One immediate difference after the 2Gb upgrade is the icons on the Start Menu will not longer pop up one by one. Before the 2Gb upgrade, I used a 2Gb SD for readyboost and can still see the lag in displaying the icons on the Start Menu

Yes, it doesn't actually make the processor any "faster" to be honest. But what it does do is stop it from using the HDD when it doesn't need to - so Start menu, Control Panel etc come up a lot quicker.  

However, you really do need to set your page file to 3055Mb to get the maximum benefit. After doing that it was very sweet.

What is a "page file" and how is it changed?

See about halfway down here. Shustring's post ..

http://origamiproject.com/forums/4/23067/ShowThread.aspx

MIJI:

One immediate difference after the 2Gb upgrade is the icons on the Start Menu will not longer pop up one by one. Before the 2Gb upgrade, I used a 2Gb SD for readyboost and can still see the lag in displaying the icons on the Start Menu

Another speed-up for the start menu, was mentioned by someone here on the forums, I forget who, but if you disable "Highlight Newly Installed programs" in the start menu options, it greatly improves the speed at which the folders open and display.

Thanks to whoever that was!

Another thing I've decided to do on mine is (at my own risk) disable antivirus realtime scanning part of  NOD32, this will take a load off the CPU and the hard drive, and keeps my machine running just like on a fresh install. I did however leave on the internet scanning module which scans incoming downloads and websites. I just have to make sure I scan manually files I'm about to install or run for the first time. I've also disabled windows defender starting up with the computer and scanning every night. I'm able to leave Aero ON, and have no hang-ups on this machine, no wireless high cpu usage, it almost seems to be a different machine than i had the first time (exchanged my unit).

Plays DVD's over the network flawlessly, the only time the performance is affected is when trying to play a 1080p HD video, which my powerful desktop struggles with anyway. Also playing Geometry Wars works only a very low FPS almost unplayable.

I'd remove McAfee entirely and replace it with AVG (free.grisoft.com). McAfee's anti-virus is one of the crappiest and system unfriendly ones out there. They have a little app called scan32.exe that sits there and constantly scans your files over and over. It can take upto 15% of your CPU time doing this and of course, is hammering the hard drive - which on a UMPC is a big issue since it's a slow drive.

Well just done mine with a kingston brand (expensive) but its so much quicker now, hibernating and waking from sleep and hibernation.
Cold start was alot quicket too, now I dont have to cringe on any reboot
Thanks to the people in this thread, very usefull info

I got my Q1 ultra about a week ago.

From earlier experience, first thing I've done was to remove the virus scanner. That takes up a lot of resources to run. It was my first time using Vista, but realized that it has so many similarities with XP when it comes to settings.

I went to advanced system settings and under "visual effects", removed everything but "smooth edges of screen fonts" and "use visual styles on windows and buttons". I'm not a big fan of fancy animations, shadows and such... This significantly improved the performance right away, and it still looks like Vista, but just don't have the fade ins/outs, transparency... I also disabled the recovery points and indexing for the hard drive. I keep my files organized enough I guess, and hardly ever use the search feature.

Next I went task manager and looked at programs that are taking the most out of ram. Disabled the bluethooth under device manager. That helped stop the program running along with it and save the battery life as well. I uninstalled the AVS as I don't see myself using it. Battery and performance management, I think, is setup good enough by default. It uses the most out of cpu when plugged and tries to last the battery longer when unplugged by slowing it down a little bit. But after the changes above, I don't see any difference between plugged and unplugged performance as I think I took a lot of load off of the cpu.

When my unit first arrived, it was using about 500-600 mb of ram. After the changes as above, I could drop it down to about 380 mb. I remember the first time I got XP, it was sitting around 300 mb and after similar changes as above, it was only using up 140 mb of ram. Thus, I think vista itself uses more resources to begin with. After the changes, my vista started booting up in under a minute, and shut down even more quicker. (never timed it exactly)

Several days ago, I also upgraded my ram. With all the performance improvements I had already gained with these changes, ram increase did not bring much more improvement. However;

- I think the video system is using shared memory. Now I might be wrong on this one but I think it is using hard drive or ram resources for video memory purposes. So when I upgraded the ram, my video improved. Some videos were having a hard time showing with the SRS sound enhancement on (missing frames and freezing), but now they play easily.

- The 380 mb ram usage, jumped up to >500 mb after the ram change. (I did not change any other settings.) I think, vista actually needs much more memory, and with 1 gb of physical memory, it was using more of the page file on the hard drive. By boosting up the ram to 2 gb, now I think it is using more of that ram space for what it needs and making less use of the page file. Which I guess, should help take the load off the hard drive. I played with the page size settings up and down but it didn't make any difference between 2337 and 3055 mb. So I set it back to "automatically manage page file size" setting and I think it is using 2337 mb now.

One problem I have right now is that I can't get to Bios when the unit is firing up. Either I am not timing the press for "R" right or something else is going on. Anyone else tried that before?

Press the mouse button "R".  Not the letter "R"

Just upgraded my Q1U-XP to 2GB. Thank goodness for Hugo's video or I would've probably ripped the case off.

Initially I've noticed my boot and shut down times have decreased. Startup took 35 sec and shutdown 28 sec.

I also noticed that my video playback has improved just as mkinal stated. Now I'll have to tweak it some more to see what else I can improve on.

hi!

 

well, i just bought a brand new q1 Ultra, very sweet baby i must say, just a little toooo slow! I'm having problems with simple video files, especially when i put them full screen. They look like slow-motion while the audio runs without problems. So now i am looking for a good 2gb memory stick for upgrade. I've already opened my Ultra, following hugo's excellent video, did it with no problem at all, even when opening the back case (just need to be extra careful!!). My questions are: is the q1 ultra normally this slow? is anyone experiencing the same media files problem? What are the full specifications of a good 2gb memory stick for my baby and where can i buy them on the net? thanks to whoever might help...

Ciao from Italy 

If you have Vista read this, for making video play better:

http://www.gottabemobile.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3689

Turning off the SRS under Realtek HD Audio Manager in Control Panel fixed that slow motion problem for me. 2 gb upgrade later made it better.

Thanks for the advice and the links guys, really appreciate it!

I've turned the srs off, set the file paging to the recommended 1519mb  , taken out mcfee and put in avg, no improvements whatsoever though :-(((

 

The information on the forum link seems very thorough, but very complex too :-?  i'll see what i can do... Unfortunately i don't have  the external usb cd drive, so it will all be a bit harder. In the meantime, i've ordered the 2gb stick from flashman852 (ebay), i'm holding thumbs... will let you know!

 

ciao!