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General discussion

Acer Extensia 5235 very slow for the first ten minutes????

Aug 13, 2010 1:06AM PDT

Hi guys, My wife's Acer laptop is causing her a lot of grief as it takes ages to get going once it has started up. It is operating on Windows Vista Business edtition, 160gb hard drive and 1gb RAM.(this is about to change as I have just ordered another 2gb to made it up to 3gb)
Once the laptop has started up and you click to log on to the internet, it sometimes "freezes" or just take about two/three minutes to open it up. Then everything is slow, not just the internet, but when you want to open a folder on the laptop. If you check the task manager, nothing is over working as the items are working at around 8%-10% max. If you leave the laptop for about ten minutes or more, and then come back to it, it seems to get faster and then you can open folders and the internet without too much of a delay. This was new in March of this year.
Any help or advice would be appreciated

Discussion is locked

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Most of Vista machines do that.
Aug 13, 2010 1:13AM PDT

The good news is this is not abnormal for Vista and this machine. You can help it with that added RAM and help it even more if you don't reboot but resume from hibernation.

There is no sign any fix for this is planned.
Bob

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Resume from Hibernation??
Aug 15, 2010 4:51PM PDT

Rob, Many thanks for the reply. I was always told that one should close down completly and not from resume, as windows needs to update itselve, however, have given this a try and it works a treat. My neighbour has an HP laptop running the same Vista Business, and that has no problems from start to finish, and it also runs on just 1gb RAM. I wonder if it is Acer, but I have e-mailed them and given the laptop a health check which says that it is working ok?

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Oddly.
Aug 30, 2010 10:12AM PDT

I find that strange advice. But it is your choice to perform a longer boot of course. Here I value my time and that's why I used HIBERNATE to slash the boot time. If an update needs to reboot then that's no issue as I can let it do that.

My Acer Vista laptop came with 1GB RAM, Vista and was quite slow. Between the added 2GB RAM (now 3GB total) and hibernation it saved it from early retirement.
Bob

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Hibernation
Aug 30, 2010 5:34PM PDT

Bob, Thanks for the advice. The extra 2gb RAM still has not arrived yet? (lost in the post maybe?) but I have managed to sort out the main problem which I believe was the Java updates. It is now running a lot better and no longer freezes, but I will try the hibernation shut down for a few days and see what difference it makes.
Bill.

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My suspicion
Aug 13, 2010 5:26AM PDT

is that too many Startup programs are attempting to load on boot up, and some of these may be attempting to connect to the internet.

1GB of Ram is small for Vista and another 2GB should help a lot, but you may want to start looking into what is loading at startup, and whether they are all needed.

The icons in the Notification Area, (where the clock is), is a good clue. Too many there indicates applications have set themselves to load at startup. Also, using MSCONFIG, (Start > Run, type in msconfig and click OK), will show all the startup files in the Startup tab.

That's a start.

Mark

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msconfig:
Aug 15, 2010 4:58PM PDT

Mark, many thanks for replying to my post. I have MSCONFIG the Acer and looked at the startup programs and cannot see anything that looks like it shouldn't be there. There is a few MS odds and sodds running but I have been told NOT to remove them as it could cause problems. I find that starting up from resume (Bobs idea) helps, but still need to resolve it as soon as possible as now it just freezes when you startup from scratch and you then have to force a shutdown, restart and then it works?? I have e-mailed ACER, but as yet, no reply.

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other factors
Aug 28, 2010 1:00AM PDT

Check your version of Adobe Flash. My desktop is having the same problem. Both IE and Windows mail are not responding but this clears up after the system has been running awhile.

I deleted Adobe Flash and installed the newest one. I also disabled Java script and this seems to have reduced the problem.

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Java problem, I think
Aug 28, 2010 2:14AM PDT

Thanks for the info, I removed and then re-installed Flash player, no difference, then I uninstalled Java, then re-installed the latest version and patch, and that seems to have cleared the problem. Thank you guys once again for all your help and advice, my wife can now browse the internet without her laptop freezing anymore. BTW, Acer still have not replied to my earlier e-mails, strange! Bill.

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Ahh Java
Aug 28, 2010 5:47AM PDT

Good find, and well done for sorting it.

Mark