HP Touchsmart TX2

[Rogue951]

Anyone else have this laptop? bought it from Costco when it was still on the site.
3 gig ram, dual core turion processor, ATI graphics, wifi and bluetooth, touch screen/tablet features.

anyway I'm wondering, it's got windows vista home on it, but it runs really slow and I think it's partially cause of all the HP addon software in it.
I'm wondering if I install Vista ultimate on there (true copy of it) will it speed up a bit without all the extra software? and will it support all the features of the touchscreen/tablet software? or do I need to download new stuff?
I also think partially it's cause it has a 5400 hard drive. I think I'll upgrade to a 7200rpm.

thanks!

[lilaznviper]

first uninstall all the preinstalled crap HP puts on it
after that it will run faster

5400rpm drive in your laptop is suppose to help save power but if you always plug in the laptop then i guess change it out

[Jmac]

The crapware and 5400 RPM drives are the two main culprits, especially since Norton is pre-installed.

A few things you can do to speed things up without spending a dime:

- Uninstall crapware (if it's in the program menu and you don't use it, get rid of it) as already mentioned.
- Get rid of Norton
- Set hard drive to advanced performance mode (Type Computer Management in the Search Box, select Disk Management, Right-Click on Disk 0, Properties, Policies, Check both Enable Write Caching and Enable Advanced Performance, click OK) *Note, leave the battery installed at all times when Advanced Performance mode is enabled.
- Reduce Service Kill Time on shutdown (Type Regedit in search box, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, SYSTEM, CurrentControlSet, click on Control, change WaitToKillServiceTimeout from 20000 to 5000. This won't help with general use, but it improves shutdown times substantially when services don't shut themselves down quickly or properly (i.e. when you have Norton installed) as Windows only waits 5 seconds instead of 20 seconds before it kills it.)
- Download AMD Fusion for Gaming Utility here. One click of a button and it disables a bunch of mostly unnecessary services to improve performance and one click to re-enable them all. It only works on AMD systems, so take advantage of it. I'm not 100% sure it will work on a laptop, but it's worth a shot. *Note, AMD Fusion will disable touch support when it's on.
- Adjust your power settings based on your usage. If you're plugged in, set your power settings to high performance mode. To do this, click on your power icon (battery) in the bottom-right corner of your screen and click on High Performance. Set it back to HP Recommended or Power Saver when on battery to get better battery life.
- Disable the sidebar or reduce the number of items you have in the sidebar. Most people don't realize that each of those items consume a solid 100 or so MB of memory each and when you have several of them, it quickly adds up. For example, I have 4 items in my sidebar and they consume 35 MB, 60 MB, 92 MB, and 115 MB respectively for a total of 302 MB of memory consumption.
- Disable unnecessary startup programs and services. Type system configuration in the start menu and disable any startup programs and services you don't need. For the services tab, I recommend checking the Hide All Microsoft Services box just to make sure you don't disable any services you may actually need.
- Change from a dynamic page file to a static page file. Right-click on Computer, select Properties, click on Advanced System Settings on the left side, click on Settings under Performance, Advanced, click on Change..., uncheck Automatically manage ... if it's checked, set Page File on C: to 6144 MB for both minimum and maximum, click Set, click OK, restart if necessary.

[Rogue951]

wow that's some fantastic info thanks for typing that out.
the basic stuff I knew but that other reg edit and hard drive option I didn't thanks!