elvis

Hi,

I have a Gateway ML6226B laptop, with Vista Home Basic, 32 Bit, SP1, 512MB of RAM, Intel Celeron M CPU 520 @1.60GHZ. I have lots and lots of problems with it. I have checked for malware and virus issues and it is clean, I always update it from windows. The problems I have are;
Slow boot up,
Slow shut down ( I have closed all programs before shutting down),

I was running this laptop with Ariva personal to start with and it appeared to run fine, oneday (about three/four weeks ago) I went to boot it up and all I got was the windows loading bar for ages, I tried the recovery consule but it failed to fix anything so I had to reinstall Vista, I then tried to reinstall Ariva but it just would not work, so installed PC Tools personal AV, but every update I got the error code 104, according to PC Tools I had to reinstall the AV, which I did but it kept getting the error code 104, uninstalled that (also on every scan it did not pick anything up!) retried Ariva which installed correctly apart from picking up TR/Dropper.Gen about five times, moved to quarentinne, but when I tried to do a full system scan it kept stalling at about 51% of the scan, the system kept crashing (I kept getting the BSOD) I included one of the reports in the first post. Also everything keeps stalling or sticking, any MS programs, IE 8, Chrome, media player, MS games etc, the mouse pointer will just disappear or change style, it can stick from just a few seconds to over an hour, I cannot open any thing including task manager, so Ihave no choice but to force shut it down, I have now removed Ariva and use McAfee which came with my ISP, this appears to run very slow along with all programs, IE8 takes age to load, there are also three other laptops all running Vista in my house all with IE8 and the run fine with no sticking or slow loading.

This is what MS have said about the blue screen

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.2
Locale ID: 2057

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 50
BCP1: B8CC0004
BCP2: 00000000
BCP3: 815CA6BA
BCP4: 00000000
OS Version: 6_0_6001
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini061209-01.dmp
C:\Users\happiness\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-133505-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Users\happiness\AppData\Local\Temp\WERC447.tmp.version.txt

Hope someone can help,

Andy

Yur

Ok, i don't have any experience with vista, but you could check your mem usage anyway.
If that is very high, it's not that strange it's slow cause it has to use its virtual mem every time.

And you might try to run a system cleaner on it, like CCleaner for XP. I don't know if that's available for vista... But watch out what you're removing...

In CCleaner you can look what programs it starts up every logon, and switch some of. It also has a registry cleaner, but don't forget to backup your registry before applying changes.(CCleaner asks for this itself)

Good luck,

Yur

elvis

Hi,

Used to use CCleaner and it did speed the system up a bit, I have also (I think) removed the programs that I do not need on start up. How do I check memory usage? Also when I reinstalled Vista I did from a partition on the HD, but am unsure if when I did that, did it remove all traces from before?

Any other help would be great

Andy

Dark_Wolf

Task Manager will tell you memory usage.

If you want to remove more things from start-up, press 'Windows Key' + R and type msconfig and go to the Services tab, then go to the Startup tab. To be sure you leave nothing behind, reinstall Vista using the disc.

Your laptop is FAR to weak to handle Vista, install XP ASAP.
If that is not an option, then you need to buy a new laptop, or even build a desktop.

elvis

It came with Vista pre installed and no disc a it has a recovery centre. Is there any other way in install XP without a disk? What programs should I leave on start up and what should I remove?

spike2me

You cannot install XP without a disc. You have to format your drive (erase) and install XP from the CD As for Vista, boot into Safe Mode with Networking. Run CCleaner again and run the Registry cleaner as well. Then download www.malwarebytes.org and run a full scan, delete nasties. If you feel your computer needs to re-built then run Recovery from the Recovery center, be sure to back up all your data first.

simpswr

512 MB of memory is way to little for Vista . . you need 2 Gig for decent performance . . more is better.

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpar...?model=ML6226b

elvis

As the laptop did not come with a CD, if I do a recovery from the partion and re install vista will that wipe all old data? I have also been on the malware forum because I did have a trojan which is now removed.

simpswr

Most recovery programs first wipe the drive but some allow for a "non-destructive" recovery. If it does not offer the non-destructive option, it will erase your data.

Either way, I would backup the data before doing something a drastic and a reinstall.

Are you able to bump the memory up to 2 or 4 Gig?

elvis

Not really as this laptop is just used for surfing the web and emails and such like. I do have three other laptops all running Vista but they all have 2GB of RAM, are there any other options open to me??

Andy

simpswr

Additional memory is the best solution to the slowness . . 512 is just not enough. Memory is relatively cheap these days

DrMorganes

I agree.

Link to crucial.com and compatible upgrades for this unit.

Dark_Wolf

Also try the Vista Upgrade Advisor. (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...e-advisor.aspx)

elvis

Thanks for that Dark Wolf,

On the question of downgrading to XP, I think my father in law still has his copy of XP when he up graded from 98 to XP (this computer is now sold and he has one running vista) Can I use his cd of XP with the product key to down grade?? The cd is an oem one which as I said he bought to upgrade from 98. If this is possable how do I do it?? and if the unthinkerble happens and it cannot install will the laptop be un- useable?

simpswr

The first thing to do is chck to be double dog sure you can find SXP drivers for that pc . . not all oem's are providing them.

With the Upgrade version you will also need a win98 install disc to complete the installation.

Adding more memory might be a lot easier . .

This is a good guide to reinstalling XP . . you might want to print it for reference during the install.

http://www.techhandbook.com/windows/...g-Windows.html

GrTech2009

++1 Anything less then 2 GB is a pain stakingly slow.

Dark_Wolf

And a better Processor would help a lot too.

DrMorganes

Before doing ANYTHING drastic, make sure you use the HP Recovery Center to create a set of recovery DVDs. In fact, you should do this before you do much of anything else. These can be used to restore the factory configuration even in the event of a hard drive failure - or a total hard drive reformat. Having a way back is always a good idea before going forward ;)

Backup your data before continuing, too. Use external media or an online service like Mozy.

Whether or not HP provides XP drivers for this unit is almost entire dependent on whether it's a "business" notebook that offered Vista Business, which can be downgraded to XP Professional. With a Celeron 1.6GHz CPU and .5GB of RAM, however, I find this unlikely. If HP doesn't provide XP drivers (and let's be honest here - HP doesn't do a great job of providing drivers, period) you may be able to find reference drivers from various places online ... but that will require a ton of digging with no guarantee of success.

Unless you have a major need for XP, drop the ~$40 on the RAM upgrade. You'll get a lot more bang for the buck, and we can be fairly certain of the end result.