# Best OS for old laptop?



## ajrobson (Aug 2, 2006)

What OS would run the quickest on a laptop with:

intel 4 3.00 ghz
768mb of ram
17gig hdd 
ati mobility radeon 9700

It is currently running xp home but it can be really slow if doing more then a few things at once. I don't want to spend money on the laptop because I have a good pc and only use this for when I can't be bothered to go to my office.

I only use the laptop for checking emails, playing a few old games, watching vids and running Office. Any advice on a better os to try?


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## Mumbodog (Oct 3, 2007)

Its a single core CPU, no OS is going to make it faster when multi tasking. : -(

If it is an old installation of Home, I would do a clean install.

.


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## johnny919h1234 (Feb 7, 2010)

Yes I'd do the same thing, clean XP install..


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

XP should run well on that laptop. No newer O/S will give you better performance, and older ones, with maybe Windows 2000, are simply too old these days. You could go with a Linux distro like Ubuntu but as mentioned above a format and reinstall generally does marvels to resolve performance issues.

P.S. Its very unusual to have a 3.0 Ghz Pentium 4 laptop with a Radeon 9700 graphics card paired with only a 17GB(20GB) drive. I'd thing the drive is either split into multiple parts or not fully partition to the maximum size. And if you've run out of the space on the 17GB partition that could be why its slow as well.


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## lilb (Sep 16, 2009)

ajrobson said:


> What OS would run the quickest on a laptop with:
> 
> intel 4 3.00 ghz
> 768mb of ram
> ...


download "Piriform CCleaner" google it you will find a link run the cleaner and the registry fixer a few times, and download "Glary utilities" both free by the way, then your computer will run much better. Also get piriform Defraggler and defrag your harddrive. also getting rid of unused programs will help.


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## loserOlimbs (Jun 19, 2004)

registry cleaner? YUCK!!!

I would do a clean install, maybe upgrade the RAM, though not essential. 17GB hard drive for the rest of those specs is very odd...

XP would probably be the best Windows OS, followed by 7. Thoug I would opt for a nice Linux before 7 if speed is your primary concern, Ubuntu is good, or Red Hat.


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## lilb (Sep 16, 2009)

loserOlimbs said:


> registry cleaner? YUCK!!!
> 
> I would do a clean install, maybe upgrade the RAM, though not essential. 17GB hard drive for the rest of those specs is very odd...
> 
> XP would probably be the best Windows OS, followed by 7. Thoug I would opt for a nice Linux before 7 if speed is your primary concern, Ubuntu is good, or Red Hat.


yeah registry cleaner i used it and tweaked the startup proccesses on my brothers old laptop ie Intel pentium M 1.8ghz 486mbs ram and a 16mb graphics running xp, and it worked alot better for him, also defragged hardrive removed viruses etc... and he says it runs better than new now.


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## dustyjay (Jan 24, 2003)

Registry cleaners often do more damage to the registry than they help. CCleaner can be used but I would stay away from the registry cleaner option.


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## lilb (Sep 16, 2009)

dustyjay said:


> Registry cleaners often do more damage to the registry than they help. CCleaner can be used but I would stay away from the registry cleaner option.


well yes that is correct i usually get rid of stray entries etc.. myself my bro was looking for a quick fix so i used a registry cleaner.


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## lilb (Sep 16, 2009)

But i just help people as a hobbie so i don't know more than i need to so I'm going to stay out of this one. Weird thing is though I've had 4 computers myself and have fixed maybe 30 other computers ie getting rid of viruses getting virus programs, deleting unused programs defraggin upgrading overclocking etc.. and each time ive used CCleaner and none of them have ever had a problem after i used the registry fixer, but im guessing its a rare issue??


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## crjdriver (Jan 2, 2001)

lilb said:


> But i just help people as a hobbie so i don't know more than i need to so I'm going to stay out of this one. Weird thing is though I've had 4 computers myself and have fixed maybe 30 other computers ie getting rid of viruses getting virus programs, deleting unused programs defraggin upgrading overclocking etc.. and each time ive used CCleaner and none of them have ever had a problem after i used the registry fixer, but im guessing its a rare issue??


Registry cleaners are generally not recommended. They very often do more harm than good. The best one I have found is Auslogic reg cleaner. It seems to generate the least problems AND it is a free download.


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## ajrobson (Aug 2, 2006)

Thanks for all the replies. I had a look and windows was installed in 2004!! so I will try a reinstall. 

Just curious is there a way to see if my hard drive is partioned? "My computer" says I have 2 hard drives both around 17.7 gig. I could just open up the laptop but if theres a quicker way to see I would rather do that.


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## dustyjay (Jan 24, 2003)

Most laptops only have one hard drive. There are some that have the ability to have two hard drives.


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## 1002richards (Jan 29, 2006)

Hi,
If you're interested in Linux ... you could look at those versions aimed at less turbo-charged machines such as:

Xubuntu

http://www.xubuntu.org/

#! Crunchbang

http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/about

or LXDE

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/lxde-light...or-ubuntu.html

These are are all Ubuntu based btw.

Hope these of interest?

Richard


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## ajrobson (Aug 2, 2006)

Just checked and its on hdd thats been partioned into two. Thanks for the help guys will reinstall soon.


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