Re: [Thinkpad] Glacial A30

The easiest thing to do would be to save all essential data - in two different places (such as CDs AND an external drive) or on your network if you have one then recover to the original factory image. This will be simpler than manually picking through all the crud slowing the machine, especially if the previous user was adept at collecting malware and loading whatever seemed cool at the moment. I don't know what OS you are running, but 256 is sorta OK for Win2K and completely inadaquate for performance with XP. The machine itself is more than good enough for Word and email.

Once you've reverted to the original software load, add the programs you use one at a time, not all at once, using the machine after each install enough to notice its performance. Do not load anything by Symantec. If it's still not quick enough for you, you can remove some of the default Windows services and startup items, but this is a somewhat tech-y process. I did that on my machine and it noticably shortened boot time, but I did have to go back and re-enable a couple services later - I had kept a log off all the disable services. Five minutes to boot up is unacceptable, another five to launch Word is bizzare; something is quite wrong.

Glacial A30 (Ellis Weiner)

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I finally repossessed the A30 I had given to my daughter. It was
running--if that's the word--as though sedated on Thorazine. So I took
it to the local Data Doctors. The guy removed a lot of extraneous
programs and did whatever he did. Twice I asked them if it would help
to boost
the RAM and twice they said, Not really.

It's down to 49 processes, which he says is closer to optimal. Fine.

It's STILL insanely slow. It takes five minutes (literally) to boot up
and another five, at least, to launch Word. And this is when it's
offline and not even
connected to the Net.

I installed Spybot and caught 25 spywares. Nonetheless...

It's got a Pentium 3 and has 256 MB RAM. Of that, 41.48 is "Available
memory" with a total virtual memory of 2 GB. The HD is 30 gigs
with about half newly cleaned out and available.

What gives? Should I indeed get more RAM? All I want to do is run Word
and some basic email and Firefox stuff. I swear. I love the hi-rez
screen, which
is still perfect.

TIA with thanks, in advance.

Ellis
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Received on Fri Apr 11 00:05:11 2008