[jollyfellow]

tomorrow is day 14 and last chance to return

so far fairly happy with mini, for the money and configuration, pretty good value

still find the performance a little slow

want to know this: i have an 8 gig ssd with about 2 gigs free and still 1 gig of ram

how much will performance improve if i drop in a runcore 32 or 64 and add another gig of ram ?

will i see a noticeable improvement ?

am leaning toward keeping but would like some opinions

thanks all

[holmes4]

Putting in a RunCore 32 or 64GB drive will definitely improve things. It will also allow you to decompress the hard disk if you are running XP. But do keep in mind that this is a netbook, not a high-powered desktop replacement notebook.

[WolfKeeper]

One man's "a little slow" is another's "damn that fast!".

What exactly is a little slow? Staring up the OS? Loading certain applications? Installing? Is it pausing/freezing while working?

[jollyfellow]

What exactly is a little slow? Staring up the OS? Loading certain applications? Installing? Is it pausing/freezing while working?

wolf, startup is fine, app load is acceptable (except itunes which seems very slow) installing is fine, ........ you put your finger on the main problem which is pausing and freezing while working ....this is getting frustrating

it is true that i work fast and to some extent expect it to perform like a "regular" laptop

the tip about a uncompressing sounds good, i forgot about that, with a large drive, it will be possible to do that

it seems like if i add another gig then 2 gigs of ram should be plenty for xp....

so other than the fact that it is 1.6 gig proc i could get it up to config as a fairly normal laptop spec

i would even like to try vista or even win 7

[Circs]

I'd say a Runcore and 2gigs of RAM would be the prescription for what ails you.

[psyopper]

If you bump to 2 GB of ram you can also get away with setting the swap file to 0. This seems to make a LOT of XP systems really snappy.

[dianed]

I have an 8GB SSD and 1GB of RAM, and my Mini 9 runs pretty fast. But it didn't start out that way. I got rid of some junk, disabled file indexing, and then used the battery re-installation method recommended by Dell to stop the boot freezes. I continued to have problems with random freezes, but found out that they were caused by conflicting software loads at start-up. Once I resolved that issue, the computer has run both quickly and smoothly. Of course, it does not have the speed of our desktop or our notebook, but it is impressively fast for what it is. If yours is running on the slow side, you might try tweaking it a bit and updating your drivers.

[UnaClocker]

Upgrading to a runcore and doing a fresh install of XP will solve the random pauses, and the machine will blow your mind at how much faster it suddenly becomes.

[chris]

Ive a mini 64gb run core (alot faster once you get the run core), 1 gig ram and running windows 7. Its very fast as it is, probably the same as my desktop which is 2.2ghz dual core, 2 gig ram.
Ive not installed i tunes yet, Ill have to do that after work.
But Ive installed the whole of microsoft office, photoshop etc and it seems to be working a treat.
Im running windows 7 instead of xp, Ill be adding a 2 gig ram stick tonight.

[strider_mt2k]

It's a bummer but Dell doesn't do this machine any favors by setting it up like they do in the factory.

Part of that is due to Microsoft, and part of that is due to Dell's "business as usual" crapware, only NOW it's on a less capable system, which shows itself even MORE.
Now lump that onto a system with limited storage and I can understand how yours might not be as sprightly as it can be.

2gb of RAM costs money, but is the easiest way to get a little more performance of you don't want to muck about with OS installs.
Re-installing the OS takes time and elbow grease, and THAT'S assuming the owner knows how.

However, if you're willing to do BOTH this thing really can run very well for a machine of it's type.

That's the not-so-dirty not-so-little not-so-secret.

Adding a higher performing larger capacity SSD is also a great bump-up to be sure!