Most PC manufacturers include a lot of software that is NOT needed. Sometimes this software is useful to the user, and sometimes it is not. In the case of the S10-3T there is plenty that can be removed to improve performance.
Unoptimized
I apologize for the blurry pic, but it's the only one I had. The image shows the S10-3T's CPU working hard. There's about 82 processes, CPU usage goes from 40% to 70%, and the RAM usage is about 800 MB. This is all in "idle" which means that I have not yet launched any of my programs. Obviously this is not good for the system.
Optimized
By removing programs that run in the background you can decrease the amount of work the S10-3T has to do. After optimizing the system is now at 57 processes, 1% CPU usage, and 500 MB RAM being used. The performance after optimization is very good.
You can read some of the optimizations below, hopefully these tips will make your S10-3T experience better.
Remove Programs
- Hit the Win key and type "Uninstall a Program" and press return/enter. You can now remove some programs that you don't need.
- Acrobat.com - This is Adobe Acrobat and some people need it, and others don't.
- McAfee Security Center - This is the default antivirus software, which makes the system work a lot. I recommend uninstalling it and installing something like Microsoft Security Essentials (free).
- Microsoft Office - This includes programs like Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. If you don't need them you can remove this.
- Windows Live Essentials - There are some good tools like Messenger, Mail, Live Gallery, etc. When you begin the uninstall you can select which ones you want to remove.
- Veri Touch - This is a way of "securing" your S10-3T that frankly is slow.
- Very Face - This is a way to login to Windows by face recognition. It does run in the background and since it's slow it's a good thing to remove.
- Lenovo Idea Central - This is like an "app store" with Lenovo recommended programs. Google is a far better app store in my opinion.
- ID Vault - It's been a few years since I had the S10-3T so I don't remember what it did, but it's most likely useless.
- Many others.
If you really wanted to make the S10-3T run the absolute best you would have to reinstall Windows 7 and drivers. But by removing programs you don't need the system will run a lot better. Other lighter operating systems like Windows XP and Linux would also run very well.
Optimize Windows
- MS Config
- Hit the Win key and type "msconfig". Under the "Services" and "Startup" tabs you can view things you can disable from starting up automatically.
- Be careful when using this tool because you can disable essential things.
- Disable UAC
- Hit the Win key and type "uac". Lower the slide to something you are more comfortable with.
- This is a security component of Windows 7. If you come from Windows XP you enjoyed a very smooth experience when installing software and doing things in Windows. With Windows Vista and 7 UAC has added "security" that is a bit annoying because it makes the screen dark and it asks you security questions every time you want to do something with the computer. This is something that power users will probably disable or lower.
- Optimize Visuals (very recommended)
- Hit the Win key and type "System" and select it (under Control Panel).
- On the left side click the "Advanced system settings" link
- Under the "Performance" category click on the "Settings" button.
- Click the "Adjust for best performance" option.
- Check the following boxes:
- Use Visual Styles on windows and buttons
- Smooth edges of screen fonts
- Show thumbnails instead of icons
- Click Apply and OK buttons
- Disable Notifications
- These are the constant notifications that pop up on the lower right side of the Windows. If you have a good anti virus software you don't need to constantly be notified about things. A good thing about Apple's Mac OS X is that is NOT as annoying as Windows when it comes to notifications.
- Hit the Win key and type "Action Center"
- Click on "Change Action Center Settings"
- Uncheck the boxes of the types of messages you don't want to be notified about.
- Click OK button.
(45m)
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