[MLStrand56]

My 1st. experience working on an ATOM computer.

1Gig RAM (Max'ed), 1.6GHz CPU, 146Gig HD, (REAL) XP Home Premium

Who has experience with ATOM CPU's?

I'm looking for ATOM "Specific" replys.

MLStrand56

[waldojim]

My wife had an Atom based netbook, with 2GB of ram. Best I can tell you, it will never be fast. Stripping Xp down to essentials, removing active AntiVirus, getting rid of as many startup items as possible, etc are all your best options to get the most out of your machine. Alternatively, you can try Linux or Windows 2000. I never did try Win 2k on the Atom, but since win 2k has such a low overhead, it may do remarkably well. Beyond that, remember that the Atom is using 20 year old core designs ramped up to current clock speeds and with a very deep pipeline. Every time an instruction has to wait for data, you get to wait.

[compnovo]

MLStrand56, on 02 March 2012 - 10:25 AM, said:

My 1st. experience working on an ATOM computer.

1Gig RAM (Max'ed), 1.6GHz CPU, 146Gig HD, (REAL) XP Home Premium

Who has experience with ATOM CPU's?

I'm looking for ATOM "Specific" replys.

MLStrand56

I've got a Win7 Home Premium Acer One Aspire with the 1.66 proc, and I was able to double the RAM to 2GB (I'm not convinced that made very much difference). Just for giggles I swapped out the 5400RPM HDD that came stock with a 120GB Intel SSD. THAT made a difference, but you seriously have to ask yourself how much money you want to invest in a PC that's being throttled by the CPU (as wj notes).
Don't get me wrong I really like my netbook, it's a terrific traveling machine, great for creating and giving Powerpoint presentations, streaming Netflix, and the like. It's just there's only so much you can do with it performance-wise (and I'm pretty sure I've hit the wall ).

This post has been edited by compnovo: 02 March 2012 - 01:55 PM

[LiveBrianD]

waldojim, on 02 March 2012 - 10:59 AM, said:

My wife had an Atom based netbook, with 2GB of ram. Best I can tell you, it will never be fast. Stripping Xp down to essentials, removing active AntiVirus, getting rid of as many startup items as possible, etc are all your best options to get the most out of your machine. Alternatively, you can try Linux or Windows 2000. I never did try Win 2k on the Atom, but since win 2k has such a low overhead, it may do remarkably well. Beyond that, remember that the Atom is using 20 year old core designs ramped up to current clock speeds and with a very deep pipeline. Every time an instruction has to wait for data, you get to wait.

Windows 2000 runs smoothly on Pentium 3 machines, so as long as you can find drivers, I'll bet that'll run fast on a netbook. You can run firefox and libreoffice or Microsoft Office 2003 (or older) on it, and I doubt you'll want to do anything beyond that on a netbook anyway. (Unfortunately, a lot of newer things, like office 2007+, aren't compatible with it) Due to the compatibility issues (by the way, Windows 2000 does NOT have any built in tools for wireless networks, and I doubt a modern wireless adapter will offer one - XP was the first OS to have such), I would stick with XP, and as waldojim said get rid of startup items and crap. Alternatively, look into a linux distro for it.

[MLStrand56]

compnovo, on 02 March 2012 - 01:53 PM, said:

MLStrand56, on 02 March 2012 - 10:25 AM, said:

My 1st. experience working on an ATOM computer.

seriously have to ask yourself how much money you want to invest in a PC that's being throttled by the CPU...

It's not my computer. I'm helping out a disabled vet. who doesn't know anything about computers.

MLStrand56

[compnovo]

MLStrand56, on 03 March 2012 - 09:39 PM, said:

compnovo, on 02 March 2012 - 01:53 PM, said:

MLStrand56, on 02 March 2012 - 10:25 AM, said:

My 1st. experience working on an ATOM computer.

seriously have to ask yourself how much money you want to invest in a PC that's being throttled by the CPU...

It's not my computer. I'm helping out a disabled vet. who doesn't know anything about computers.

MLStrand56

Okay then, that would answer the question for me. I would follow waldojim's advice about optimizing the OS, I wouldn't put any money into the hardware, and I'd encourage the vet to learn to live with the PC's shortcomings. Netbooks aren't speedy, but they get the job done.

[MLStrand56]

waldojim, on 02 March 2012 - 10:59 AM, said:

Stripping Xp down to essentials, removing active AntiVirus, getting rid of as many startup items as possible, etc are all your best options to get the most out of your machine.

Beyond that, remember that the Atom is using 20 year old core designs ramped up to current clock speeds and with a very deep pipeline. Every time an instruction has to wait for data, you get to wait.

Wow, What an Eye Opener!

I Always prevent non-essential programs from auto-loading.

What services can be cut from XP home premium?

I'm happy to help this guy, but it appears that this "Notebook", is, & will always be, a Chat/E-mail Toy. He can't afford a pot to piss in, so Please don't recommend hardware upgrades!

MLStrand56

[waldojim]

I understand, I have been there myself, and I have attempted to help many people in the same boat.

Kill off the Windows anti-malware, defender, and search services. You can create single use scripts to run them manually once or twice a week. Do make sure there is a decent, lite firewall in place. Then right click on my computer, select properties, and click on performance (doing this from memory, bear with me). Once there, instead of letting Windows handle everything, force it to optimize for best performance, and ensure Windows is optimizing for foreground tasks. About the only other thing I could think of, would be get a high speed SD card and use it for swap space.