For those unit with 1 gig of RAM, you may want to tweak the registry to disable paging to hardisk. This will sort of improve the performance (as it is much faster to access from the RAM than from the hardisk) and reduces the battery consumption (since there is lesser spinning of hardisk)

1. Execute regedit.exe
2. Goto HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
3. Double-click on the DisablePagingExecutive registry value (default value of 0 = paging on).
4. Change from Hex (hexadecimal) to Decimal, change the value to 1.
5. Close the registry editor and reboot.

For other ways to improve the performance: http://webgear.datacreek.net/system/xptweaks.html#10

However, please note that it is at your own risk to perform the above task.

 

Or this could be a sure way to run out of memory more quickly ;)  I have to say that recommending this sort of thing without the slightest mention of the fact that you cannot run as many applications at a time is just irresponsible as it doesn't make it clear to a lot of the folks that are going to try it what they're really doing under the covers.

hugochee:

However, please note that it is at your own risk to perform the above task.

 

For me this was enough. Please, Keep coming with more of these tricks.

UMPC is not meant for heavy work and I am sure everyone knows that. If you are going to run many memory intensive applications at the same time, then you should not be using UMPC, your battery will drain in no time. Beside with 1 Gig of RAM (with paging off) it is already sufficient to run many 'memory intensive' applications as WinXP Pro minimum memory requirement is 128MB (with paging on).

 

 

hugochee:

UMPC is not meant for heavy work and I am sure everyone knows that. If you are going to run many memory intensive applications at the same time, then you should not be using UMPC, your battery will drain in no time. Beside with 1 Gig of RAM (with paging off) it is already sufficient to run many 'memory intensive' applications as WinXP Pro minimum memory requirement is 128MB (with paging on).

 

 

I knew about this hack a longtime ago, I even think that I posted about it here and I can say that it works very well in my eo with 1GB of RAM.

hugochee:

UMPC is not meant for heavy work and I am sure everyone knows that

I agree it's not a speed demon.  I disagree that your average joe understands what disabling virtual memory implies.  I also disagree that this means that you never need virtual memory.

hugochee:

If you are going to run many memory intensive applications at the same time, then you should not be using UMPC, your battery will drain in no time.

Nice mentality.  I use my laptop on power adapter more than 90% of the time.  I will probably use the UMPC on power at least 1/2 the time (guessing here).

hugochee:

Beside with 1 Gig of RAM (with paging off) it is already sufficient to run many 'memory intensive' applications as WinXP Pro minimum memory requirement is 128MB (with paging on).

If only it were true.  You must run all those magic apps that have small memory footprints and never have more than one or two open at a time.

I certainly agree that reducing drive access for virtual memory paging is good for battery life.  I just think it's odd you blindly pass on this recommendation without so much as mentioning the constraints it puts on your usage model.

hugochee:

UMPC is not meant for heavy work and I am sure everyone knows that. If you are going to run many memory intensive applications at the same time, then you should not be using UMPC, your battery will drain in no time. Beside with 1 Gig of RAM (with paging off) it is already sufficient to run many 'memory intensive' applications as WinXP Pro minimum memory requirement is 128MB (with paging on).

I know this is an old thread but i just saw it while searching for something else. UMPCs can be used as a main pc so the battery life variable doesnt come into the equation. i was using thei7210 last year as my main pc and i tried this trick.After a short while i hit the memory limit!

regards

steve