to open a whole new can of worms as drivers are just starting to showup.

 

DMA available was already selected.

 

Well today installed Windows 7, there is a vast improvement in speed, It is flying. Only issues I have had was track pad wouldn't work right but downloaded driver and all was fine, same for card reader, now the Atheros card was a different story, it works yes but it hasn't appeared a few times when I opened the lid and has took a couple of reboots to get it going again

 

Is that a beta version of Windows 7? If so where did you get it all the sites I have looked at the download has not worked.

 

Its the RC Build 7100, I downloaded it from MS here http://www.microsoft.com/windows/window ... nload.aspx

 

This is a list of things I've done to mine. May work for you or may not.

• Disable XP Boot Logo

• 1.Run "msconfig"

• 2.Go to the boot.ini tab

• 3.Put a tick by the noguiboot box

• 4.Then Restart

• Turn off indexing

• 1.Open up "My Computer."

• 2.Right-click on your hard drive (usually "C:") and choose "Properties."

• 3.Uncheck the box at the bottom that reads "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching"

• 4.Click OK, and files will be removed from memory. This removal may take a few minutes to complete.

• 5.Next go to C:\Document and Settings\AllUsers\ApplicationData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows you have to disable the option to hide extensions of know file types, you can do this by selecting from the menu ‘Tools’->‘Folder Options…’ select the‘View’ tab. Find the option “hide extensions of know file types” and make sure the tick box is empty (untick after)

• 6.This may have to be done in F8 - Safe Mode. Go to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows

• 7.Delete: Windows.edb

• 8.Right click in this directory location once you deleted the file select New -> Text Document call it (Windows.edb) the same name including the .edb as the extension.

• Disable paging file (only with 2gigabytes or more of RAM)

• 1.Go to Control Panel and open System

• 2.Advanced tab.

• 3.Go to Performance section and then Settings

• 4.Advanced tab.

• 5.Press Change in the Virtual Memory section.

• 6.Select the No paging file radial button and press Set.

• 7.Press OK.

• Disable error reporting

• 1.Right-click My Computer and select Properties

• 2.Click the Advanced tab

• 3.Click Error Reporting button

• 4.Turn off error reporting: uncheck Windows operating system and Programs boxes.

• 5.Switching to Disable error reporting option.

• 6.Click OK button

• Disable Remote Assistance

• 1.Right-click My Computer and select Properties

• 2.Go to Remote tab, then click Advanced button

• 3.Uncheck Allow this computer to be controlled remotely, and click OK button.

• 4.Uncheck Allow Remote Assistance invitations to be sent from this computer.

• 5.Then Apply

• Disable Services and Applications

• 1.Right-click My Computer and select Manage.

• 2.Click plus sign next to Services and Applications, click Services, and switch to Standard tab on the right

• 4.Change Startup Type for the following Service by double-clicking the Service, selecting Disabled from Startup type dropdown box, and clicking OK button.

• Alert (disable)
  Automatic Updates (automatic)
  Background Intelligent Transfer Service (manual)
  ClipBook (disable)
  Computer Browser (if you have a standalone pc – no network)
  Error Reporting Service (disable)
  Fast User Switching Compatibility (disable or manual)
  Help and Support (Manual or Automatic)
  Indexing Service (Disable)
  Messenger (disable)
  NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (disable)
  Performance Logs and Alerts (disable)
  QoS RSVP (disable)
  Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disable)
  Remote Registry (disable)
  Server (if you have a standalone pc – no network)
  Telnet
  Themes (Automatic)
  Upload Manager
  WebClient (manual)
  Wireless Zero Configuration (don’t disable if using wireless network/Internet connection)

• Close Computer Management window.
  Restart computer.

• Disable System Restore (Warning)

• 1.Right-click My Computer and select Properties

• 2.Click on System Restore

• 3.Click on Turn OFF System Restore

• DisablePagingExecutive

• 1.Run "Regedit"

• 2.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

• 3.Double click on PageingExecutive

• 4.Change the value to 1 decimal

• 5.Restart

• Disable DLL

• 1.Run "regedit"

• 2.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWA RE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Explorer

• 2.Create a new DWORD sub-key named 'AlwaysUnloadDLL'

• 3.Set the default value tp'1' to disable

• 4.Restart

• Speed up start menu

• 1.Run "regedit"

• 2.HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

• 3.Double Click "MenuShowDelay" 4.Change the value from 400-50

• Disable Smooth edges of Screen Fonts

• 1.Right-click My Computer and select Properties

• 2.Click Advance Tab

• 3.Click Settings in the Preformance box

• 4.In the Visual Effects tab, Untick the box that has Smooth edges of Screen Fonts

• Speed up Network Browsing

• 1.Run "Regedit"

• 2.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace.

• 3.Find a key named {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}.

• 4.Right click on it and delete it.

• 5. Restart

• Disable DNS cache

• 1.Run "Regedit"

• 2.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

• 3.Create a new sub-key named 'AlwaysUnloadDLL' and set the default value to equal '1' to disable Windows caching the DLL in memory.

• 4.Restart

• Disable Prefetch

• 1.Run "Regedit"

• 2.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

• 3.Find "EnablePrefetcher"

• 4.Set the value to 0-Disable.

• 5.Restart

 

Hope this works for you.

 

Some good tips above. I'd caution about disabling Remote Assistance - I've become a big fan of Windows Live Mesh Beta for integrating the netbook and other Windows machines, with one feature being remote view and control of the other computer's desktop. You need Remote Assistance to use it.

The single biggest speedup I ever got to a slow system is by running CCleaner file and registry cleanup, followed by a defrag.

Following is the best user-friendly information re services.msc settings I'm aware of:

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

I've got a very zippy XP system (no hardware upgrades) on these settings, but of course it depends what you're running:

to MANUAL
distrib link, fax, help and support, portable media, themes. removable storage, error reporting service, Background Intelligent Transfer, Logical Disk Mgr Ad Service, Remote Desktop Help Session Manager, Secondary Logon, Windows Image Acquisition, TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper, NT LM Security Support Provide

maybe Manual
Task Manager, Logical Disk Manager (will disable Prefetch)

to DISABLED
indexing service, Messenger, Network DDE, Network DDE DSDM, QoS RSVP, WMI Performance Adapter

I use the A1CTL fan control software to disable ethernet and webcam when not used. Since I don't multitask much on the netbook, I've changed the priority settings on Task Manager-Processes (right-click) to "real time" or "high" for Excel, Firefox, Chrome, Windows Media Player, iTunes, and a simple photo editor. (There's an excellent little free add-on to Task Manager called "Prio" that permits saving these priority settings, which otherwise reset when you reboot. It also adds an easy access Services module to it.)

I'd got rid of Windows and/or Google desktop search if you don't actually use them, since they scan a lot. The McAfee anti-virus is a resource hog and so are some of the free ones - recommend Norton as the best, but Avira is free, light and thorough.