Upgrading laptops.

[vole]

We were given an HP Laptop circa 2002 or so. It seems a top spec one and my daughter has been playing with it to the point where it was running really slowly. Today I debugged,de fragged , C Cleaned and un installed all the gubbins we would not need and it is a bit better.The Processor is 1.1 gig and it has 333 somethings of RAM which even I can tell is low powered , the web grinds to a halt whenever another process starts to run even after that bit of maintenance.

Does anyone on here get theirs upgraded and if so ,how much does it cost ? Thanks.

[Alpha Mule]

Go to Kingston's site and figure how much RAM you can jam in there. If all you are really doing is surfing, that machine should do what you need.

Alternatively you could look at a Linux based system (I should go cut my fingers off for suggesting such a thing). It is different (something like Apple v Microsoft), but has a much smaller 'footprint' - so will run with less resources.

[Neels]

Hi Vole

 

You can probably/potentially up the memory and hard disk on that machine (not sure what model you have), but that might cost you the same as getting a new one ;-)

 

If you post the model no I might be able to get you a price on parts (if possible), but i have no idea what someone would charge you to fit it

 

Assuming from your comments that it is a Windows machine go Start>>Run then type in "dxdiag">>OK. It will ask you if you want to do digitally signed things, to which you can go no or yes. It should bring up a dialog box that tells you the make and model, which will give us something to work with

 

I might nt be online for the next 5 days or so, but I will check back as soon as I can

 

Cheers

 

Neels

 

We were given an HP Laptop circa 2002 or so. It seems a top spec one and my daughter has been playing with it to the point where it was running really slowly. Today I debugged,de fragged , C Cleaned and un installed all the gubbins we would not need and it is a bit better.The Processor is 1.1 gig and it has 333 somethings of RAM which even I can tell is low powered , the web grinds to a halt whenever another process starts to run even after that bit of maintenance.

Does anyone on here get theirs upgraded and if so ,how much does it cost ? Thanks.

[fluke2]

I just got a 60 g hard drive for my old 20 g machine off the bay for

£2.30 and free post if you know what you want theres stacks of

bits cheap on there that would upgrade it.

[Alpha Mule]

Have a read through this and see if that helps.

[vole]

Thanks chaps and Neels. Did that thing and it says its a HP Omnibook pc with Intel Pentium R etc . It runs Windows XP with SP 3 too. Got to sign off now but nice to know it can be improved.

[Neels]

Excellent post - Haven't seen it before. Would be my first action before buying "stuff"

 

That said, a 2002 machine can probably do with all the help it can get - in those years it was running IE5? perhaps. The richness of the web would challenge most of that capability now

 

Cheers

 

Neels

 

Have a read through this and see if that helps.

[stevethevanman]

Depends on the operating system it is running, x64 bit will see as much RAM as you can put in, while I think x32 bit only recognises 2Gb?..or 3.4Gb if I am mistaken?

 

You should be able to get whether you have x64 bit or x32 bit form the people that you got the laptop from.

 

So dont just put loads of RAM in it unless you know the operating system can see the RAM you put in, also laptops are generaly harder to work with, but most people can install a new lot of RAM themselves as the BIOS automaticaly sees it, (just youtube "how to install ram laptop") for a guide. The hard disk however should not be causing it to run slowly, unless she downloaded alot of ****, or has got a virus, because you can sometimes get ones that just eat up processes until the machine grinds to a halt , leaving you suspicious that you havent done much before it crashes.

 

Also, dont let people tell you you need faster (more expensive) RAM, if you look at the RAM which is in sticks in your machine, next to the CPU, it should have a number with "Mhz" next to it, this is how fast your RAM is in mega hertz, but for general use / surfing and not very strenuous applications the amount of RAM makes more differance. You also need to find out what type of RAM you have, this should also be on the side of the RAM stick usually, if not you can identify the RAM by the slot it came from. because only that sort of RAM will fit in your computer RAM slots.

 

For better performance in surfing / general use, 4Gb of slower RAM is better than 2Gb of faster RAM, unless it is extremely fast, but then it will be extremely expensive.

 

If you need help with any of the terms in this post, just go to google images and type "computer........." (CPU for instance), to see what the parts look like.

 

If you are unsure about installing anything though, dont force it or try and make it.

 

About moving over to something like linux: Linux does give better performance because it requires less memory load, however this will be difficult for you to jsut switch to unless you can save the data on your hard drive and put it back. If you just boot linux on you may loose things, or all your data if it acts like formating?

 

Other ways would need you to create partitions in the hard drive, where you would probably need IT help, so I dont suggest this, I think you should upgrade it

 

RAM = random access memory.

 

Steve

 

Hope this helps , and was not too boring

 

P.S. Sorry if it sounds crazy, just seen loads have replied lol.

Edited August 5, 2010 by stevethevanman