Hi Omer,
On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, Omer Zak wrote:
> The system configuration is:
> 128MB memory
> 256MB swap
> 1.7GHz Intel Mobile Celeron (stepping 07) processor (3381.65 BogoMIPS)
> Gnome desktop
>
> What should I check in order to speed up the system?
Although you might not like to hear this, you should blame your
hardware. Upgrade your hardware...
128MB of memory is too little for today's demands. You should upgrade it
to 256MB, although 512MB is highly recommended. You can add another
256MB SODIMM chip to your laptop so you will have 384MB total. It can more
than serve you the best for the next few years.
Your processor is quite on the limit. What kind of processor is it? Is it
the "regular" Celeron? or is it Celeron-M? If it's a regular Celeron, then
it is not good. Your computer will probably have heat problems if you try
to squeeze it too much (even though regular Celeron processors can fit
into laptops since they have some primitive heat control - it is not it
as they had not been created for laptops-use in the first place).
You should have gone for a Pentium 4-M 2.0GHz, the least, although any
Pentium M (not 4-M) would do good for you. At least 1.4GHz (see the
differences - Pentium M != 4-M != 4).
You also didn't say what's the size of your HD, and what's its speed
(4200RPM or 5400RPM. I highly doubt that it is 7200RPM). It can highly
affect the performance of your whole system.
Last but not least, maybe you actually don't have DMA activated (suppose
your HD is at least UATA 100, it can highly increase your system's
performance). To check your HD's performance, you can do this (suppose
that /dev/hda is your HD. well, it should be):
hdparm -tT /dev/hda
later on, you can try to activate your HD's DMA if you see that it is not
activated, by doing this:
hdparm -d 1 -A 1 -m 16 -u 1 -a 64 /dev/hda
If DMA wasn't activated, you will highly feel the differences.
Whatsoever, I still recommend you to do some hardware upgrade. At least
add some memory. I also assume that the swap is used too much because you
don't have enough RAM. If you want to be really free with what you run on
a KDE/Gnome environment, add 256MB to your laptop, so you will have 384MB
at least. In addition to enabling DMA for your HD (in case it wasn't done
by your distribution automatically) - your problem will be solved and you
will dramatically see a different.
Best regards,
Adir.
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