Improving performance on netbook

[dgreen]

So we agree its DDR2 ?

[Salmon Trout]

So we agree its DDR2 ?

This is shown large in your own photo of your netbook, that you posted. Did you actually look at it?

[dgreen]

It was a rhetorical question or didn't you realise that ?

[Salmon Trout]

It was a rhetorical question or didn't you realise that ?

We don't do rhetoric here; this is a computer help forum. Posts in question format are liable to be treated as genuine enquiries, and responded to accordingly. Do you actually know what a rhetorical question is?

[dgreen]

I'm assuming your question is a sarcastic one but if not then here goes:
Rhetorical means that you are asking but really do not want an answer. An example would be asking 'Is it raining again?', when it is clearly raining outside.
It's probably best we stick to computer issues and not get side tracked.

[Salmon Trout]

Rhetorical means that you are asking but really do not want an answer. An example would be asking 'Is it raining again?', when it is clearly raining outside.

I do understand that; such things are more suitable to a (dull) real life conversation or a web chat room than a serious help forum where, as I already said, questions are assumed to be requests for information. I was merely wondering why, when you have been told in a mind-numbingly complete and thoroughly evidenced way, that your netbook only takes DDR2 memory, you found it necessary to ask "So we agree its DDR2 ?".

[dgreen]

I think there's been a misunderstanding here, probably on my part and to be honest, I was getting a little muddled and confused.
The conflicting information from a couple of posts and the Crucial sales guy made my already inadequate brain, melt down !
I thought perhaps I was going mad.
Anyway, I really appreciate your help.
Thanks

[Salmon Trout]

Sorry if I was grouchy. Hopefully you can now buy RAm with confidence?

[dgreen]

no problem, I get like that every day...
Would you recommend going with Crucial or can you suggest somewhere cheaper.
Would cheaper RAM perform less well?

[Geek-9pm]

...
Would you recommend going with Crucial or can you suggest somewhere cheaper.
Would cheaper RAM perform less well?

Crucial is a trusted company.
If the RAM works,speed  is only a small improvement. Using eh recommend3d RAM is the wise choice. The net book does not support faster RAM.

In general, the only viable upgrade options for a net book is RAM size.

[dgreen]

Hi Geek,

I just bought the RAM from Offtek as it was cheaper than crucial. Is this a recommended make and good enough?
http://www.offtek.co.uk/ram-memory-2/samsung/samsung-netbook-memory/n145-plus-(ddr2)/mid182137

[Computer_Commando]

Offtek is not a brand, they are a retailer.  The page you linked to specifies a number of brands.

Premium Brand Chips
Not all memory is the same. Our memory is manufactured using premium brand chips from manufacturers including Samsung, NEC, Hynix (Hyundai), Transcend and Buffalo. This ensures the highest level of reliability and compatability. You may be able to buy cheaper memory but you will not be able to buy the same quality of memory cheaper. Please find below a profile of some of the major manufacturers that are used by OFFTEK.

BTW, Crucial is a Micron Company which makes the chips & modules.  They used to make computers, too.
Crucial.com is operated by a subsidiary of Micron Technology, Inc., one of the largest memory manufacturers worldwide. This relationship allows us to offer our customers industry-leading technology and Micron's more than 35 years of experience.

[dgreen]

Thanks Commando.
So it looks as though Offtek are selling quality RAM and I have made the right choice. Would you agree?

[comda]

Hardware is one thing. Then again you are running an intel atom. My buddy had bought one of them asus netbooks with pretty much the same specs also running windows 7 basic. However he needed it for school and some light java coding so just last month he purchased windows 8 and gave the machine 2 gb of ram and you'd be surprised of what this little machine can do. Like the others said a RAM upgrade to at least 2gb will do you great, however a OS change will be helpful aswell if you can manage it. Many netbook users found that the old windows XP pro performance did the trick for them, however downgrading in OS I wouldn't suggest unless you absolutely have to. Due to windows 8 being shipped on a tablet basis world, the samsung series tablet PCs that have a Atom at 1.7ghz and 2gb ram and it does great in the terms of speed performance. If you dont wanna touch your current hard drive set-up try getting a 16gb or 32gb flash drive and install windows 8 or XP on that and give it a go. Using a flash drive will decrease your speed by a little however you still should see a increase in performance over your current set-up. Best of luck.

[DaveLembke]

I was able to boost my netbooks performance by editing the bios settings and power settings of windows. I set the bios to the non-green setting of maximum performance so that the CPU is always 1.66Ghz on my Atom CPU and under windows power management, I set the netbook up to be power hungry. Maximum performance setting for CPU and the only thing I did set up to get about an hour more of battery life is to set the display brightness down from max brightness. I have the Toshiba NB205 netbook. *The other thing that improved performance and battery life was replacing the slow 5400rpm 160GB HDD with a 90GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD.

My netbook runs Windows XP Home SP3 on 1GB RAM. Back when I bought it, there was an option for Windows XP Home or Windows 7 Starter edition. I figured the Windows XP Home would run far better on this Atom CPU. The bechmark of this Atom CPU places it equivilant to a Pentium 4 2.53Ghz in Passmark score. The one area that it is extremely weak is with its GPU such as trying to watch Netflix etc it struggles badly on full screen, but runs ok on non-full screen. It also plays Diablo 2 pretty good, but is crippled by newer games like Torchlight 2 as my last plane trip taught me after downloading it through steam to my laptop from airport wifi to play offline at 32,000 ft vs Diablo 2. The Integrated GPU is about as powerful as a Geforce 2 when benchmarked, which is not very powerful in todays computing hardware specs!

Regarding the Atom CPU, I have always been curious as to how it would perform in a mini ITX board with a single PCIe 16x slot and a good video card, BUT I wouldnt buy another Atom CPU system. According to benchmark figures it should run similar to a Pentium 4 2.53Ghz in CPU power, so if paired up with say a GeForce 9800GT video card, you might actually be able to play not too heavy of CPU demand, but heavy GPU demand games on it without lag.

Surprisingly there are servers out there that run the Atom CPU's, but they must not be good for anything but simple tasks like file servers, DHCP, Domain Controller, etc. I definitely wouldnt have it as a server for running a database etc with multiple users tapped into its use.