Best plan of action for a friends nearly useless laptop

[Hi Ho]

A friend of mine has asked me to help her make her laptop usable. It is an Acer TravelMate 2480 and it is painfully slow. The tiny hard drive is full and it is running Vista Basic with only 512 MB of RAM. It takes about 5 minutes to boot and the hard drive NEVER stops running. It is constantly using the page file. It is essentially unusable. It hangs for minutes at a time when instructed to complete the simplest tasks (like opening the start menu).

I have told her not to put much into it and to save up for a new laptop but in the mean time she wants it to work. I am going to add 1 GB of RAM. That is a cheap upgrade that should make a difference.

The problem I have is I think it would be best to wipe the hard drive and start over. I would like to put XP on it but I do not have an extra XP license and I do not think it is worth the cost of purchasing one for this machine. Windows 7 can be had for around $60 using her student discount but, again, I don't believe that to be a wise investment since a new laptop would come with a new copy of Windows 7 and it would not perform much better on this machine than Vista Basic.

She has no recovery CD's. There appears to be a recovery partition but I do not know how to activate it. Does anyone have experience doing a system recovery on an Acer TravelMate? Is it even possible without the discs? Would I be able to use an OEM Vista Basic disc with the key that is stuck to the bottom of the laptop?

I don't want to wipe anything unless I can be sure I can get it up and running again. Thanks.

[Nuclear Krusader]

It's possible without the CDs, if you know the keyboard combination. Google for it, using the model.

Another way to recover back to factory is to use the Acer eRecovery from within Windows. You best delete some of her junk before you attempt this. The problem is NOT Vista; the problem is the hard drive is full and the page file can't grow past a certain size.

For the record, with such skimpy amount of RAM, even XP-OS will run slow after you've installed all upgrades and service packs.

You're right, it's not worth to invest any more money into this machine. Even the extra RAM is a waste IMO. Before you purchase anything, make sure you can restore to factory. If the hidden partition hasn't been messed with you should be able to. Restore to factory and then evaluate whether to purchase memory or not. I you can't restore then simply tell her that the machine is a brick.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Originally Posted by Hi Ho Would I be able to use an OEM Vista Basic disc with the key that is stuck to the bottom of the laptop?

Yes. We do this at the shop all the time. As long as you're using the same version the laptop has on (Basic with a Basic CD, Ultimate with an Ultimate CD, and so forth), the key should work.

UPDATE:
Tried Googling for the key combination, but all I could find was a bunch of useless responses. If I remember correctly, the key combo is Alt+F10: at the Acer screen upon turning it on, hold Alt and keep tapping F10. If that doesn't work, then try the eRecovery from within Windows. Hope she didn't set up a password...

[Hi Ho]

I have a copy of Vista Home Premium that I have no use for. Do you think this laptop would have a problem running it if I added 1 GB of RAM bringing the total to 1.5 GB? It has a Celeron M (1.4Ghz I think) and a 40GB hard drive.

[Nuclear Krusader]

My Vista laptop has only 1 GB and runs fine. Sure, it's not fast as my desktop, but Windows laptops are ALWAYS slower. Problem is all the drivers they have to load and all the TSRs that control the volume and quick access buttons and the like.

The HDD is way too small for to-day's standards. Unless she's gonna use it just for text documents and spreadsheets, I wouldn't even bother much. If she's gonna load pictures and videos and **gasp** iTunes/Music, she's gonna fill it up faster than it's gonna take you to fix it. (Plus, don't forget all those darned Windows updates.)

That copy may work, but try all you can to get the eRecovery running first.

UPDATE:
Found you the Acer's support page for that unit: http://us.acer.com/acer/service.do?L...CRC=2054404012

[Hi Ho]

Thanks for the responses. I have limited experience with laptops. I only know what I've seen with my Toshiba which came with Vista. When I wiped it and installed a fresh OEM copy of Vista it ran significantly faster. Today, with Windows 7 Pro, it runs better than ever. It boots in 26 seconds. I have never reinstalled the drivers for the buttons or volume controls and they are all functional.

[Nuclear Krusader]

The Acer support page has the manual. Yes, the key combo is Alt+F10.

Restore and recovery The restore and recovery features allow you to restore or recover the system from a factory default image, from a user created image, or from previously created CD and DVD backups. You can also reinstall applications and drivers for your Acer system. 1 Press + or select Acer eRecovery Management from the Empowering Technology toolbar to start Acer eRecovery Management. 2 Switch to the restore and recovery page by selecting the Restore button. 3 Select the backup point you would like to restore from. You can also choose to recover the system from a factory default image, recover from a previously created CD/DVD or reinstall applications and drivers. 4 Follow the instructions on screen to complete the process.

If that key combination doesn't work, then the MBR was modified and the partition is most likely screwed and inaccessible. You can still try from within Windows as I suggested above (worked for me once). If you can't either way, brick it.

[glc]

Nuke and pave the hard drive and put XP on it. I just checked and drivers are available. A 2 GB ram kit to max it out is 48 bucks from Crucial.

[Hi Ho]

As I said, I would like to put XP on it but I don't think that the cost of a license and RAM is worth it on this machine.

I discovered when I connected the drive to another PC to copy files that it is in fact an 80 GB drive partitioned in two 40 GB chunks.

I have run the system recovery and it now actually works. It's pretty slow but it is 100x better than it was. I ordered 2 GB of RAM from Newegg. Once that gets here I'll call it good and tell her to start saving for a new laptop because this one is pretty beat up and who knows when something will go seriously wrong.

[Nuclear Krusader]

One thing you can do to speed it up is to disable unnecessary programs, such as Automatic Updates. The autoupdates process takes about 80 MB of RAM, and sometimes, depending on the system and Windows version, goes past 100MB. On a machine with less than 1 GB of RAM (remember to substract the amount used for video), this tends to reduce the performance. Just make sure you manually run the updates every week and you should be fine.

[Hi Ho]

It took all day to install all of the updates on this machine. It is finally all caught up. SP1 took almost three hours. Once it has more RAM, auto update shouldn't be a problem. I doubt she would remember to run Windows update. I have disabled services according to the Black Viper guide.

[glc]

How much are you paying for the Newegg ram including shipping?

[Hi Ho]

I paid $33 and change shipped. It's A-Data RAM but I've used it before as a budget option without issues. If it doesn't work I'll send it back.

[glc]

It should work fine - the 1 gig chip that came in my EeePC was A-Data. I replaced it with a 2 gig Corsair and it works fine too.

[quartet-man]

I presume one of the two partitions is the recovery partition.

[glc]

Nope - there is also a hidden recovery partition on Acers. Acer breaks the rest of the drive into 2 relatively equal partitions and installs Windows on the first one. The second one is left blank for whatever you want to do with it. Asus does the same thing.

[quartet-man]

My Lenovo netbook has two partitions. One has the drivers and it appears recovery data while the other is mostly for storage.

[allfiredup]

Originally Posted by Hi Ho I have run the system recovery and it now actually works. It's pretty slow but it is 100x better than it was. I ordered 2 GB of RAM from Newegg. Once that gets here I'll call it good and tell her to start saving for a new laptop because this one is pretty beat up and who knows when something will go seriously wrong.

The additional RAM will do wonders, but a few steps you can take to wring a little more performance out of it-

1) Download Revo Uninstaller - REVO- choose FREE not PRO
Use it to uninstall every program/app that she doesn't need or use. It not only uninstalls the program, but it searches for leftover files and registry entries and gets rid of them as well- less junk = better performance.

2) Disable any SERVICES in Windows Vista that aren't necessary. Here's a good list to explain which Services can be safely disabled and how to go about it- VISTA Services

3) Tweak VISTA for performance rather than appearance- From the Start Button, select Control Panel, then System, then Advanced System Settings. Select the 'Advanced' tab and either choose 'Adjust for Best Performance' or 'Custom' and only check the boxes that you really feel are necessary.

Hope this helps...

[glc]

PC Decrapifier does an excellent job of uninstalling the preloaded junk without going through and running each uninstaller manually.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Just be careful with PC Decrapifier on Acer systems that use WinLocker from Egis. This trialware is best to remove manually via the Programs section in the Control Panel.

PC Decrap won't remove it properly: it does delete some of its files, but doesn't remove it completely. The result is that because of those deleted files you won't be able to uninstall the app.

[allfiredup]

PC Decrapifier is especially useful on new (or 'restored to factory settings') systems that are notorious for having the MOST pre-installed crapware out-of-the-box- Toshiba and HP are the most notorious in my experience! Removing each unwanted item individually has taken me well over two hours on an HP Pavilion laptop...not fun!

Revo Uninstaller works better, in my opinion, on systems with no more than 7-8 programs/items to remove. One of the best things about Revo is that it runs the uninstaller for each program first, then searches for the crap (files, empty file folders, temp files, registry entries, etc) that the uninstaller leaves behind and lets you delete it. If there is no uninstaller for the program or it errors out before completing, Revo will basically "force" the uninstall! I've used it on numerous Dell laptops (both consumer and business models, including my Latitude E6400) and on few ThinkPads also.

CCleaner is the other clean-up utility that I keep installed on all my systems permanently. It requires some tweaking to set it up so it won't delete certain things (such as the cookies you don't want deleted from your browser each time you run it), but once you do it's amazing how much CRAP it deletes even on a daily basis. It also has a Registry Cleaner tool, but be sure to backup your registry prior to using it, just to be safe! Here's some info here on PCMech about CCleaner- CCleaner

[Nuclear Krusader]

PC Decrapifier also runs the program's uninstaller first.