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Speeding up my laptop?
rabbit221
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi guys, I've had my Alienware laptop for about 2 years now and I just got back on Steam trying to play some mods for HL2 and I noticed that my FPS aren't NEAR as good as what they used to be, and my laptop handled the same game I'm playing now way better back when it first came out. Also, it seems like it is taking an eternity to connect to an actual match. Btw, the mod I'm talking about is Insurgency. I also play CS and stuff but it still seems like my laptop is performing nowhere near what it was. Does anyone know of any sites I can go to or software that can speed up my laptop or can anyone tell me why my laptop might be so sluggish now? The graphics in the mod should be no problem for my laptop but it seems like it struggles. Thanks in advance for any help!
rabbit221 on
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I'd kill as many background processes as you can and see how much that helps. Also try updating drivers.
What are your specs?
Aside from that, a fresh reformat never hurt anybody. Just data.
512 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 (Pretty sure I've looked for updates on the site and didn't find any for this one)
I think I've updated the video card before and I'm pretty sure theres something on steam where you can check your hardware
Also, can anyone give me a list of background programs that would be safe to shut down? I'm running XP so when I do CTRL ALT DEL i get the task manager and go to processes, but what is safe to shut down? Thanks again in advance.
Screencap of your Task Manager would help. There are literally thousands of programs you could be running.
Reformatting means wiping your hard drive clean (all data erased) and reinstalling Windows. This gives you a clean start and a much healthier, snappier system. When I ran WinXP I did this about twice a year. You've mentioned your music, so you'd have to back that up somehow (external HDD, burned DVDs of MP3 files etc.)
If I'm to reinstall windows after a defrag, I won't really have to worry about all my music and files? I don't wanna do the wrong thing and then lose all my stuff lol
Some software will work after a fresh windows install just by creating a shortcut to the .exe, but a lot will have to be reinstalled. Save yourself trouble and dig up software that you use (for me, archievers like winrar, media players of choice, torrent software, etc) and drivers (especially network drivers) beforehand. If you let your computer remember passwords for you for things you use like steam or MSN, refresh your memory.
Also, if your alienware just has a hidden restore partition instead of a disc (being an alienware I'm assuming they give you a real windows cd, though I've never owned one), reinstalling only windows may very well not be an option. Restore options generally just wipe and install the setup that came with the machine when you bought it.
It's time consuming to move hundreds of gigabytes of data so you can reformat. 'Moving' data out of windows directories takes no time at all other than giving the commands since the hard drive just decides the data now resides in another place. It really does save a lot of time, in my experience, though I may be one of few people who has close to a terabyte of data I'd have to back up in the case of a format.
I suppose part of my saved time when reinstalling windows as opposed to reformatting is from the software re-installations that do need to occur happening from images or install files that are already on the HD (I learned a long time ago to save installation files that I use in every windows install) rather than CD's, though. But some software surprises you by not needing to be reinstalled (like Blizzard titles in general.)
The next thing that should help a sluggish computer is to go into the Control Panel Administrative services and turn off all the system services you don't need. And tell it not to start up again unless you damn well say so (aka, switch it to Off & Manual Start). I mean, who the hell thought Windows needed a "remote registry" service running all the time? Turn that shit off and free up some CPU.
Here's some info - XP has shocking levels of unnecessary bloat in the background, but you CAN disable it. I hope to god vista has this feature as well.
http://www.jasonn.com/turning_off_unnecessary_services_on_windows_xp
http://www.w-tweaks.com/html/xp-disable-services.html
If you're using XP, running XPlite is also worthwhile. Strip out everything else you don't need and it reduces the RAM and CPU footprint of your OS.
EDIT: Okay, my computer shows it as being updated but steam says I still have an outdated driver. I'll post on their forums about it.
And yeah, Windows Rot doesn't seem to be much of an issue in Vista.
If you have a terabyte of data that lives on your primary OS partition, you need to seriously rethink your data layout yesterday. Even different partitions on the same drive is incredibly risky. Drop the $1-200 and invest in a couple external drives for your data. This way you never have to worry about losing it to a simple repartition -- or worse, a drive failure.
I started reading the JasonOn article and god what a douchebag he is. Reading his comment on the "Windows Update" and the one below it (about Background) just made me hate the fucker. I closed the window after that.
I wouldn't disable everything these articles say to though, Rabbit. I'd read them and see if you want to disable them or not. Some of them might be something you need.
A terabyte of data (roughly, short two operating systems) is just what I'd be looking at to back up on the drive that contains my OS. I have a lot of data. What doesn't fill up other systems or drives invariably fills up my main ones. Even my secondary rig has a bunch of extra data sitting on OS drives.
Drives are for data. OS containing drives aren't much more risky than non-OS containing drives these days, and believe me, my non-OS containing drives (and systems) have a lot more data on them than a terabyte.
Drives != Partitions. Split that off into a 10/20GB for your OS partition and put the rest of it on another spot.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
enh? My main drive has a bunch of partitions. My advice was for the OP who I figure doesn't. I see how that would be read otherwise though, since I was thinking of (in my case) reformatting to be an entire drive reformat, not just doing a partition. And realistically you're right, I'd just nail the OS partitions.
Is a really confusing paragraph when I read it and think, in my head, about how in different places I'm talking about the likely situation for the OP or myself.
My bad.
how do i check that? i'll get back to you when i find out
also, my laptop is always plugged in
I think power is just straight in the control panel? Also don't underestimate the power of a good computer cleaning!
also also, http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745 should help you with your driver woes
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EDIT: Nevermind, found it, downloading the latest update (June 2008) to see if that helps anything