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Recommendation for a slow laptop - another OS maybe?...
Hello.
I have a Dell mini-laptop - model Inspiron Mini 1018 with a Windows 7 Starter OS, N455 1.66GHz and 1GB of RAM.
Since the day I've first used it, it has been extremely slow.
It takes softwares a long time to go up, opening a video with Media Player Cassic can take almost 40 seconds, browser windows are annoying, and I actually can't watch any Youtube videos since it is so slow it's stuck every half a second (not buffering, just stuck)
It seemed weird to me that Dell would manufacture and sell such a thing, and tought it might be just the way mini-laptops are, but after seeing it wasn't like that with other laptops, it guess it's just mine.
Would you maybe reccomend something I can do to get a better use out of this thing? maybe lower the OS to XP, or maybe there's a "lighter" version of W7?...
Thank you in advanced.
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Philip_Yip
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Posted August 27th, 2013 05:00
I wouldn't recommend installing Windows XP as its reaching its end of life soon. See Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 End of Life in April 2014: http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/endofsupport.aspx
Upgrading from 1 to 2 GB of RAM should help: http://www.crucial.com/uk/upgrade/Dell-memory/Inspiron+Laptops%2FNotebooks/Inspiron+Mini+10v+(1018)-upgrades.html
I would recommend carrying out a clean installation of Windows 7; I have seen many Dell systems which seemed to be crippled performance wise due to the factory image which seems to have Windows 7 incorrectly loaded and contains other software such as McAfee which would seriously slow down a netbook. Follow Windows Reinstallation Guide/A Clean Install of Windows 7: http://philipyip.wordpress.com/dell-community-forums/
Before clean installation replacement of the hard drive with a SSD (also given in the above Crucial link) will also significantly improve the performance but the cost of the SSD in comparison to the entire unit is quite high.
Windows 11 Installation Guide
Windows 7 Installation Guide