His problem could be the size of the swap file. It could be loading into a
RAM disk with a swap file that large. I would delete the swap file
altogether and see if it helps. He can get along without one and then if he
finds that it improves things he can make a more modest one. To delete the
swap file is the partition manager to format it as FAT32 or something other
than swap. He should work from Windows or the Live CD.