Resurrecting an "old" laptop

[Guest mrsvic]

Can I ask my laptop problem here??!

I have an old (2004) compaq presario laptop which has this spec:

Intel Pentium IV 2.6Ghz processor

704Mb DDR RAM

40Gb Hard Drive

(I Think)

Other than being used as a hard drive for the entire collection of South Park episodes by MrVic, it has been generally unused for a year or 2... We are now trying to get it working to give it away, where it will be used mainly for the internet... can it be 'fixed' to do this?

We have tried re-whatevering it with the initial disks... then installing the critical updates... then we installed Norton, but it slowed down, so we uninstalled it... now it's gone slow again... all I want is for it to be able to connect to the internet with the speed it had before... I used it when I had broadband, and it was never this slow before... has the internet changed? Is this the problem?

Any advice would be so appreciated! Even just some advice on whether I should try to take it to a computer technician for a fix or should I sell it on That online auction site that is in no way as good as Free Bedlington.co.uk Classifieds and put the money towards a cheap netbook?

This is just all too much!

[threegee]

Got a model number? 2.6GH/z is not at all slow (unless you are running Vista). 40GB is more than plenty if you are not collecting HD movies.

I'm using a 1GH/z CPU on this pre-netbook at this instant and it's plenty fast for what I'm doing. It probably pre-dates yours by a year or two. Wouldn't swap it for the latest cheapo notebook.

Anyway at first viewing it looks like a bad case of Windoze bloat rather than a hardware problem. Bring it up with -FREE- Ubuntu and it will rock. Ubuntu will run OK with 512MB or even less, and even with all the freeware take up about half the disk space of Windows. You'll also learn that you don't need to keep shelling out for O/S upgrades, and buy (or steal) application software. You know it makes sense!

Viri will be far less of a problem too. Virus writers seldom target Linux users because there's no mileage in it.

[Mr Darn]

If you do go with another reinstalation, use an Anti-Virus such as Avast or avira as norton will seriously reduce performance on a low spec machine.

Should Norton be pre-installed with the recovery disks, download the new Anti-Virus, then download the Norton Removal Tool relevant to your product, disconnect from the internet, use the removal tool, reboot and then install one of the free Anti-Virus programs.

You dont say which operating system you are using, i assume XP from the computers age.

Simply using the removal tool without reformatting again may save alot of windows update download and installation time,(unless you have an SP3 disk) and may solve the slowness.

Remember, its not advisable to use more than one Anti-Virus at a time!

[Guest mrsvic]

Oh hell!

Decided on a recovery to try and use that as a starting point (would have tried the new O/S if that didn't work GGG!)... Sadly, after an hour of attempting to get the first CD to load properly, and then another 90 mins of installing the other 3 disks, I restarted to find a critical file is now missing and I have to start over! Where has it gone? Damnit. Can anybody tell me? Is it on the CD? Is it on the PC? The file is critical, as is my sanity at this point.

(I would be feeling a bit chirpier at this point, watching the Charlie Brooker quiz on C4 as I wait, but bloody Germain Greer is on, which adds to my fury)

* I apologise for any 'blue' language used in this post or subsequent this evening. The computer drove me to it, and I will moderate myself in the morning if someone doesn't beat me to it.

[threegee]

Sound advice from JohnD.

What's the name of the critical file?

<rant>

This is what happen when you patch patches to the n-th degree. All in the interests of selling you the same code again - which you happily pay again for in order to break free of the mess. The service pack concept must have made countless billions for MS. Issuing sub-versions of the entire O/S would have done the World a favour. But, MS isn't in the business of making things easy, it's in the business of screwing the World for every last buck! Meanwhile the regulators focus on all the wrong things - like browser choice, where no one makes any money out of browsers anyway.

</rant>