Fix, buy economy or buy new?

by Mijo2much Feb 7, 2009 12:12PM PST

I have a 3 year old laptop that is Damn slow (Toshiba Satalite),it is taking 5 minutes (literally) to boot up and be ready to use. It is windows XP. We use it in the house, on the wireless, mostly surfing. Some e-mail. Occasionally write a word document. I want to have a faster web experience, should I a) reformat the hard drive and try to resuscitate this computer ( I am guessing $100 but will probably need it again in a year) b) buy a new, economy laptop, for $500, and be frustrated with that in another 3 years c) buy a netbook type computer for ~300 and see if that can last.

Any comments.. Obviously long term cost is a big issue here.. Mijo

Discussion is locked

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I fear a repeat of your last machine.

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Feb 7, 2009 9:42PM PST

To hit 500 you might be looking at those 1G Vista laptops which will only cause a repeat of your last slow machine.

I see 599 and less machines similar to the HP dv6910us that resumes from hibernation in about 20 seconds or less that has 3 to 4GB RAM and more.

I own the 350 buck Acer Aspire that runs XP and it boots in less than a minute HOWEVER I bet that people could slow it down with Norton and not scanning, keeping the malware out.
Bob

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PS. Skip Vista.

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Feb 8, 2009 3:40AM PST

I'm running Windows 7 and it's going to play out that Vista was Microsoft's next version of "Windows ME."

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Laptops prices are way better then they

by orlbuckeye Feb 8, 2009 2:51AM PST

have ever been. If you can hold till July Microsoft will be offering free upgrades to Windows 7 when it comes out at end of year. Window 7 won't require the horsepower that Vista required. Alot of time a slow start up is caused by garbage loaded at startup. You can try CCleaner which is a free utility you can download.

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My existing problem

by Mijo2much Feb 8, 2009 9:32AM PST

Well on my existing laptop, I have XP, and I run CCleaner about once a month. I set it up with AVAST and Spybot, turning off the Microsoft controls. I am not sure what is slowing it down. My personal thought is that it is all the XP hotfixes (which I keep current). I do my on-line banking on the laptop most of the time, anc check online satements, so I want to keep is secure.

I was just thinking, could I switch out XP for a Linux system? would that help me out?

Mijo

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Doesn't spybot conflict with some stuff?

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Feb 8, 2009 9:54AM PST

I'd eject that since we can live without it and do scans at our leisure with MBAM and SUPERANTISPYWARE.

Fix, buy economy or buy new?

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