The big slow down???

Hi! I'm the new owner of an Acer Aspire One with the six hour battery and Windows XP.

I bought it in December and didn't load it down with too much software. I have Photoshop Elements, MS Office and Firefox installed. I'm using McAfee Security Center for virus protection. I have only used a small fragment of the HD space.

I have only one complaint about this system: For the first two weeks, it would start up and I'd be surfing the 'net in less than five minutes. For the last three weeks though, It has started taking about 20 + minutes to start, load McAfee, launch Firefox and finally allowing me to surf!!

Any ideas on "why" the start-up slowdown??

Thanks! - davep

 

CCleaner - install and clean HDD...
Clear Temporary files, old prefetch data, old hot-fix backups...
Defragment HDD...
Restart...
Have fun...

I had similar issues long time ago. Be prepared to waist some time doing defrag - it's taking a while...

 

I would also recommend you to consider using less demanding antivirus (AVG, avast etc.) rather the McAfee. You also could look here
viewtopic.php?f=66&t=10535&p=69141#p69141
Defragmentation as already mentioned is a great help and should not be underestimated. It is time demanding, but I have split my 120 GB C drive to 2 partitions. Dfrg of the only 20 G is much quicker (but it would be for an another discussion).

 

My Aspire One was frustratingly slow sometimes. I figured out through trial and error that I could speed it up by plugging it into a wired ethernet, or by plugging in the AC adaptor -- either way, the sluggishness would be gone. It seems to be due to the "Power Save Mode" on the Atheros wireless network adapter. I turned this off and it completely solved the problem. (Thanks to this site and others that helped me find this!)

To do this, bring up the Device Manager (right-click on My Computer, select Properties, click the Hardware tab and select Device Manager).
In the Device Manager, open Network Adapters, right-click the Atheros adapter, and select Properties.
On the Advanced tab, select Power Save Mode, and then select the value "Off". (I haven't tried the "Normal" mode. It's the "Maximum" mode that seems to be the problem.)

I've used two different Aspire One units, and both of them had the slowness problem. I hope this helps someone!

John

 

Go to "RUN" in the "START" menu, click it and enter "msconfig" hit OK.

The System Configuration Utility menu will come up.
Click on the "Startup" tab on the far right.
Click on the "Disable All" button in the lower right corner then click OK.
You will get a message that you must restart your system for the changes to take effect.
Restart your system.

This will eliminate most all of those memory and processor hogging applets that are loaded at Windows Startup that you most likely do not need at all.

If you find you do need any of them go into "msconfig" again and enable the needed program.

Also, Running Firefox will save you nearly 250mb of memory over the use of Internet Explorer, (I believe you are already doing that).