Extremely slow laptop

[vizo]

I recently got around to trying to get my sisters old laptop to start working again but Im having a bit of trouble finding out the problem.

Its a near 4 year old HP Pavilion ZE1115. The specs, as far as I can remember include a 1.1ghz Duron, 20 gig WD HDD [5400 possibly] and 256MB of PC133. She first started having problems with it when she first got it. It would only show half of the full 1.1ghz in the System Properties and always seemed to be sluggishly slow on absolutely everything.

The same applies today.. it takes ages for the thing to boot up and shut down, tasks and active windows become unresponsive for about 5 minutes until they unfreeze and is just plain slow in every way. I reformatted the drive and tried reinstalling Windows XP earlier and the installation just plain stopped and got stuck on 36%, even when those lame "Welcome to Windows" description screens kept cycling over and over and over. I even rebooted and it still got stuck at 36 or 37%. The "CDrom access" light wasnt flashing at all either.

What is the most logical problem here? Possibly a bad hard drive since everything is slow? Bad memory since not more than one thing can happen before the system bogs down? The CPU since it usually only shows ~500mhz in the System Properties window?

Any suggestions are more than welcome...

[PrntRhd]

What OS?
I would suspect inadequate RAM for obvious reasons.

[Wandrille]

chek in ur bios and try to change the speed of ur cpu cuz it is probbly underclocked

[mjc]

It could be several things...most likely a combination of them.

What BIOS options are there? HPs usually have very limited options and laptops are even more limited, also. But ther should be at least something in the BIOS that will tell you if it is correctly reading the CPU.

If the CPU is correct then is the drive correct? Does the BIOS correctly report it?

What options are there for the hard drive? LBA? UDMA mode?

Is the CD drive permanently mounted or a pop out?

If it is in a carrier of sorts, is it completely seated?

If the drive checks out, then find the manufacturer and download their diagnostics. Many are available to be burned to a bootable CD, that should allow you to test the hard drive (as I doubt ther eis a floppy for the thing).

[vizo]

I already mentioned Windows XP :)

The only options in the BIOS are for Boot Order Devices and Time and Date. I doubt it has anything to do with the CPU being underclocked, and even if it is, then HP underclocked it because my sister isnt computer savy and wouldnt know how to do that.

I'm suspecting memory, but why would that cause it to freeze during XP install?

The CD is a popout, but why would that cause the lagging in Windows XP itself?

Nothing makes sense..

[mjc]

Many laptops have the capability of underclocking the CPU to save power...so that is a possibility.

Yes, there could be a RAM problem, but generally there are less performance issues and more definite errors when there is a RAM problem.

[PrntRhd]

I meant I felt 256MB was inadequate RAM for XP.

[vizo]

I meant I felt 256MB was inadequate RAM for XP.

I understand that, but why would HP preload XP onto the laptop then? Also, 256 is enough for XP Home. This isnt a gaming laptop we're talking about.. it wont even load Notepad without lagging out for 5 minutes! :confused:

If you were me, which would you try replacing first.. RAM or HDD? Ill be doing that tomorrow because Im leaving town in 2 days and would like to have this done before I leave.

Thanks for the replies so far :D

[PrntRhd]

HP sent it out with 256MB because it is one way to make the notebook cheaper, just take out some RAM...
Yes it will boot EVENTUALLY, and it will run but SLOWLY.
I had 256MB in my Toshiba notebook when delivered, it ran but was a pain. Maxed it out and it was a night and day difference.
Is yours running FAT32 or NTFS? Has the HDD been defragged?

It would only show half of the full 1.1ghz in the System Properties and always seemed to be sluggishly slow on absolutely everything.
Now this is worrying me.

[vizo]

HP sent it out with 256MB because it is one way to make the notebook cheaper, just take out some RAM...
Yes it will boot EVENTUALLY, and it will run but SLOWLY.
I had 256MB in my Toshiba notebook when delivered, it ran but was a pain. Maxed it out and it was a night and day difference.
Is yours running FAT32 or NTFS? Has the HDD been defragged?


Now this is worrying me.

The drive has been reformatted in NTSF many times and defragging does nothing. I know they ship it with 256 because its cheaper, thats not the reason I asked. I asked because it made it seem like the person who said that 256 wasnt enough meant that it wasnt enough to even load Notepad..

[PrntRhd]

With NTFS a single defrag is about as good as it gets and seldom needed after.

Back to the System Properties only showing half the Duron's speed, I think that is the indication of likely bottleneck. Any AMD gurus want to take a shot at this?

[vizo]

Memtest86 was run and had two successful passes without any errors so it seems like the ram isnt bad. Ill continue to run more UBCD tests however.

[vizo]

The HDD was making this weird 5 second stuttering sound over and over when it got stuck during the installation process. Ill go buy a new HDD today and see if thats the problem. I also tried Powermax but everytime I try to do either the Quick or Full test it says "Please contact Maxtor customer service in your area for more assistance," tells me to hit any key, and after trying to find the Any key , I do so and it says the test was Aborted. Does this seem like a bad drive to you?

[vizo]

It was the hard drive, it finally gave in and gave me some error codes after scanning and scanning.

Should I email HP and ask which drives work best with their notebooks or would someone here know? Thanks.

[mjc]

Any laptop drive should work. I'm sure some of the others who have played around with laptops more can give more specific recommendations.

[saphalline]

SDRAM. 28-bit LBA limit should be assumed. Don't buy a new hard drive larger than 120GB.

[lobbslobb]

I use Registry Fix, very reliable, it finds and repairs any registry errors, these occur after you've had your PC/laptop for a while and haven't cleaned the registry.

Believe me this WILL speed up your compute. Try the free download and scan now


;) ;) ;)

[mjc]

What does a register mangling app have to do with a drive failure?

Begone, spammer.

[DLeonR]

When buying a new HHD for your laptop, just be sure of the type of data connecting cable. They are not all the same.