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So I have an old very small Sharp notebook laptop which is unusably slow. I thought wiping everything and reinstalling windows xp which was originally on it would help but it did not. Only DOS runs normally.

I think I heard somewhere that the hardware is built in or its built in such a way that you cannot upgrade hardware, could be nonsense.

Its model is PC-MM1110, "256mb ddr sdram (fixed)", hard drive 12.8gb. "1ghz Processor"

Any suggestions? Would ideally be able to fix it without spending much or any money as I'm on an tight budget. thank you.

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    Does the laptop get hot? – Dennis Mar 15 '13 at 12:34
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    "Unusably slow" compared to what? Did it run good in the past? Are you talking about Windows or specific programs? – CharlieRB Mar 15 '13 at 12:37
  • @Dennis - no I do not think so not noticably at all. – user1470324 Mar 15 '13 at 12:37
  • @CharlieRB Unusably slow compared to anything. If you move the mouse to the other side of the screen it takes like 9 whole seconds to get there. It ran perfectly well in the beginning yes. I am talking about Windows the entire operating system in general. – user1470324 Mar 15 '13 at 12:38
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This computer has a Crusoe CPU. That doesn't bode well for getting much of an improvement in performance. Windows XP can run with 256Mb memory, but it really needs at least 512Mb to perform reasonably. However, this computer does not seem to have room for a memory expansion.

Also, the hard drive is probably rather full given its low capacity. I would try to figure out if it is a standard 2.5 inch IDE laptop drive and look for a larger one (however, watch out for the 32GB barrier).

Another alternative is to find a lightweight Linux distro to put on it.

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  • The hard drive has been totally wiped. That 12.8GB is quoted directly from the sticker on the laptop, that is all it has. – user1470324 Mar 15 '13 at 16:17
  • Which is why I am suggesting you might want to upgrade it. You are starting with a tiny old drive. Given the low memory, there is probably some swapping going on. Can you post screenshots of the "Processes" and "Performance" tabs in Task Manager and the model of the hard drive shown in Device Manager? – Sinan Ünür Mar 15 '13 at 16:41
  • Also, once you boot with a freshly installed XP, the computer WILL BE BUSY downloading updates for a while. You might want to try to grin and bear it while that's going on. – Sinan Ünür Mar 15 '13 at 16:43
  • I see. Its not accessible right now because Im moving house, I will do that when next possible though. Even before I connect to the internet and download updates in the past it has been unusably slow, so maybe a lightweight linux distro is the best idea, Or upgrading it. – user1470324 Mar 15 '13 at 17:04

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