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Is it normal for my computer to be this slow?

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  • Is it normal for my computer to be this slow?

    As you may know, I've recently bought a Tablet PC as my main (and now only) system. It has an intel Core Duo 1.66 GHz, 1 Gig of DDR2 RAM (2x 512 MB), and intel i945 integrated graphics. This is my first system with integrated graphics, and my first notebook.

    My previous PC was an Athlon XP 3 GHz with Deskstar 180GXP, 1.5 GB DDR, nVidia 6600GT AGP. I never found that system to be too slow (except for some newer games, but that wasn't important to me).

    Is it normal for a system like this to be so slow in windows? I can't quite decide if it's the harddisk (not 7200 rpm) or the integrated graphics - it's not the processor being throttled down from what I can tell, because I have told the system with some Toshiba app to allow the CPU to run at full speed, and CPU utilization is never high anyways (well, sometimes some app seems to saturate one core though, but that's not what I'm talking about). Every time the animation for "hide systray icons that are not in use" plays (the little arrow sliding along the systray, hiding the icons as it goes), the system slows down horribly for the second or so this takes. It's no big deal, but it's very irritating, because even the mouse lags a lot during that time, causing me to miss where I wanted to point. And it just feels wrong for such an expensive machine to feel this slow. I never had that with my old system. Also, loading graphics in windows (start menu, desktop when it hadn't been shown for a while, etc.) takes much more time than it did on the old computer.

    It sometimes really feels as if the system is struggling when both the graphics adapter and the CPU want to access RAM, which makes sense, but then again, I have much more bandwidth now than I had before with single-channel DDR1. Do I have to do something to make sure the RAM is used in dual-channel mode? Can I somehow speed up the integrated graphics? I knew when I got this system it wasn't a gaming machine, but I expected no slowdowns in Windows. What gives? Oddly enough, stuff like transparent rectangles for selections (slowed down my Kyro II A LOT), or showing window contents when moving windows causes no slowdown at all.

    Is it normal to have the graphics adapter in my device manager showing up twice (no exclamation mark)?

    Oh, the windows install is almost fresh. You wouldn't believe the crap Toshiba loads on their laptops by default. I had EIGHTY processes running just after starting windows, and the systray covered a third of the screen at 1440 width!
    There's an Opera in my macbook.

  • #2
    have you checked if your drive is in udma mode?
    If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

    Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

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    • #3
      Yes, 5.
      There's an Opera in my macbook.

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      • #4
        your graphics card probably shows twice, since it will let you connect an external monitor for dualhead
        We have enough youth - What we need is a fountain of smart!


        i7-920, 6GB DDR3-1600, HD4870X2, Dell 27" LCD

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        • #5
          All I can tell you that if you put 2 laptops side by side and the only difference is the Hard Drive RPM, one 5400 and the other 7200, you will see a major speed difference.

          And you're right. Toshiba, Dell, etc does load so much crap on the machines, it is an overkill for most of them. Also not a fan of Norton Antivirus, it can slow you down more then you think.
          Diplomacy, it's a way of saying “nice doggie”, until you find a rock!

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          • #6
            Yeah, I thought that may be it too, but I don't think my GF did that, and it had two outputs as well.
            There's an Opera in my macbook.

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            • #7
              The CPU on most laptops doesn't always run at full speeds (intel speedstep), I'm sure there's an option somewhere for that, could be what your looking for. When it's activated in the bios on mine, sometimes just booting can take an extra 30seconds.
              Titanium is the new bling!
              (you heard from me first!)

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              • #8
                It's possible that the CPU isn't running full speed, but more likely that the combination of:

                1. HDD
                2. Shared GFX Ram
                3. Too many programs running

                Is what's kicking your butt. My wife's laptop is snappier at times than mine, even though mine is technically faster, because hers has dedicated GFX RAM (Radeon 7500 Mobile). But mine has a faster HDD, so anything that needs the disk makes mine look golden.

                Laptops are always a tradeoff, tablets especially so.
                The Internet - where men are men, women are men, and teenage girls are FBI agents!

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                • #9
                  Maybe a combination of cpu throttling and shared ram.
                  Titanium is the new bling!
                  (you heard from me first!)

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                  • #10
                    Adware etc? That can really get a laptop by the berries.
                    Dr. Mordrid
                    ----------------------------
                    An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

                    I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

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                    • #11
                      System is clean and not throttled. It isn't slow most of the time, only when I/O happens and/or windows animates, so I guess it's just the slow HD and integrated graphics. Since I've never had a system with a slow HD and also never with integrated graphics, maybe I'm just spoiled.
                      There's an Opera in my macbook.

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                      • #12
                        Tune down your visual effects set it to Adjust for best performance it should make a big difference, intel i945 integrated graphics are very slow.
                        Main: Dual Xeon LV2.4Ghz@3.1Ghz | 3X21" | NVidia 6800 | 2Gb DDR | SCSI
                        Second: Dual PIII 1GHz | 21" Monitor | G200MMS + Quadro 2 Pro | 512MB ECC SDRAM | SCSI
                        Third: Apple G4 450Mhz | 21" Monitor | Radeon 8500 | 1,5Gb SDRAM | SCSI

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                        • #13
                          As said above, just put it in "Best for Performance" Mode.
                          That really does help a lot on integrated systems.

                          Works wonders on our i845 systems at work...which run celerons as well...
                          PC-1 Fractal Design Arc Mini R2, 3800X, Asus B450M-PRO mATX, 2x8GB B-die@3800C16, AMD Vega64, Seasonic 850W Gold, Black Ice Nemesis/Laing DDC/EKWB 240 Loop (VRM>CPU>GPU), Noctua Fans.
                          Nas : i3/itx/2x4GB/8x4TB BTRFS/Raid6 (7 + Hotspare) Xpenology
                          +++ : FSP Nano 800VA (Pi's+switch) + 1600VA (PC-1+Nas)

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                          • #14
                            There are a few things I do want though, like font smoothing and styles (I've grown accustomed to luna...) and moving windows with contents. And as I said, I have no problems with these things. I have already disabled all animations I don't need/want. I think more and more that it's the harddrive. Well, maybe I'll get a faster, bigger model in a few months. It's not that bad, just annoying.
                            There's an Opera in my macbook.

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                            • #15
                              Windows XP Performance tweaks

                              These tweaks have helped me.
                              P.S. You've been Spanked!

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