My daughter just got a laptop. It’s got the same hardware mine does - Celeron M with 1G Ram. The rest of the hardware is pretty much the same, too.
Mine, however, runs XP. Hers came with Visa. The poor thing is so bogged down by that bloated mess that it takes forever just to open a file. And no, there’s no viruses or popups. I’m afraid to tinker with some of the start programs to try and speed it up because the interface is so obnoxious.
Then something isn’t right, probably unnecessary or bloated extra programs like Norton are bogging it down. In a heads up Vista when compared to the exact same configuration on my old PC, boots about 20 seconds faster, opens programs much much faster, almost instantly other things are great like the HD Movie Maker, built in partitioning, superfetch, readyboost, I can go on and on. Interface is inherantly easier to use once you figure out the old clumpy start menu is gone and all you need to do is type the program in the instant search.
Does your daughter have aero glass turned on? Because of the power profile of an laptop aeroglass should be disabled when not plugged into a wall as it draws more power from your video card. Disabling is real easy, just right click choose personalize>windows color and appearance>open classic properties>>choose anything other than aero.