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Helped needed Notebook speed, free space on c/ |
ofiaich
Joined: Nov 12, 2001
Posts: > 500
From: East Yorkshire, England
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Hi!
I am using a Sony VAIO VGN TX51B. It is a Japanese model with Japanese Windows XP. I bought it second hand in Japan because the man who owned it wanted the newest model with finger print reader. Fortunately, he was not Yakuza.
The model was probably released as a TX-2 in England. I like the way you can use media without launching Windows.
I bought a long life battery, which Sony claimed would run for 11 plus hours ! In reality, just over 7, is what I get. The battery is a Sony VGP-BPL5A
Technology: Li-ion
Rating: 7.4 V
Capacity: 13000 mAh
Now to my question. The Hard disc is divided into C:/ and D:/ and I seem to remember being told that I need to keep a good amount of free space on the C:/ drive
I am wondering because the notebook seems to have slowed up a lot!
I would have thought that Windows XP sorts this out for itself...
Any advice or tips on how to get it to speed up are always welcomed !
Ofiaich 
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esato since Nov, 12, 2001
[ This Message was edited by: ofiaich on 2009-02-02 17:23 ] |
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masseur
Joined: Jan 03, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Sydney, London
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my first thought reading your post... 13000mAh battery? thats a hell of a huge battery. even my extended battery on my current Z series is only 8400mAh!
anyway, I find that once a year I need to backup my files and use the vaio restore discs to go back to factory setting, do the windows updates and the vaio updates and then install the software I actually use and then restore my data in order to get the best performance from my XP/Vista machines.
but... as a start its worth doing a disk cleanup (found in accessories > system tools) and make sure you include temporary internet files and as much other stuff that it offers that you don't need.
then try a defrag (found in the same menu)
that'll probably make some difference to you but also make sure you run some good anti virus and anti spyware software to make sure something else is not taking your performance. Also use task manager/processes to see what is actually running and check for anything consuming CPU that is unexpected
edit: btw, I'd also trash the D drive and give all the space to the C drive. these days with FAT32 and NTFS there's no need to create these separate partitions
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Unless I'm very much mistaken...
A-ZoTT
[ This Message was edited by: masseur on 2009-02-02 17:35 ] |
ofiaich
Joined: Nov 12, 2001
Posts: > 500
From: East Yorkshire, England
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thanks for your quick reply masseur!
I am with you on all but not sure how to trash the D drive..
I will do the others now as I know I have not done them for a while..
Does anyone have a good benchmark test program to recommend so I can see improvements?
Thanks again!
Ofiaich
esato since Nov, 12, 2001  |
Cycovision
Joined: Nov 30, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: England
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^^^
I seem to recall that you like to do a bit of video encoding occasionally?
That's the best benchmark, encode a video before and after and see if it takes less time after the maintenance!
Gets the processor, memory and hard drive going better than any benchmarking tool 
But if you want to be really geeky, there's always PCMark05 basic
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masseur
Joined: Jan 03, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Sydney, London
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on the other hand... you yourself have noticed the degredation in performance and so I'm sure you yourself will appreciate the performance gains you get from whatever you decide to do... you don't really need to measure it empirically
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Cycovision
Joined: Nov 30, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: England
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Precisely. If you're going to test performance, test by doing things that you would normally do. You'll know pretty much instantly if there's been an improvement or not.
Benchmarks are good for burn-in tests but not much else. Except bragging rights on gaming forums...
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ofiaich
Joined: Nov 12, 2001
Posts: > 500
From: East Yorkshire, England
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masseur and Cycovision !
thanks very much! Very helpful advice !
i use this for my travels. do encoding on my desktp pc.
ofiaich
esato since Nov, 12, 2001 |
ofiaich
Joined: Nov 12, 2001
Posts: > 500
From: East Yorkshire, England
PM |
hi again!
edit: btw, I'd also trash the D drive and give all the space to the C drive. these days with FAT32 and NTFS there's no need to create these separate partitions
can i do this easily within Windows XP ?
Ofiaich
esato since Nov, 12, 2001 |
masseur
Joined: Jan 03, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Sydney, London
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I don't think so, but the last few vaio restore discs I have had have had the option to change partition size before restoring... or get partition magic or even better... I use Acronis Trueimage to backup my hard drives etc and it gives the option to repartition on restore
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paul101
Joined: Mar 26, 2007
Posts: > 500
From: first to last
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vista has an inbuilt partition manager that is more than capable at resizing those partitions
how many gb have you got free on the c drive?
I don't wanna sleep
I don't wanna dream
'cause my dreams don't comfort me |
ofiaich
Joined: Nov 12, 2001
Posts: > 500
From: East Yorkshire, England
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thanks again masseur!
I will do some reading and thinking!
Disc Cleanup on the c:/ is taking a while ! So maybe when I do the d:/ next, then defrag, I will notice the difference !
hi paul101 !
c:/ has 15.4 gb in use and 3.21 gb free
d:/ has 14.8 gb in use and 36.4 gb free
Ofiaich
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esato since Nov, 12, 2001
[ This Message was edited by: ofiaich on 2009-02-02 19:52 ] |
ofiaich
Joined: Nov 12, 2001
Posts: > 500
From: East Yorkshire, England
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hi!
just to update! After doing the clean up and de-frag, new figures are
c:/ has 12.3 gb in use and 6.26 gb free
d:/ has 11.0 gb in use and 40.2 gb free
VAIO seems faster now but will check for other programmes that are not needed tomorrow, and will uninstall them.
thanks to all!
Ofiaich 
esato since Nov, 12, 2001 |
Daedalus85
Joined: Apr 23, 2007
Posts: > 500
From: Suffolk, UK
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Ouch! Thats a teeny tiny hard drive...
Thats Sony for you I suppose, rip off as usual...
My opinions on this forum are that of my own and not of the company I work for. |
carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
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@ofiaich
I prefer to use CCleaner to clean up the drives, it's very quick and customiseable although I just leave it on the default settings and it does a great job.
I had my previous computer for nearly 4 years and it was getting very slow. Using CCleaner I got rid of 4GB of unnecessary junk, and regular defrag's got the 40GB hard drive fragmented zones down to almost nothing. Processing speed improved markedly.
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ofiaich
Joined: Nov 12, 2001
Posts: > 500
From: East Yorkshire, England
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@Daedalus85!
Yes, it is a small hard drive but this notebook is quite a few years old ! I remember buying it on the 14th August, 2006!
I think it was £1499 - £1699 when first released in the UK!!
@carkitter!
thanks for this information! I will give it these a try.
I would think there is no point to put Windows Vista on it?
Ofiaich
esato since Nov, 12, 2001 |
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Posted: 2009-02-02 18:20
