Dell XPS notebook pausing and running slow

[pinkpanther56]

Vista running like a dog on XPS 1330

I'm loooking at a friends notebook running Vista SP1 and it seems to be running very slowly with frequent pauses, i've noticed that it seems to be running in Power saver mode even when plugged in and keeps popping up a message 'Your current power plan may reduce system performance'.

I'm going to have a play with power plans later but does anyone have any tips, we still don't have many Vista boxes so i'm not sure of all it's ins and outs yet.
I'm on a pretty tight time scale otherwise i'd spend more time reading and searching the net.

Cheers for any tips.

Details

Core Duo T7300 Processor 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, Vista SP1

 

[goombawaho]

Not to address the power issue, but here are some general tips for speeding up vista that I have found work well. That and having at least 2GB of RAM are pretty important.

Took this from another site - don't have the URL: "The easiest and quickest way to speed up the Aero interface is to choose a different theme that doesn't make use of Aero's transparent "glass" effects and window animations. Choose either the Windows Vista Basic theme, which has none of the spiffy visual effects. If you have the Vista Home Basic version, choose the Windows Vista Standard theme, which still looks like the Aero interface but operates without the visual effects. To change your theme, follow these steps:

Step 1. Right-click on the desktop and select Personalize.
Step 2. Select Windows Color And Appearance.
Step 3. Scroll through the Color Scheme list to find your preferred theme, select it, and close the dialog window."


Vista Tweaks for speed/hard drive activity

http://mostlysavingmoney.com/top-10-windows-vista-speed-tweaks/

 

[linney]

This is as good as place as any to look at the Power Scheme question.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-us/help/de24b25d-cd69-4947-b2a0-eb26c1eef0771033.mspx

Many individual OEM also add their own extra Power Schemes.

Manage Windows Vista Power Schemes Effectively & Efficiently.

http://www.winvistaclub.com/g29.html

 

[pinkpanther56]

I'll take a look at the links cheers guys. It's actually loaded with tons of unused apps and as it's nearly a couple of years old i'm thinking about using the Dell restore feature, from what i've read there's an image on another partition that images it back to how it left the factory.

Cheers.