Computer malarkey
Turbo Mini Forums

Before I start, I'm no computer genius, so answers in English please.

Right! My laptop has gradually been getting slower and slower recently. Its now about 4 years old but is fine for what I want. I've realised that the reason is probably due to me getting a digital camera, and I'm progressively filling the hard drive with pictures. Its a 40Gb hard drive and has 2.8Gb left.

First question, could this be the cause of it running slow?

Second question, where can I buy (cheaply!) an external hard drive to allow me to store all my pictures and music on, to free up space on the main hard drive? Or is there a better solution?

Ta!
Tom

Hi,
Yes, windows will use part of the hard drive as "virtual memory" so less space means less memory.
External hard drive would be the way to go, PC world or Maplins probably the easiest
Hopefully your laptop has USB 2.0 rather than the slower 1.1?
Cheers,
Gavin :)

Edited by Bat on 28th Aug, 2008.

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Easy way to distinguish between USB 2.0 and 1.1 is....?

dabs are selling a a 1Tb hardrive for £95

more than youll even need tom

"Turbo's make torque, and torque makes fun"

"did you know you can toast potato waffles?"

Hi,
Probably google you laptop model number for the specs?
Go with Joeys suggestion if you don't mind internet shopping.
Cheers,
Gavin :)

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for the price thats the best you can get in the way of external have drives for the space.

however if you want to save yourself abit of cash and dont mind about looseing half the size get yourself these.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/118510

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/120289


as for the speed of your computer if you dont mind doing something for me.


go to the start menu click run and put in msconfig, click services and take a screen shot and click startup and take a screen shot.


expand the box out of course so you can get a pic of everything in it.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

I managed the msconfig bit, but can't seem to get them all in view, told you I was a dummy LOL.

The ebuyer 250gb stuff sounds more than enough to me, however will it plug and play? As otherwise it'll never work for me!

Rod, cheers, yes I do have USB2 it seems, a good start!

It not what you after at the moment, but while we are talking of run commands type telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl into it.

HeHe i am a geek!

Joey, what is this "dabs" place??

cant you get some of then storage stick thingys, i got a 4gb 1 for 12 quid (i think) from pc world. then stuck all me pics and other files i dont really need but dont want to bin. my missus then re booted my laptop back to the date i got it and it now runs fine. i dont know how to do the restore thing but i rekon its not hard

no longer a series, but still 1.3 turbo.

Carl, I could do I guess, I have a 2Gb one, but I seem to be gaining pictures very rapidly.

How about this guys? 80Gb should put me on for a bit at least.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...52BSI%26otn%3D4

Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools

Then you just follow the instructions on the screen

BUT restore only gets rid of programs and does not remove files. you really want to reformat but that is a whole different ball game. for now i would just say move all of the files that you can over onto the external hard drive and see how it runs.

that seems ok to me.

i'm sure tha one is what my missus has,

works fine, plug it in, it pops up as drive E, just like a usb pen etc...

www.dabs.co.uk

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quick...NavigationKey=0

"Turbo's make torque, and torque makes fun"

"did you know you can toast potato waffles?"

I would guess over the years that you machine has also got full of crap, cookies, downloads, apps you have installed etc. it needs a good De-coke :)

I run a supercharger and I don't care the TB is on the wrong side.
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Hi,
Clearing out all the crap IE leaves behind, would be a massive improvement, but I'm not going to start telling someone to delete things over the internet!
Cheers,
Gavin :)

VEMs Authorised Installer / Re-seller. K head kits now available!

WB/EGT gauges. Click here for customers write-up

Visit www.doyouneedabrain.co.uk

My Mini build diary

Tom, download CCleaner from http://www.ccleaner.com/ install and then run it. It'll clean all the useless stuff that your computer NEVER needs yet keeps anyway - it may take a while but it will clear a lot of crap up.

tom, pop the box into the top left corner dragging it with the bar at the top click in the centre hold and drag.

then grab the bottom right corner of the box on the line, when i say drag click and hold then pull your mouse down.

that will open up the box.

Tom, i probably have something at work, let me have a look tommorow and get back to you! we always have stuff like that kicking around?

"Cars are a lifetime of pain"

Tom,

Use what coupe said first.
Then defrag your laptops hardrive.
What Defragmenting does, is arrange re-arrange the files on your computer to make it run faster, the files on your hard drive become fragmented over time and it slows your computer down.

How often do you need to do this? Generally far less than most people tell you to do it! There is no exact math in determining when is a good time to defrag, as it depends on how much hard disk activity goes on with your computer. windows has it's own one you can use.

click start, then look for accessories,
(but if using vista, it will be all progams after you click start, then accessories)

then system tools. then look for disc defragmenter. then just open the program, and click on the defrag button.

maybe with your laptop, i'd let it defrag over night, as it might take a while.

Hope that helps.

Cheers.

Shit Happen's

if you want more explaing about fragmenting ill pop up the 3000 word essay i did about it for a course im on.

Thanks for all the replies chaps. I do know about de-fragging but thought it would be better to do this once I've created some free space by exporting some stuff onto another storage device.

However I think tonight I will set it off and leave it going.

Cheers for all the advice, will try and get the msconfig thingy sorted in the morning.