Tips, Tricks & Tweaks to make your Laptop even Better!~

sdmaverick

Journeyman
Hi Guys,

Thought I'd start a new thread for a good discussion on the various tips, tricks &/or tweaks that you guys found or use to make your laptop's performance better. So jump in, let us know your ideas & suggestions & do mention your laptop specs! :twisted:

Cheers!

Model: Asus K Series K53SV-SX521D

Tip: Partition your hdd into atleast 2 partitions before you start filling up your data. Keep the C drive separate from your personal drive, helps a lot to backup and restore stuff.

Tweak: Windows 7 Registry Tweaks >>Useful Tweaks for Speeding Up Windows 7

Download the attachment (the registry tweak) and see faster aero animations & other cool tweaks.

Cheers!
 

thetechfreak

Legend Never Ends
Never use the laptop all the time with charger plugged. Once the battery is charged, remove the charger and let it run on battery. Running on charger all the time reduces laptop battery life very drastically.
 

samudragupta

Youngling
Never use the laptop all the time with charger plugged. Once the battery is charged, remove the charger and let it run on battery. Running on charger all the time reduces laptop battery life very drastically.
are you sure!! because i thought that chargers come with auto cut off function once battery is completely charged...
 

freshseasons

King of my own Castle
Bro by old you must mean really really old. Infact yet to come across this really old laptop even P1 included which doesn't auto cutoff the battery.

As far as i surmise even if the battery is full dont plug off the charger rather leave it in autocut off mode and let the laptop run on external power.This way you will leave a far less charge /drain cycle on the battery ,infant increasing its life.

Other thing you could do is get as much as ram as possible ineffect reducing the memory page usage on the harddrive and increasing the battery and drives life.
 
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sdmaverick

Journeyman
Nowadays laptops come with Li-Ion batteries which are already on a death clock, meaning from the day they are manufactured they are dying. Heat plays a major role in reducing the life span of the battery. Therefore, in certain situations like intensive gaming or applications that require high processing, the internal components get heated up which can also indirectly heat the charged battery.

So, its actually a good idea to remove the battery when plugged in on AC power & using the laptop for such intensive n prolonged sessions. Read the battery query thread on this forum and you will find out.

On a side note, a TIP: Go to start --> search --> msconfig and remove all 3rd party and unnecessary apps & services from starting. This will directly result in better boot times.

Tweak: In msconfig, go to the BOOT TAB and there reduce the Timeout limit to 10 seconds (1/3rd of original). Then, click on Advanced Options & check on processors (select your max available) along with max memory. This MAY or MAY NOT reduce boot load time.

Cheers!
 

red dragon

Master troll
Change the thread name to Windows laptop tips,tricks and whatever!
Now regarding Li batteries
1.Agreed!Heat is the worst enemy,so removing the battery while gaming on AC power is logical enough.

2.There is something else about these batteries no one mentioned.
It is the movement of the Li ions.
A battery which is having some ion movement everyday is likely to last more/needs less calibration compared to a battery which was charged 100% on day 1 and taken out of the laptop immediately and again was put in the laptop after 3 days or so.

Love them or hate them,Apple does know a thing or two about laptop batteries,and according to them ideal laptop battery usage is about a hour or so on battery DAILY.

BTW is this thread about SW only?
If not,then SSDs should occupy a major share of discussion.
It is the best boost one can give to his laptop.
Unless you have not seen,you wont believe what a ssd can do to a old and sluggish laptop.
 
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sdmaverick

Journeyman
Change the thread name to Windows laptop tips,tricks and whatever!
Now regarding Li batteries
1.Agreed!Heat is the worst enemy,so removing the battery while gaming on AC power is logical enough.

2.There is something else about these batteries no one mentioned.
It is the movement of the Li ions.
A battery which is having some ion movement everyday is likely to last more/needs less calibration compared to a battery which was charged 100% on day 1 and taken out of the laptop immediately and again was put in the laptop after 3 days or so.

Love them or hate them,Apple does know a thing or two about laptop batteries,and according to them ideal laptop battery usage is about a hour or so on battery DAILY.

BTW is this thread about SW only?
If not,then SSDs should occupy a major share of discussion.
It is the best boost one can give to his laptop.
Unless you have not seen,you wont believe what a ssd can do to a old and sluggish laptop.

Yes, the battery must not be altogether left in an idle state which will again prove to be detrimental to the long term battery life. I usually ensure that the battery is plugged in at all times except when I am gaming for around 2hours at a stretch. I make sure that all my regular / routine tasks are done with the battery plugged in.

And I created this thread to discuss all / any way to make the laptop performance better which definitely includes the discussions related to SSD's, faster rpm drives etc. While I agree with you that SSD's performance cannot be compared with non-ssd drives, one has to think about the cost vs storage paradigm that ssd's present.

I mean, we can safely say that a good SSD with lets say 160gb storage capacity would be the equivalent of an entry level netbook right. How many people would want to spend around 20-25% of their laptops cost solely on the SSD (And i refer to majority not enthusiasts).

What are you views on a 7200rpm drive instead of a 5400rpm. I feel they do offer substantial overall improvement without hurting the pocket!

Cheers!
 

dashing.sujay

Moving
Staff member
The 7.2k drives are noisy imo.
A probable cost effective solution is hybrid drives.

Not actually. I can't even listen it even if I try. Just the fan. But I must say one should always go for 7200 if possible, but real world performance is not visible except for file transfer tasks.

Are hybrid drives available in India? Though the price difference is not much, can you throw some light on how they benefit? (IDK much about this)


I have planned to add a SSD later on when at least 160GB becomes affordable and remove HDD. Result- Blazing speeds (with utter silence), min half an hour back up increment, about 200-300 gm weight reduction, plus show off :))
 

clinton

Blu For Life Hail Chelsea
My laptops got 2 Seagate Momentus XT 500GB hybrid drives which have 4GB of SSD part(Some NAND slc chip :p)
Any1 of u can post ur HD tune score with a regular 7.2k drive.I ll post mine soon.

The prime proposed benefits of a Hybrid drive are fast boot speeds,higher data transfer.i used to enjoy the 1st one a lot but then Win7 updates ruined it....:(
 
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sdmaverick

Journeyman
My laptops got 2 Seagate Momentus XT 500GB hybrid drives which have 4GB of SSD part(Some NAND slc chip :p)
Any1 of u can post ur HD tune score with a regular 7.2k drive.I ll post mine soon.

The prime proposed benefits of a Hybrid drive are fast boot speeds,higher data transfer.i used to enjoy the 1st one a lot but then Win7 updates ruined it....:(

Been hearing a lot about hybrid drives. Fascinating. What is the cost of the seagate drive that you have installed in your laptop? Also, how does partial ssd & partial rpm drive integration exactly work? I have a K53SV (i7) with a stock 5400 rpm drive & am lookingto upgrade somewhere in the near future.

On a side note, TIP: I removed Windows 7 64 Bit SP1 and instantly noticed that my boot speed & overall boot loading of widgets etc. improved significantly.

Cheers!
 

dashing.sujay

Moving
Staff member
My laptops got 2 Seagate Momentus XT 500GB hybrid drives which have 4GB of SSD part(Some NAND slc chip :p)
Any1 of u can post ur HD tune score with a regular 7.2k drive.I ll post mine soon.

The prime proposed benefits of a Hybrid drive are fast boot speeds,higher data transfer.i used to enjoy the 1st one a lot but then Win7 updates ruined it....:(

Check my review. I have posted there. BTW you bought your lappi from India? Which one?
 
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clinton

Blu For Life Hail Chelsea
@Dashing Sujay,
I got a ASUS G73SW A1 laptop about a month back.I got from the US from an estore for around 70k INR.
The Momentus XT 500gb cost around 7k right now.Seagate has another better model the Momentus XT 750 GB which has 8GB of SSD memory.Test & revies shows it can outperform the Veloci Raptors & significantly reduce Boot times.
My next upgrade woud definitely be the XT 750 GB once the prices drop coz it gives speed + a massive amount of storage space too...

Here's the HD tune screeny-
*i44.tinypic.com/2vsf9eh.jpg
 
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dashing.sujay

Moving
Staff member
Its approx 20% faster but if I'd have to invest 7k, I'd rather go for a SSD (Vortex 3/160 gb) by adding 3-4k when price reduces.
 

Alok

Adventurer
Reduce waste startup processes.I noticed many guys used to make a lot of programs and processes on startup causing more boot time.

use ccleaner to clean waste temp files and fix reg. files.
 
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sdmaverick

Journeyman
Since we're on the topic, I suggest to google & download "Eusing Free Registry Cleaner & Window Washer" (2 separate software's). Make sure to run them once every 3-4 days to keep the system up and running speedily.

Cheers!
 

clinton

Blu For Life Hail Chelsea
Win7 SP1 totally sucked man!!!Uninstalled it it within minutes after installing,but still other updates have affected too.I have disabled most of the startup apps & use Ccleaner too,but none can give the old glory back....
BTW how long do u guys take to boot?
 
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