That pretty much sums it up. Dell Latitude E4200, bought from JP's advice here:

https://www.miataturbo.net/insert-bs...ce-here-59554/

I upgraded the ram to a 8 gb stick, although system only shows 5 gbs. I think that's normal. I have the 80 gb solid state drive, with 22 gbs free.

System also shows 1.4ghz, but it CANNOT play videos. I have a first generation GoPro that records very low quality video, and it skips every few seconds trying to play that. We recorded our race this weekend with a GoPro4(?), which is in 1080p or something like that. It displays the first screen shot and plays the sound, but no video.

I currently have to download F1 torrents, copy them to a USB drive (which is only 5mb/sec, so ~10 minutes of copying [wife's new computer can do it in ~2 minutes{}]) and then watch them on my wife's computer or the xbox.

I feel like this problem has gotten worse over time, is there anything I can do to help it? I don't feel like buying a new laptop quite yet. With a new battery, this one is still the best one I've used, beyond it's video capabilities. Plus I hate Windows 8.

 

Not sure if it'll help solve some of the issues but if it isn't at Windows 8.1 I'd upgrade if it's capable. Big difference between 8 and 8.1

Other then that, the usual HD housecleaning to get all the crap off it.

 

Sounds like you bought exactly what you asked for.

Now that it's almost 4 years later, you need to upgrade from that base model laptop.
I hate to be harsh, but it's one of them you get what you pay for things.

Also, is this 32 bit vista? It won't even take that much ram if so. I think x86 vista is capped at 3gb. Plus you're so bottlenecked you wouldn't even see an increase with that much ram if you were able to use it.

 

1.4ghz, and I can only assume that's single core, is going to be a pretty big bottleneck....

 

IIRC they are dual core but it's probably running everything 32bit. I also think it has an SD slot so you can setup an SD card as a "readyboost" drive which will help a bit.

Also, moving to 8.1 from 7 will add some speed.

 

Are you copying gopro footage to a local hard drive before trying to play it, USB is not fast enough to stream on older PCs.

Anything made since 2000 ought to have the ***** to decode HD video, something is not quite right if you ask me.

 

Hit the start button. In that little search/run/whatever field at the bottom there, type in "msconfig". Click around and set it to selective startup. Go to the startup and services tabs and deselect everything you don't need. Restart computer; enjoy "like new" puter.

If you've already done this then hmmmmmm.

 

I'd advise against that, unless you specifically know what each service does you'll likely just turn off a third party hardware acceleration service, like the sound drivers, making things worse.

 

Install Linux.

Your computer will run super fast because you won't have any of the programs you normally use!

Was it ever able to play videos? I'm guessing the (lack of) video card just can't keep up.

 

Looks like that's built in to my instructions?
There's some lame explanations on the gui, and obviously you'll need to do 5 minutes of research to make sure you don't turn off your firewall or something, but it's something I was able to figure out 15 years ago as a middle school kid.

You're not modifying registry keys, you're turning off adobe updater and that level of stuff.

 

He's not running Win8, he's saying he hates Win8 and doesn't want it on a new laptop.

If I recall, that came with Vista I think? Upgrading to Win7 x64 (if possible) would help somewhat.

I have that same laptop and I'm running Linux Mint on it. Works well, definitely faster than Windows.

 

Yeah, for whatever reason, the machine is architecturally limited to 5GB, regardless of OS.

That isn't your problem. 5 GB isn't massive by desktop standards, but it's actually still quite a bit in the ultraportable world even today. All of the under-$1,300 models of the Surface Pro 3 come with only 4 GB (non-expandable), and that's about the most you can get in a high-end Windows tablet these days. A lot of them are still coming with 2 GB. 8 GB ultraportables are only just starting to become available, and are expensive.


I have no idea why you're having issues playing video. Although I travel a lot less these days, I used to use mine all the time to watch movies while flying. 720p, 1080p, Divx, MKV, MP4... Never had any issues whatsoever.



All of the E4200s had Core2 Duo processors; either the U9400 (1.4 Ghz) or the U9600 (1.6 Ghz). Both are adequate.

 

I would also highly suggest Linux Mint if you want to give Linux a try. I run it on several of my personal computers and find it much better then Ubuntu or such for new users. If Curly wants to go that route I would be more then willing to help him out.

 

The install was pretty painless. I did a dual boot so I let it repartition the drive, then completed the install.

I believe the only driver that it didn't load in the initial install was for the wifi card. I plugged it into the router, ran the update manager, and it automatically found and installed the correct wifi driver.

 

I can also confirm that loading Linux Mint on old laptops will breathe new life into them... I have an old HP and IBM laptop that I wiped clean, loaded Mint on, and now my kids use them for everything. And best of all, no adware or malware worries.

 

<p>Except he wants to edit video....and unless things have changed in the past couple years, linux sucks for that.</p>

 

The only way that thing will be worth it for video editing is if you chain 100 of them together into some sort of supercomputer.

You need some horsepower for rendering 1080p before the heat death of the universe.

 

I will NOT be running Linux. Ever. Stop talking about linux.

It is currently on Vista Business, as I have zero copies of anything else currently.

And yes, it used to run videos fine, it's definitely a recent development that's been steadily getting worse and worse. I'd say when I first started downloading torrents for the 2015 F1 season, it was noticeably more impossible to watch vs. the 2014 season.

 

Vista is the problem. There, I said it.

Win7 will be a much better step for you than 8 if you are used to Vista. I'm constantly amazed at how much better W7 is on marginal hardware than ANY build of Vista ever was. How comfortable are you with sorting out hardware drivers? PM me your address and I'll mail you a completely legitimate OEM Win7 Home Premium key and a bootable USB stick that will install it. I recommend you purchase a new hard drive for the new build, but that's up to you. If you are comfortable backing up and overwriting your old hard drive, that'll also work. A new SSD will be better at everything than the old one and you don't have to spend a fortune for something that will work.

 

<p>^^That will help.</p><p>Also one of the shitty parts of windows is the registry. It grows and grows and grows. And never shrinks. So it makes sense that it has gotten slower over time. Save you documents. Wipe the drive and start over. **** will be way faster.</p><p>I left Windows for OSX and never looked back. I also spend 90% of my day in command line </p>