Laptop issues... not sure if this is right spot for it :/

[interpim]

OK... sorry if this is in the wrong area..

But, it seems that my laptop runs pretty damn crappy for the speed/specs of it.
It is an HP Pavilion zv6000, and it seems that if I run anything mildly memory intensive on it, then it pretty much locks itself up and requires me to either hope to get the Task manager up to end the process, or shut the computer down completely.

I don't really know what's going on with it, I just want it to actually run my proggy's without acting like a P2.

CPU is AMD athlon 64 3200+ Venice core 90nm tech. It runs around 1995 MHz
Mobo is HP board w/ Radeon Xpress 200 chipset and SB400 SB.
512 MB DDR 2700 running 2.5/3/3/7 @166MHz made by infineon according to CPU-Z

Then again i may be expecting to much out of this laptop :/ but I think it should be better than it is. Also, the video card has 128Mb built in non-shared memory in-case you might wonder about that :P

[Kougar]

Nice, the CPUs on those are the same as the desktop parts and hence upgradeable... I wonder if a High Efficiency X2 might work in there? ;)

Erm, guess that doesn't help your problem though. If the laptop acts that badly it sounds like something with windows was messed up... done any changes recently? When was the last time you did a complete format and reinstall of XP?

Also, is that a single 512mb SODIMM or 2x256mb? Socket 939 chips run much better in dual channel memory mode, so if you only have one chip you would see a big difference getting a second 512mb SODIMM and putting it in there. It would also be better if ya had DDR400 SODIMM RAM and not DDR333, but completely changing out to DDR400 wouldn't be worth the cost unless you found an exceptional deal... In the very least I'd suggest getting a second DDR333 512mb SODIMM for it, dual-channel should go a good ways towards improving that problem.

[vfrex]

Are you sure its getting proper airflow? Most of the HP laptop i've seen are insufficient at cooling themselves without having the back propped up on a book or notebook cooler.

[interpim]

It is 2 256MB memory sticks in it... also the cooling isn't an issue because the places I use it are cooled for other electronics usually around 55 degrees. and I have never noticed any heat buildup on it.

[Kougar]

Well in that case, I'm back to my earlier post. I'd say either something with Windows XP is messed up and you need to reinstall from a clean slate, or that there are other things running in the background on the PC sapping resources. Either way I'd suggest a reinstall from a reformat, and if that doesn't help then you will know for sure that it is the hardware.

[DragonMaster]

Either software (Too much crap) or hardware problem(Dust, needs new thermal paste, etc.)