Why is AAO Better than New HP dv9700T 17"?

About four months ago I purchased an HP dv9700T which cost about $1,250.00 and has an Intel T8100 (Penryn) Core 2 Duo processor with an nVidia GeForce 8600 dedicated graphics card (32bit Vista Home Premium on 3Gigs of RAM). I actually really like this laptop, it's a beautiful piece and the best I've ever had. I thought Vista was running beautifully on it. However, occasionally while I'm watching a video and I try to either load a program or another page, I sometimes get some stuttering in the audio briefly while the page loads (unless it has been recently rebooted). Also, if I try to view my Slingbox Solo Video (connected to a Tivo at home) in much more than a small window, it does not display it clearly (distortion). Yet, on both counts, the Acer Aspire One (XP, 1Gig RAM, 160HD, new) significantly outperforms the HP. Loading a page has yet to cause even the smallest hiccup while watching streaming video or listening to audio, and while the Slingbox software, when set to run on full screen mode, doesn't really cover the entire screen as it does on the HP, it still expands to a much larger size without distortion than is possible on the HP. I am thinking that the 3Gigs of RAM on the HP may not be enough (the only way to change this would be to go to 64bit) but, is there something else which might explain what is happening in this case? Frankly, all my laptops stuttered (and a lot more than the HP) at times when loading other pages or programs into memory. The Acer Aspire One seems to be the first that I have seen that does not. Why, is there something wrong with the HP? Is it possible that the AAO is better somehow?

Thanks for any input.

 

Check whether the RAM modules in your HP are two equal sized rather than one module twice the other, for Core 2 Duo to work properly. I got into this with Dell sales over this, and their tech support eventually confirmed it: for my system I should either get 2 X 1gig or 2 X 2gig since those were the only sized modules for that notebook. You might not be getting the benefit of two processors, and depending on hardware configuration, might not be getting the benefit of the combined modules for one processor.

 

That had not occurred to me and it makes sense. I believe that 32bit Vista can only address 3Gigs max but I'm not sure about how that works either. I know that my HP is actually built to take either the 32 or the 64bit OS though. I deliberately chose the 32 bit configuration. Thanks Forone.

 

It is not an issue of only taking 3gb of memory as it is of the 32 bit version RECOGNIZING 3 to 3.5gb of memory. You can have 2 x 2gb stick but the OS will probably only utilize 3.5gb. You will still be better off with the 2 x 2 gb sticks than having one 2 gb and 1x 1 gb.

 

Thank for the additional comments. I'm going to have to make time to correct these problems. The good news is that it's beginning to look like I will be able to use the AA1 far more than I had anticipated.