Hmmm ... now that I think about it, it's x86. Even though the CPU is 64 bit capable, I just never got round to upgrading the original Windows XP installation to 64 bit even when upgrading to Win 7, 8 and now 10.
Firefox freezing and causing HD to go in a spin
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Re: Firefox freezing and causing HD to go in a spin
Dell Inspiron 1525 Core 2 Duo T5850 4GB Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia Cinnamon 6.0.4
Re: Firefox freezing and causing HD to go in a spin
Wow. Even without booting into Windows it still causes trouble.administrollaattori wrote: ⤴Thu Mar 15, 2018 12:00 pm Your main-problem is Vista. For better performance you need to do some things in Vista.
Thanks for all the hints. This may take a while...
LOL!PS. the better option would be remove Vista.
That would be the easiest! It's only there for when I really need Windows. And only Vista because this machine has a genuine key for it.
BTW I already had freed some space in Vista for Linux. And did a resizing. It took ages to do.
Re: Firefox freezing and causing HD to go in a spin
Hmmm ... it appears my problem is still there but occurs less frequently. My "solution" of shutting down laptop or just Firefox more frequently seems to work. However, I'm leaving the setting change in place.
Dell Inspiron 1525 Core 2 Duo T5850 4GB Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia Cinnamon 6.0.4
Re: Firefox freezing and causing HD to go in a spin
Well after managing to set up 4GP swap and free up 5GB on the HD I see no change. In fact it still seems worse. Before the HDD would start working and I'd have a chance to close it. But now the HDD light comes on, the pointer stutters and even trying to kill the X server fails. It's getting tot the stage than when I see that HDD light up and stay I must quickly close it down in case this is the moment I'm about to be caught out. And in that case force power is the only way out of it.
I updated it in the hope these problems would be dealt with. But it's acted as if the settings were wiped. Looks like I should jump to Chorme or something else. A friend likes to use Opera. But I thought that was so 90's. Where would they get time to keep updating it?
I was looking at low range laptops and found they only have 4GB RAM. I was shocked! Yes entry level maybe but they are all 64-bit these days and that's no better than a ten year old machine as standard. Perhaps more expandable and faster memory over all. And able to run Linux Mint. But no good for running FireFox which needs tons of RAM and I'd say 8GB minimum and 16GB to be reasonable.
I updated it in the hope these problems would be dealt with. But it's acted as if the settings were wiped. Looks like I should jump to Chorme or something else. A friend likes to use Opera. But I thought that was so 90's. Where would they get time to keep updating it?
I was looking at low range laptops and found they only have 4GB RAM. I was shocked! Yes entry level maybe but they are all 64-bit these days and that's no better than a ten year old machine as standard. Perhaps more expandable and faster memory over all. And able to run Linux Mint. But no good for running FireFox which needs tons of RAM and I'd say 8GB minimum and 16GB to be reasonable.
Re: Firefox freezing and causing HD to go in a spin
Hi guys. Just a note. In my last message I added swap space. However I was checking it recently and found the swap was off! 
I enabled it from GParted. Then later rebooted and found it was off again. I suspect this is because the swap was added later since it is missing from the fstab. I'll need to add it in.
With it on Firefox is a bit better. I've been checking the system monitor and found that when the RAM is almost full up and swap is just about half way there it's time for a Fireflush. I can trust the system more when multitasking. And if it get too much just flush Firefox out. However I noticed it takes longer to unlink itself from the system when swap is in use. I like to wait until it's stop disk access before restarting it.
I enabled it from GParted. Then later rebooted and found it was off again. I suspect this is because the swap was added later since it is missing from the fstab. I'll need to add it in.
With it on Firefox is a bit better. I've been checking the system monitor and found that when the RAM is almost full up and swap is just about half way there it's time for a Fireflush.
I can trust the system more when multitasking. And if it get too much just flush Firefox out. However I noticed it takes longer to unlink itself from the system when swap is in use. I like to wait until it's stop disk access before restarting it.