Lifespan of R60s?

[hotkeyau]

My R60 is four years old now and is seriously showing its age in performance and reliability. Is this to be expected or can I be running some super programs to give it a new lease on life.

Problems include slow response time between "window" changes, the starting up and closing down of programs; "freezing" and interminable reboot time. Sigh. I can have a nap while it starts up or reboots.

I religiously defrag the hard drive, I've done a registry check and repair, and "housekeep" regularly so that the disk space is only half-used, and of course, the usual virus checkers going on all the time.

Any thoughts would be gratefully appreciated, even if its ... "time to buy a new laptop, lady."

[retired]

My 'guess' is that you need a fresh install of your os. My experience is that with time Windows slows down. No getting around it. If you can backup/save your data and savings I think you will be surprised what a fresh install can do. This also might be a good time to try a dual boot with linux.

[ZaZ]

You might want to figure out what's turning on with Windows and dump anything you don't want. You can do this via MSCONFIG. CCleaner can do it too. I would include any Thinkvantage tools you're not using as well. I'd agree a fresh install of Windows may help. A new faster hard drive might help as well. My own R60 still runs great. While it's not a performance champ any more, it certainly offers more than enough power for every day usage. Good luck.

[ajkula66]

I agree. With sufficient amount of RAM (1GB as a bare minimum for XP, 2GB for everything else) these machines, including the Celeron-based ones, are powerful enough for daily use, and then some.

Personally, I do a fresh install at least once a year, but that's me...

[ZaZ]

When I get a machine I like to do a clean install then make an image using true image, which I can put back at any time. Then I just update any software I need to.

[hotkeyau]

Thank you, one and all, for your posts.

I had another thought, though. Other than a fresh install, could I perhaps restore to the original, and first, backup of the system when it was new? and then throw my data back on. I still have that backup lying in the wings...