Is Upgrading RAM worth it, or buy new laptop?

the182guy

zee wrote: »

price 2gb ram 2x1 if space or 1x2gb if only 1 slot ,price at ebuyer.co.uk , cruicial.co.uk , same for 250 gb hard drive at ebuyer [ they have a on site forum for advice ] also small case to hold old hard drive [complete with fittings ] costs about £12 and plugs into your l/t to transfer anything .

Basil1234 wrote: »

think what he is getting at is sticking ram upto 2gb while your at it and stick in a larger hardrive.

personally if the motherboard can handle 2gb i would fill it once and then find its not enough later on like he has now.

OP's motherboard max is 1GB.

Basil1234

the182guy wrote: »

OP's motherboard max is 1GB.

missed that teach me for reading to fast

spud17

Just done something similar with a Toshiba Satellite (not mine), added 512Mb to existing 256Mb.

Bought wisely from ebay, cost £10.

With MSE instead of McAfee, it's now a useful internet/email machine.

inflationbusting

Thanks for all the replies, it's been good to read. I'm running XP Pro, current is 256MB with a 900MHZ Intel Pentium M (it says on the laptop).

Now, I had cleaned and tweaked it all so it's actually pretty smooth most of the times. For big multitasking, if I have loads of programs open or windows, it is slower.

I don't mind shelling out for a netbook, but as I said, I really like this laptop, it's light, no overheating, no fan, good battery life. I don't actually need that much HD space - I have a desktop to store all that on. It's purely for work and net browsing.

One question, can anyone direct me to the cheap RAM then? If it's only £10-15 then it's a no-brainer. Because I only did a Google search, and I am aware that this type of laptop only accepts a certain type of RAM and I do not want to buy the wrong one. The Amazon link says 200 pin, yet on some sites, it says the RAM for the laptop is 172-pin.

Donnie

inflationbusting wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies, it's been good to read. I'm running XP Pro, current is 256MB with a 900MHZ Intel Pentium M (it says on the laptop).

Now, I had cleaned and tweaked it all so it's actually pretty smooth most of the times. For big multitasking, if I have loads of programs open or windows, it is slower.

I don't mind shelling out for a netbook, but as I said, I really like this laptop, it's light, no overheating, no fan, good battery life. I don't actually need that much HD space - I have a desktop to store all that on. It's purely for work and net browsing.

One question, can anyone direct me to the cheap RAM then? If it's only £10-15 then it's a no-brainer. Because I only did a Google search, and I am aware that this type of laptop only accepts a certain type of RAM and I do not want to buy the wrong one. The Amazon link says 200 pin, yet on some sites, it says the RAM for the laptop is 172-pin.

Seems you are right, it's £32
Alternatives

Still worth the upgrade.

sickofusernames

closed wrote: »

The cheapest option is to backup your data and reinstall windows (from the factory restore partition if it has one), or to cut down the software running at startup using hijack this or autoruns and http://www.malwarebytes.org/startuplite.php

Contrary to popular belief, XP runs easily in 256MB, providing you cut down the bloat installed and running at startup since you bought it. Photoshop can be a little demanding on ram though.

Go into task manager, and look at processes pf usage and peak commit, trim startup apps until it gets down to 240MB or less, and it will run much faster. Also run a malware scan, malwarebytes etc, to rule out infections.

I second this, got my 6 yr old 2.6Ghz Celeron mediaserver running under XP SP3 with minimal services and it loads in no time at all and still as quick as my new Vista Core2Duo laptop.

I think the essence of 'MoneySaving' on some of these forums is lost on some people!

Leopard

The reason for suggesting a new hard drive was to install one (of whatever size) before its present, 5-year old one, one dies on you – without warning and at some inconvenient moment.

keith1950

Hi, go to www.crucial.com/uk and run their scan tool to check your memory type and you can then do an search for the right memory to use. I recently upgraded a laptop from 500MB TO 1GB and it is now really fast. I purchased my 1GB stick from crucial for £38 with £2.50 cashback through Topcashback although I am sure it can be found cheaper elsewhere. If you want to check the exact memory type download Speccy from www.piriform.com/speccy

luci

Also check the prices on MyMemory and MrMemory as the first one was cheaper than Crucial for my desktop memory, but Crucial was cheaper or the same for the netbook memory.

aliEnRIK

Personally (if possible) id probably buy some 'used' memory off ebay
Id rather spend 20 quid on that then 60 on new on such an old computer