acer aspire 3690 laptop

[encee]

has anyone any idea on how to speed the thing up.my friend bought one roughly a couple of years ago it was slow then but thought things would improve i have been told its bacause 512mb is not enough for this machine to run vista.is there a way to put xp on the machine and run it without taking vista off.neither myself or my friend have a lot of knowledge with computers.or any other ideas please would be grateful.thanks in advance

[trish432]

I find vista ok, with enough ram, my daughter only has 512, and it is slow.
Best way would be to install more ram, click on crucial and scan your system to find out what you need, and how many slots you have.

http://www.crucial.com/uk/index.aspx?cpe=CHAWK uk

[trish432]

You can install xp, but it may not run properly, something to do with drivers, I think, but not sure.

[trish432]

if you decide to install more ram, just write down what you need, with info from crucial, and buy somewhere cheaper.
I`ve never installed in a laptop, but it`s very easy in a desktop, and I believe, easier in a laptop.

[ChuckFickens]

I personally would not have installed vista on a couple of year old laptop at all! (I assume it came with XP originally installed if it only has 512mb RAM)

Vista is not going to run well at all with only 512mb ram (XP struggles!) so your two choices are to upgrade the ram (see above link, don't buy from crucial. they are expensive but will tell you what to get) or install XP back onto it (my preference)

(P.S. what on earth made you think it would get quicker with time!)

[trish432]

My daughter got hers from pc world about six months ago, if that, it`s vista basic with only 512mb of ram. I thought it was low ram at the time.

[ChuckFickens]

I can't believe people are actually selling Vista based computers with 512Mb of ram... it's going to run like a total dog!

[encee]

it was sold with vista had no choice.and because not knowing a lot about computers we thought maybe their was something she wasnt doing right but i think we just made the wrong flippin choice.my one is a compaq presario which my hubby bought and its brilliant.
but really dont know what to suggest to my friend to get it too run any better.she does not really want to spend extra money on it cos basically it never has been any good. i took the word from comet that it was a good machine i thought he would be helpful and tell the truth, i guess not.
not sure if it is 512mb its what i read online. all i know is that it would drive me nuts if i had it

[trish432]

Know what you mean Chuck, she brought it to me to set up when she got it, and i said this is crap.
But it was a present, so she really couldn`t say anything.
I did the recovery discs for her, installed a bit of software, and she seems quite happy with it, although I wouldn`t be.
Anyway it gave me my first experience of vista,so I learned a little bit more.

[bathtub]

More RAM is the only answer, in my opinion. It's not that expensive - and it's certainly cheaper than buying a new computer. It's also likely to be a pretty easy DIY job, or I'm sure you could find a local independent retailer who'd supply and fit an upgrade inexpensively.

Changing the operating system isn't really a feasible option, especially if you're not experienced users. It would be no cheaper (you'd have to buy a new copy of XP) and would probably give you very little if any performance gain.

512mb is simply not enough for any PC these days if you want to do anything other than basic stuff or you have a voyeuristic paint drying fetish. Upgrade to 1024mb at least, more if you can. It's best to match your RAM, even if it means ditching your original chip: two 512 or 1024mb chips, say, will work better than 512 + 256 or 1024 + 512 or any other odd configuration.

[trish432]

Just read your last post encee, the link i gave you above will tell you what ram is in it, and what it will actually upgrade to.
It needn`t cost much, I bought some really cheap ram a couple of weeks ago on ebay.
Also you may need to look at unnecessary installed programmes.
This acer laptop, I`m on at the moment has no documents, music, photos, installed.
Just the operating system and a load of acer crap is taking up most of the c drive.
If it was mine I would be uninstalling loads of stuff, but as It`s a friends, I`ll leave well alone.