I envy you being able to add all that memory.  Are you running XP on your laptop?  I'm thinking with 2 Gigs, that thing will get right snappy.

I've only got 512 MB on my old 1 Gig P-III machine...the max this thing will take.  It does okay, I guess, if I stay within its limitations.  I can't run any of the later generations of Photoshop, though.  Have to hang with the old copy of PS Elements 2.0.  Processing video taken from my Hi-8 camcorder turns my machine into a slug also.

A side story:  A gal-friend told me recently in a phone conversation that she wanted to get a new computer.  Asked why, because I knew all she did was a little internet browsing and emailing.  She said it was slow.

I got her to right-click "My Computer" and tell me how much memory she had.....256 MB.  I said, well there you go!  That's your problem!  Suggested coming over with a CD loaded with AutoRuns, Process Explorer and a few spyware scanning programs.  That at the same time, I'd visually check her type of memory and get at LEAST another stick ordered.  Now, I'm not a computer geek.  But,  I assured her that, in the end, I could have that thing humming for less than $50...the cost of whatever memory was bought.  She's got a 2.2 Gig processor and is running XP.  So, I felt confident in telling her that.  She didn't go for it.

Finally, I realized she's got her mind set on having that new machine and that I wasn't going to prevail with my minimal upgrade argument.  Oh!  And any new computer HAS to have the USB and Firewire plugs on the front of the tower too.  Cable extensions looped around to the front (like I have) just won't do.

At that point, having gone the distance, I asked what she was going to do with the old machine.  "Give it away, I guess."  "Well, give it to me."  "Okay."  So, it looks like I'm going to get a fairly inexpensive upgrade in the near future.

-Joe

I have a shop full of those old slow PC's.  Anyone want one?

It's a real crime, how some PC makers will put out a laptop, for instance, with Windows XP installed and only 512 megs of ram, a 1.6gig CPU and an 80 gig HD. 

I just rebuilt a PC that I had custom built for one of my customers back in 2000.  It had Windows ME on it.
Now, with a new PSU and HD, and maxed out to 1 gig of SDRam, and a new nic card, it's running Windows XP-Pro very well indeed.

There can be a lot of life left in those old PC's with just a minimum of expense.  With the proper cleaning and tweaking, I can usually double the performance of older PC's, without any new parts at all.

Cheers mates and Happy Computing!

The Shadow 

I'm in Central Florida, USA.
But, I've given most of the old PC's to a young man that I'm mentoring.
He knows some things about computers and works in the computer dept of a major store, but he's seriously lacking on the details of what makes a PC really sit up and take notice.

The first time I went to his house, I did my Super-Tune on his main PC and his response was, "WOW!!!  It's never run that fast before!".
I get that same response from most of my customers.

I'm still working on my OLD Computer, that I built about six or seven years ago, with an AMD Sempron 3000+ CPU, and I've just max'd it out at two gigs of DDR-400 "Super Talent" ram.
It now runs XP-pro very nicely indeed!

At just one gig there was a lot of code swapping going on.  Now at two gigs that's minimized and performance has taken a nice positive leap.
I'm also loading the Kernel into ram on boot, which REALLY improves performance.  That takes a huge load off an old and slow SATA1 bus.

Keeping the old SATA1 drive clean and de-fragmented really helps performance too.
So, memory is very important, but don't forget to minimize the number of services and TSR's running in the background and keep that HD clean, lean and mean!

Happy Holidays Everyone!
Shadow  

Whether MS admits it or not, XP was built to run on a pretty fast CPU with over one gig of ram.
It's almost criminal how some PC makers put XP on systems that were right out of Windows 98 days. 
There should have been many law suites over that!

So with a minimal CPU speed and limited ram, and an old, slow, hard drive, the secret is to chop down XP to it's minimal operating core.

You can easily shut down about 20 Services in XP Pro with no problem at all, on a home computer.

The Black Viper web site was my source of info on what to disable, and then I wrote those services into a batch file, for easy application on multiple computers.

Then in MSCONFIG, you shut down EVERY program that's not needed for the running of Windows.  All those redundant Schedulers, Updaters and reminders HAVE TO GO!

Then regardless of how old, slow and clunky the hard drive is, remove every file from it that's not necessary and keep it clean and defragged on at least a weekly basis.  That will help it to run more efficiently and improves Windows performance a lot.

I found every folder in my HD where windows and its programs like to store junk files, like all those temporary internet files, temp files, recent files and prefetch files.
I put all those locations into a batch file, in my Startup Folder, which runs every time I boot up my system.
That completely prevents the build up of those pure JUNK files.
Then "Extended Disk Cleanup" which I run manually, several times a week, gets the rest, like emptying the recycle bin.

Many of my customers, are still using some of those early XP machines with very minimal system resources.

As soon as I sit down to one of those old PC's for the first time, Norton or McAfee gets the axe.  Both are Bloatware and not very good at keeping a PC free of viruses, spyware and trojans.

I use only AVG 8.0 FREE for my customers, and the PRO version for myself and it never slows down our systems and we all stay 100% virus free.  That's pretty hard to beat!

Well, I could go on, but that's the core of it.

So my advise to anyone running Windows XP, on an old PC, is to MAX out your ram and then go to work on the OS, making it run more efficiently.

Happy Holidays Everyone!
The Shadow