bgjerlow Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Hello So, lately I've been noticing that my netbook that I use for school has been quite slow. This is fairly noticeable when you for example have more than 5 internet tabs open, or simply have more than a couple of apps open at the same time. The mouse pointer will move slowly, and occasionally I'm even experiencing freezes. So my question to you guys is, do you know a way I could perhaps prevent this from happening too often? The netbook is designed to be used with Windows XP, however the hardware is compatible with Windows 7, so I cannot see why this could be the source of the problem. Thanks in advance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger H. Veteran Posted November 8, 2011 Veteran Share Posted November 8, 2011 Sounds like a RAM problem to me because it's paging to the HDD. Netbooks are limited to 2GB of RAM right? - that usually leaves about 800MB - 1.2GB left for programs which can be sucked up pretty fast by leaking drivers or programs. Browsers especially (flash and all) suck up RAM easily. EDIT - Just saw these things come with 1GB of RAM - unless you upgraded it (if it can), then get time for a new PC I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dreamliner77 Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Do you have all of the eee software installed? In the Asus tray program, make sure its on high performance or super high performance mode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgjerlow Posted November 8, 2011 Author Share Posted November 8, 2011 Sounds like a RAM problem to me because it's paging to the HDD. Netbooks are limited to 2GB of RAM right? - that usually leaves about 800MB - 1.2GB left for programs which can be sucked up pretty fast by leaking drivers or programs. Browsers especially (flash and all) suck up RAM easily. The maximum amount of ram is 2GB DDR2, which is what I currently have installed. Maybe I should consider getting an more powerful notebook rather than this netbook. Do you have all of the eee software installed? In the Asus tray program, make sure its on high performance or super high performance mode. No, I actually don't have the Asus software installed. However, I will do that straight away. Can't believe I didn't think of that myself. Thanks :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xendrome Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Netbooks are limited to whatever the motherboard can take. However that specific model only has 1 slot and is limited to a 2GB chip in that slot. So, if it has 1GB ram, then the ram/CPU is your problem. If it has 2GB ram, then it's likely the CPU, it is only running an Atom CPU after all. Did it ship with Windows 7, or did you upgrade it to that? If it came with Windows XP, there was a reason for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger H. Veteran Posted November 8, 2011 Veteran Share Posted November 8, 2011 I have a desktop at work so slightly different setup but i'm using 1.66GB of 5GB with IE9 (this window - no other tabs) and Outlook 2010 open. That's it. Windows 7 likes to spluge out a bit once there's more RAM (which is good) but even for a system with 2GB, i'm sure that'll be sluggish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgjerlow Posted November 8, 2011 Author Share Posted November 8, 2011 Netbooks are limited to whatever the motherboard can take. However that specific model only has 1 slot and is limited to a 2GB chip in that slot. So, if it has 1GB ram, then the ram/CPU is your problem. If it has 2GB ram, then it's likely the CPU, it is only running an Atom CPU after all. Did it ship with Windows 7, or did you upgrade it to that? If it came with Windows XP, there was a reason for that. I currently have a 2GB DDR2 800mhz ram stick in the slot. It shipped with XP originally, but it's supposed to run Windows 7 without problems. Or at least that's what the tech guy at the store told me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nogib Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Absolutely nothing wrong with Windows 7 on it. I have put it on every netbook that has come by me and runs on netbooks so much better than XP. Don't listen to the naysayers. However regardless of OS, running a browser with 5 tabs open at the same time definitely taxes the Atom CPU far too much. Solution: don't have 5 tabs open lol. On my netbook I usually never open a second tab at all and as a result it runs beautifully. You have to understand what a netbook can and can't do. Having many pages open (especially if they have anything Flash on them) is just brutal on their hardware. If you haven't already, throw on Adblock to at least cut down on some of the ads sites display since many of those are Flash based. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Udedenkz Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Number of tabs depends on the optimization of the browser - in Opera you can open a few dozen without seeing any slowdown on Atom. Make sure you avoid all manufacturer bloatware. Do not use any antivirus that runs in the background. Set to hight performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xendrome Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Absolutely nothing wrong with Windows 7 on it. I have put it on every netbook that has come by me and runs on netbooks so much better than XP. Don't listen to the naysayers. I never said anything was wrong with Windows 7 on it, but I promise you it would be a lot faster with XP on it instead, which is what it shipped with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel_rh Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 2GB of ram is fine for Windows 7, try to uninstall most of the the eee utilities and crapware if you have any. You can't ask much to the ATOM processors, they're pretty slow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgjerlow Posted November 8, 2011 Author Share Posted November 8, 2011 Absolutely nothing wrong with Windows 7 on it. I have put it on every netbook that has come by me and runs on netbooks so much better than XP. Don't listen to the naysayers. However regardless of OS, running a browser with 5 tabs open at the same time definitely taxes the Atom CPU far too much. Solution: don't have 5 tabs open lol. On my netbook I usually never open a second tab at all and as a result it runs beautifully. You have to understand what a netbook can and can't do. Having many pages open (especially if they have anything Flash on them) is just brutal on their hardware. If you haven't already, throw on Adblock to at least cut down on some of the ads sites display since many of those are Flash based. Yeah, I figured this was the reason. The problem is, that often I need to have at least 3-4 tabs, Word, and OneNote open at once. I have tried turning off Aero and just using the basic theme, but that didn't help either. I guess I'll end up being forced to buy a notebook that can handle it all without a problem. Number of tabs depends on the optimization of the browser - in Opera you can open a few dozen without seeing any slowdown on Atom. Make sure you avoid all manufacturer bloatware. Do not use any antivirus that runs in the background. Set to hight performance. I am very strict against what I have installed on there, which is why I only have the most essential things on there. I currently have 34 applications/items installed, which isn't a lot considering that over half of those are required for me to have. I will definitely give Opera a try though, maybe I'll be lucky and that'll be able to run the amount of tabs I need open at once. Thanks for the suggestion :) 2GB of ram is fine for Windows 7, try to uninstall most of the the eee utilities and crapware if you have any. You can't ask much to the ATOM processors, they're pretty slow I currently have none of the Eee utilities installed, nor any of the typical bloatware. I did a clean install of Windows 7 on the netbook myself back in August. I am sort of considering if a clean install of Windows 7 would fix these problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soldier1st Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 What about trying Readyboost and have a 4GB stick? normally, it would have minimal effect with 2GB but in your situation, it might just work. Also a clean reinstall would be a bit drastic don't you think? Do you have the latest drivers and software installed? What part of the system is slow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger H. Veteran Posted November 9, 2011 Veteran Share Posted November 9, 2011 Yeah ReadyBoost was gonna be my next suggestion since you can't do anything about RAM. The Atom CPU (hell even a pentium 2 450Mhz) can handle 12 tabs just fine. The system just needs RAM to store those pages when they are in the foreground. It goes from RAM to HDD which is slow when it time to go back from HDD to RAM (visible). CPU speed is almost never the issue with newer systems, it's just RAM. So if you can get a ReadyBoost capable 4-8GB USB key then that'll help like crazy! :yes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Udedenkz Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 (edited) On my netbook (see sig), I am running without a page file and only have 2 GB DDR3 - works just fine. I usually play older games on mine (NWN1, Thief, Quake Live...)... Really depends on your use of the system though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soldier1st Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 On my netbook (see sig), I am running without a page file and only have 2 GB DDR3 - works just fine. I usually play older games on mine (NWN1, Thief, Quake Live...)... Really depends on your use of the system though... Running without a pagefile is dumb and is utterly foolish. if you can't spare the space for it then get a bigger HDD. Windows is designed to page, no matter how much memory you got. More memory will lesson to reliance on a pagefile(You don't want to rely on the pagefile as it is far slower than ram). Windows will page even without a pagefile. If you want to risk it then the risk is yours to take. Don't blame me or others if something were to go wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Udedenkz Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Running without a pagefile is dumb and is utterly foolish. if you can't spare the space for it then get a bigger HDD. Windows is designed to page, no matter how much memory you got. More memory will lesson to reliance on a pagefile(You don't want to rely on the pagefile as it is far slower than ram). Windows will page even without a pagefile. If you want to risk it then the risk is yours to take. Don't blame me or others if something were to go wrong. There is no risk running without a page file, just no potential for hard drive trashing. I am just saying that blaming RAM amount for netbook slowness is foolish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southern Patriot Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 I never said anything was wrong with Windows 7 on it, but I promise you it would be a lot faster with XP on it instead, which is what it shipped with. Considering the model he has it likely shipped with XP because 7 wasn't available yet. Windows will page even without a pagefile. I really wish people would stop repeating that nonsense. If you disable the pagefile Windows WILL NOT magically do any paging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgjerlow Posted November 9, 2011 Author Share Posted November 9, 2011 What about trying Readyboost and have a 4GB stick? normally, it would have minimal effect with 2GB but in your situation, it might just work. Also a clean reinstall would be a bit drastic don't you think? Do you have the latest drivers and software installed? What part of the system is slow? As of right now, I don't have a 4gb USB stick available, no. I have the latest chipset drivers etc. installed, and Windows 7 fully updated. As I said in my first post this happens when I "have more than 5 internet tabs open, or simply have more than a couple of apps open at the same time. The mouse pointer will move slowly, and occasionally I'm even experiencing freezes." And for the post about running without a pagefile, that is something I would also categorize as a dumb move. I will not be trying this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zain Adeel Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 to the OP..... ur ram amount is fine.. trust me ive run windows 7 on a friends 1gb ddr2 667mhz ram PC and it will FLY!.. what can be a problem is ur ATOM processor. But i will assure you. It should still not be as slow as you are experiencing. There must be some bloatware or some buggy app running in the background eating ur resources. Do a good clean install and ull be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigredpei Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 I used to have an HP Mini and it drove me nuts how it would lag down. Whenever I first bought it, it was plenty fast, and then as I gradually started downloading my programs, music, movies and all that it just became slower and slower. One thing that's been mentioned was the RAM, I know netbook's don't come with the maximum they're allowed usually. You can take it into a computer shop and see about getting your RAM upgraded, that'll make a huge difference. I just recently upgraded the RAM on an older desktop running XP and it runs smooth as butter now with everything from gaming to browsing to just watching a movie. Another thing I can suggest is making backup CDs or a backup onto a thumb drive and deleting all the bloatware, computer companies load up their products with trials and things the general user would never use. Anything you aren't using, delete or uninstall. Another suggestion is use Windows Baisc, Aero uses more resources and can affect the performance of a netbook. Hope this helps a bit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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