Laptop very slow and sluggish

[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 unfreezes 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...

 

[thebigdude]

The fact that windows will not install does not look good. But 256MB on a laptop running xp is not quite enough. Laptop HDDs, especially old ones, are terribly slow. When windows runs out of memory it uses the HDD for more ram. This really slows down performance. You don't notice this as much on a desktop but it is very noticeable on laptops. If you can get windows installed, good luck by the way, buy more ram.

 

[spherrod]

What does the CPU show at bootup? Check the BIOS, maybe it's set to some power management setting where it will only operate at full speed when required.

Have you tried memtest on the machine and ensuring that you are installing from known good media? If you can get XP installed then I would agree with thebigdude - more RAM would help although 256MB will be ok with minimal settings and basic email/internet use

 

[vizo]

I tried reinstalling XP and it got stuck @ about 39% this time, and I heard the HDD making this 5 second stuttering sound over and over, as if it was unable to write to that part of the drive, or that the drive was malfunctioning. Im going to go buy a new HDD today to see if that fixes it.

It shows the correct 1100mhz speed when it first boots, so thats a good sign. It hasnt been halving the CPU as much in the System Properties as much as it has been extremely sluggish and slow, and not being able to install Windows!

About the RAM, when XP was installed, I literally had every setting imaginable set to Performance and not Quality. Plus, Ive used notebooks with lower specs than mine in more demanding environments [my environment includes the notebook lagging for 5 minutes when I try to load Notepad.. come on..] and it did fine. I doubt its a 'system requirements' issue but a hardware [failure] issue instead.

EDIT: Ive done several different tests using UBCD and had no errors at all, including a memtest86 test with over 10 cycles.

 

[spherrod]

ok - is the XP Install a known good CD? can you install it on another system to check it's not the CD - can you try another OS install (Ubuntu?) to see what happens?

 

[vizo]

I havent tried it on another system but I have tried two different copies of XP and they both yield the same result.

I 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?

 

[spherrod]

It could be a bad drive - if you had a 2.5" IDE USB converter you could take it out and test it on another system?

 

[vizo]

A Full Burn In test on Powermax passed...

No, I dont. Im in town visiting my parents and they dont have one.

 

[spherrod]

hmm - odd, do you have an option to set BIOS back to defaults? Also, how are you formatting the drive?

 

[vizo]

There is an option to reset the BIOS, but unless that also defaults settings not available to the user in the BIOS itself then all its doing is resetting two values that I could do [that havent been touched yet].

Ive tried reformatting with several utils on UBDC and even FDISK.

 

[spherrod]

I would try wiping the system with DBAN and starting again

 

[vizo]

Ive wiped the drive 20 times in a span of 24 hours. Im sick of messing with it. Im going to order some RAM and a new HDD from newegg and see if that fixes it. If not, then Ill get a CPU. If none of that works then Im simply throwing all of this crap out.

EDIT: 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.

 

[spherrod]

Most likely it's a standard 2.5" IDE drive - can you remove it and check the specs?

 

[vizo]

I already have, but its fine now. I was just hearing from several people that HP notebooks were notorious for only working with certain brands of drives. I went ahead and purchased a Samsung 40GB/5400RPN/8MB for $55. Ill keep you updated, since youre the only one who has attempted to help me, once the drive arrives from NewEgg. Thanks for your help.

 

[Grimner]

I've got an HP Omnibook way older than yours and it was so happy with a shiny new Samsung 40Gb it even started getting usable

Unless HP changed their ways, be prepared for a little more convoluted way of swapping the drive than usual, but I'm sure you can handle it - nothing dangerous.

But, yes, more RAM

 

[vizo]

What would you recommend as far as RAM goes? I have a dedicated audio workstation and gaming machine, this is just going to be for email and simple web editing. Would generic RAM be sufficient? Should I get a name brand? Ive always used semi-generic RAM for my main machines and I have never had a problem with them.

 

[inveterate]

LOL,, ur doing fine, that is exactly how laptops are suppose to perform. it shouldn't do too bad as a typewritter though... hmmm

 

[vizo]

Right, thanks..