The Acer Aspire One netbook running Windows 7 Starter Edition won’t win any performance benchmarks.  However, you can greatly improve this netbook’s responsiveness with some targeted tweaking.

DISCLAIMER: Some of the tips mentioned below potentially leave your system vulnerable.  Although these particular settings work for me, they may not be the best fit for how you use your netbook and your environment.  Please use these tips at your own risk.

• Add more RAM
• Disable performance and appearance options
• Disable services
• Disable start-up applications
• Disable McAfee anti-virus
• Disable sound schemes
• Disable system restore

Add more RAM

Adding more RAM is one of the most expensive and invasive options for remedying a slow netbook.  However, it arguably offers the greatest gains.  My netbook comes with 1GB of RAM and can handle an upgrade to 2GB.  Increasing the amount of RAM available to your system (in this case, doubling the RAM) produces increased responsiveness you’ll notice immediately.

First, find out how much RAM you currently have.

1. Press the Windows key.
2. Type system in the search box.
3. Run the System application from the search results.
4. Under the System section, look for Installed memory (RAM).

Then, look in your Aspire One manual to determine how much RAM your netbook can handle.  You can also rely on the memory experts at Crucial for this information.

1. Navigate to the Crucial website: http://crucial.com.
2. Using the Crucial Memory Advisor Tool, select the Manufacturer (Acer).
3. Select the Product Line (Aspire netbooks).
4. Select the Model (Aspire One 532h, your model may be slightly different).
5. Click Find It.

Crucial displays the default configuration for your netbook and the memory upgrades that are possible.  A list of compatible parts is also listed.  For my configuration, I can get a 2GB DDR2 for about $50.

Numerous guides are available for installing the memory upgrade (just do a search for aspire one memory upgrade).  This is the one I found most useful: How to Add RAM to the 10-inch Acer Aspire One.

Disable performance and appearance options

Adjusting the Windows 7 performance and appearance options is bound to increase the responsiveness of your netbook.

1. Press the Windows key.
2. Type system in the search box.
3. Run the System application from the search results.
4. Click on the Advanced system settings link.
5. Click on the Advanced tab.
6. In the Performance section, click on the Settings button.
7. It’s up to you which options you’d like to keep around.  On my netbook, I uncheck all except:
   Show window contents while dragging
   Smooth edges of screen fonts
   Use visual styles on windows and buttons
8. Click OK.

Disable services

Setting unneeded services to start Manually will definitely free up resources previously used by those services.

1. Press the Windows key.
2. Type services in the search box.
3. Run the Services application from the search results.
4. To set services to start manually, double-click on the service.
5. Set each of these services to start Manually, and click OK.
   Desktop Window Manager Session Manager
   Diagnostic Policy Service
   Distributed Link Tracking Client
   IP Helper
   Print Spooler (I don’t print from my netbook)
   TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper

Disable startup applications

Disabling unneeded startup applications speeds up Windows 7 start-up time and frees up resources previously used by those applications.

1. Press the Windows key.
2. Type system configuration in the search box.
3. Run the System Configuration application from the search results.
4. Click on the Startup tab.
5. Uncheck processes you don’t want running at startup.
6. Click OK.

Disable McAfee anti-virus

Anti-virus programs are necessary in many environments for providing a safe computing experience.  If anti-virus programs saved your computer more times than you can remember, do not take my advice.  However, if you can’t remember the last time anti-virus did anything for you except slow down your system, you are not alone.

Because of the stranglehold that McAfee has on my system, I chose to completely uninstall it.

1. Press the Windows key.
2. Type program and features in the search box.
3. Run the Program and Features application from the search results.
4. Locate the McAfee application in the program listing.
5. Right-click on it.
6. Click Uninstall.

UPDATE: A comment from Sindhu suggested… rather than uninstalling McAfee, stop the McAfee services and change the start-up type to Manual.  The reasoning is you may want to run anti-virus at times, and this approach will allow you to fire it up when the need arises.  Follow the Disable Services instructions for details.

Disable sound schemes

Playing sounds during certain actions in Windows takes up some resources.  If you like the sound schemes, by all means keep them.  If it doesn’t matter to you, disable them so that there’s one less thing taking up system resources.

1. Press the Windows key.
2. Type sound in the search box.
3. Run the Sound application from the search results.
4. Click on the Sounds tab.
5. Set Sound Scheme to No Sounds.
6. Uncheck Play Windows Startup sound.
7. Click OK.

Disable system restore

System restore definitely has its advantages.  When you absolutely must back out of some system changes, being able to restore to a previously working point is an awesome safety net.  Since my netbook is not my primary computer, system restore is an extra application that takes up resources to periodically snapshot images of my system.  In addition, it requires a relatively large chunk of disk space.  So, I disable it.

1. Press the Windows key.
2. Type system in the search box.
3. Click on the System Protection link.
4. Click on the System Protection tab.
5. In the Protection Settings section, click on a drive.
6. Click on the Configure button.
7. In the Restore Settings section, click on the Turn off system protection option.
8. Click OK.
9. Once system restore is disabled for all desired drives, click OK.

With these tweaks, my RAM usage noticeably decreased and system responsiveness seems to be snappier.  Hopefully, they’ll produce a similar result for you.

Tags: Netbook

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 at 6:28 am and is filed under Popular, Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.