Optimising 512MB of RAM

[stevo1210]

I've got one of those Sony Vaio UX UMPC micro computers with un upgradable RAM. It has 512MB DDR2 and no HDD at the moment as I put that in another laptop which needed a 1.8" drive, then put this UMPC away for a long time. I have a replacement drive now, but would like to know how I can optimise it to run decently with XP. What or what not should be installed (SP3, AV etc). Specs are as follows: 1.2GHz Core Solo CPU, Intel 945GM and 30GB HDD.

Thanks.

[TELVM]

Re: Optimising 512MB of RAM

Have a look here, follow the 'tweaked' column:

x86

x64


Run msconfig.exe, click 'Startup' label, untick any useless crap:

Click 'Services' label, tick 'Hide Microsoft devices', then untick any useless crap:



More healthy tips: http://law.wustl.edu/ComputerSupport...erformance.htm

[Sansui350A]

Re: Optimising 512MB of RAM

You might get away with more running Linux on it, but you'll have to do a bit of digging to configure xinput to use the touchscreen properly; I can assure you this though, a light linux distro will go WAAAY further than Windows will in doing more with less. There ARE things you can do to XP to make it lighter.. might want to dig around "those" places for an "XP Distro" called MicroXP, that is.. if you HAVE to have Windows..

Just my .02,
Shawn

[Pentium4]

Re: Optimising 512MB of RAM

A small SSD would help a lot (if it has sata) so at least the page file would be faster

[c_hegge]

Re: Optimising 512MB of RAM

If a customer brings a PC in at work with any less than 1GB of RAM for XP or 2GB for Vista or 7, we don't give the customer the option of not upgrading it. IMO, 512MB is insufficient, end of story.

[mariushm]

Re: Optimising 512MB of RAM

ideally, get a 64gb ssd or more, eventually you're still gonna swap to hdd with just 512 megs of ram

install xp
disable the graphic interface aka switch to windows classic theme (make it look like Windows 2000)
go and switch everything to performance (no animated menus, transitions, no wallpaper)
go into administrative tools > services and put every service that's not needed on manual start and stop it. This way if you screw something up and windows doesn't boot normally after reboot, you can just enter safe mode and see the services you put on manual start and set it back to auto.
set page file to 2 GB and make it fixed size. If something gets screwed and uses 512 + 2 GB swap, the system is already so unresponsive you're better off restarting.

Being fresh install you would not have anything in autorun but if you have something, make a folder on your drive and create shortcuts with the commands you see in msconfig.exe (see pictures above)


Reboot.

After reboot, your windows should use about 60 MB of RAM.

Install NOD32. It's a decent antivirus, not the best (avira for exemple is better but it's also about 200 MB) but very lightweight and fast - uses about 20MB of memory while running.