LAPTOP HELP thick question but I'm no techy

TaBunny

Ok my daughter has an IBM 600x it is running very slow, I think it has a 20g hard drive and maybe 128 ram at the moment but since starting to use AOL wireless broadband everything else on her laptop has started to go very slow. She is also running Windows Millenium edition which is really a bit of a mare, so my questions are this (please be kind lol)

1. If we buy one of these ram upgrade things are they easy to install, I mean would we have to start taking screw drivers to the laptop to put it inside (we wouldn't know where to put it for a start)?

2. We are thinking of buying XP pro but if we load and upgrade it onto laptop will it whipe off all her work on the laptop or will it just load onto the machine over the top of the work already on it?

3. Are all RAM upgrade things the same, we ideally want 512mb so she can do all her uni work and be online and it be quicker etc but we don't know if all RAM makes are compatible.

4. We are desperate to get WORD on her laptop, can anyone help in anyway at all that they can think of???

Ok sorry it's a bit long winded with lots of questions but we are bit thick, we know how to turn on and type but when it comes to opening the box ooer mrs no no no we run a mile lol.

Hoping a nice techie will take pity on us and be able to help us with all or some of the above, many thanks to all in advance.

p.s. no way can afford new laptop, already bought this one refurb from student-laptops.co.uk and had it repaired once so have spent quite a bit on this and don't have funds to buy spanking pretty new one, come on the Euro lottery :j

Donnie

Laptop may not be able to accept XP Pro. That's prob. why it has Windows ME installed.
A memory upgrade and HD defragmentation should make a significant difference in performance.
Office 2000 sits nicely with ME.

More later....

TaBunny

Thanks Donnie got me thinking there will wait on your next reply check back tomorrow, off to bed now.

albertross_2

Try this for the word problem..

http://www.openoffice.org/

it's free

what is the processor spec?

you don't need xp pro, home would do.

goto https://www.crucial.com to see what you ram options are.

Donnie

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/product.do?template=/product.do?template=%2Fproductpage%2Flandingpages%2FproductPageLandingPage.vm&sitestyle=lenovo&brandind=10&familyind=50224&machineind=0&modelind=0&partnumberind=0&subcategoryind=0&doctypeind=9&doccategoryind=0&operatingsystemind=49979&validate=true IBM Thinkpad 600X info. You should be able to find the part number of the memory that you need, in order to find a cheaper generic.
Also you can check that the system is up to date.

TaBunny

albertross wrote:

Try this for the word problem..

http://www.openoffice.org/

it's free

what is the processor spec?

you don't need xp pro, home would do.

goto www.crucial.com to see what you ram options are.

Hey Alby thanks for the crucial.com website that will be a help for my daugher I have sent her the link, we've looked into Openoffice before but it's not compatible with the stuff she saves on the uni comps and then puts on her disc stick memory thing, also it was a nightmare to download and kept making laptop crash. But it does look like a good programme and would be good for anyone who doesn't need to be compatible with large networked main frame in uni.

Thanks Donnie for the link to the site also, not sure how to use it yet so will have to have a good old read.

Mizz_Pink

We run a pc business, I doubt your laptop will be worth spenidng anymore money on, its a low spec, running windows ME and AOL, which is a recipe for disaster, its certainly isnt good enough to support broadband nor XP effectively.

Look in your local newspaper for 2nd user pc's a tower system will give you more for your money.

cdbrown

wow - that is an old laptop. It's probably been gunked up by AOL and spyware that comes with it. Unfortunately win ME is one of the worst versions out there and many people recommend win 98 over it. From some quick searches it has a P3 with 500-600MHz processor power which I wouldn't recommend for win 2000 or xp.
1. You will need to unscrew the bottom plate to install the additional ram, you will probably have to remove the ram that's in there and replace with the larger stick because there is an upper limit to the amount of ram it can deal with (not knowing the exact model number of the 600x makes it hard to tell).
2. Installing a newer OS will not over write her work.
3. You'll need to find the ram that is sepcific to the 600x model
4. What version of word is being used at uni? May be able to go for an older version of office if they are compatible.

Agree with Mizz regarding not worth upgrading. May be better off buying a new laptop, some of them even come with office but your daughter should be able to get this cheap as she'll get the student version. For £400 you can get a very adequate laptop which will do everything for years to come.

Mizz_Pink

Right, hubby wants to type a reply.................

(he is a pc genius btw)


I agree with above post, spending on new version of windows and memory upgrade would be a waste of money you could put towards a new laptop.

1.) AOL - (Or ALWAYS OFF LINE as we call it) well what can i say the front end software supplied by AOL is buggy and in a good percentage of machines will cause problems, we get a fair few machines in every week with AOL problems.

Did you know you could use AOL with internet explorer if youre connected using a router - Remove the AOL software and browse using internet explorer or firefox.
(The wireless bit doesnt make any difference, broadband is broadband, wireless is just the way you acess it, when theyadvertise Wireless broadband you dont get any extra service you just a get a wireless router - same broadband)

2.) Windows Milennium - was one of Microsofts biggest mistakes, buggy and always prone to crashing.

3.) Memory Cost - It is most likely he IBM 600 might only take another 256MB in the second slot - therefore ifyou wanted 512, you would have to replace your exisitng 128MB with an additional 256MB to total 512MB
Using branded SD SODIMMS could cost £90.00

Fitting is a case of popping a screw of a flap in the bottom of the laptop and slotting the ram in.

4.) Windows XP - you would only need home unless yuo are connecting to a domain or need the extra networking features, Home can be bought OEM for approx £55 (you will need to buy some hardware with it if its OEM - perhaps your memory)

But this still ups the price and with those added you wont see a great performance on your PC especially with a 20GB Hard drive.

5.) Opeoffice is compatible witrh MS Office, you just need to setup the saving formats etc. and the help will give you info on donig things you used to do in MS Office.


In my opinion I wouldnt spend any money on this laptop, perhaps clean it up and sell it on, putting thatmoney and the money you may have spent on the upgrades towards a new one.

Although i hate to say it DELL have some very good deals, just be careful the pushy salemen dont try and make u buy extras, most stuff can ge gotten for FREE off the net. (See other posts on this topic)

Also https://www.acernotebooks.co.uk very good pricing on new stuff

And Tesco stockthe ACER stuff as on that site, but of course you save by not paying any delivery if you buy off the shelf at Tesco.


And of course its best time of year to buy, with christmas deals on - dont wait till Jan theres no such thing as Jan sales anyomore.


There you go - any one still awake?

Hubby wants to know what you paid for it ? No more than £100 he hopes!

TaBunny

Mizz_Pink wrote:

We run a pc business, I doubt your laptop will be worth spenidng anymore money on, its a low spec, running windows ME and AOL, which is a recipe for disaster, its certainly isnt good enough to support broadband nor XP effectively.

Look in your local newspaper for 2nd user pc's a tower system will give you more for your money.

Thanks for the advice Mizz it's worth thinking about but unfortunately at Tower is out of the question as she can't lug it back and forth on the coach every fortnight from uni so it's gotta be a laptop and as we can't afford one of the new spanking ones at £400+ then looks like we gotta do our best to 'punk' up this one but thanks again

TaBunny

Mizz_Pink wrote:

Right, hubby wants to type a reply.................

(he is a pc genius btw)


I agree with above post, spending on new version of windows and memory upgrade would be a waste of money you could put towards a new laptop.

1.) AOL - (Or ALWAYS OFF LINE as we call it) well what can i say the front end software supplied by AOL is buggy and in a good percentage of machines will cause problems, we get a fair few machines in every week with AOL problems.

Did you know you could use AOL with internet explorer if youre connected using a router - Remove the AOL software and browse using internet explorer or firefox.
(The wireless bit doesnt make any difference, broadband is broadband, wireless is just the way you acess it, when theyadvertise Wireless broadband you dont get any extra service you just a get a wireless router - same broadband)

2.) Windows Milennium - was one of Microsofts biggest mistakes, buggy and always prone to crashing.

3.) Memory Cost - It is most likely he IBM 600 might only take another 256MB in the second slot - therefore ifyou wanted 512, you would have to replace your exisitng 128MB with an additional 256MB to total 512MB
Using branded SD SODIMMS could cost £90.00

Fitting is a case of popping a screw of a flap in the bottom of the laptop and slotting the ram in.

4.) Windows XP - you would only need home unless yuo are connecting to a domain or need the extra networking features, Home can be bought OEM for approx £55 (you will need to buy some hardware with it if its OEM - perhaps your memory)

But this still ups the price and with those added you wont see a great performance on your PC especially with a 20GB Hard drive.

5.) Opeoffice is compatible witrh MS Office, you just need to setup the saving formats etc. and the help will give you info on donig things you used to do in MS Office.


In my opinion I wouldnt spend any money on this laptop, perhaps clean it up and sell it on, putting thatmoney and the money you may have spent on the upgrades towards a new one.

Although i hate to say it DELL have some very good deals, just be careful the pushy salemen dont try and make u buy extras, most stuff can ge gotten for FREE off the net. (See other posts on this topic)

Also www.acernotebooks.co.uk very good pricing on new stuff

And Tesco stockthe ACER stuff as on that site, but of course you save by not paying any delivery if you buy off the shelf at Tesco.


And of course its best time of year to buy, with christmas deals on - dont wait till Jan theres no such thing as Jan sales anyomore.


There you go - any one still awake?

Hubby wants to know what you paid for it ? No more than £100 he hopes!

Hmm it's a lot to take in, well re AOL there are 5 girls in her shared house so they went with AOL for the unlimited downloads etc and they are committed now as is 18 month contract, plus we have it at home and never had a prob with it, I suppose some people do but we've been lucky I suppose, mind you I am still on dial up at home I don't need speed speed I'm here all day so a plodding old horse is fine with me lol :rotfl: . RE the laptop, I bought it refurb 18 months ago from www.student-laptops.co.uk and it cost me £280 + £120 3 year warranty on theft accidental damage etc. As I said I'm no tech and at the time it seemed a good deal to me, they have good cust services and were very helpful and I was impressed they have a free phone number. Anyway they told me it would be able to handle all her uni work for years to come, it's only since the broadband has gone on that there's been a few glitches. We just paid out to have a new CMOS battery as it went wrong and a network card installed so we have already laid out quite a bit. We really really do not have anywhere near enough for a new laptop even one for £400 etc. I have found some RAM onsale on ebay for £30 I think it's compatible and maybe she could get one of the techie guys at uni to fit it, we really don't want to start unscrewing it and messing around with it. Yes it probally is old and past it's best but needs must, I'm not working and disability money won't stretch for new one. Anyway I must thank you for your hubbies advice, he really seems to know his stuff. I'm gonna get my daughter to go into properties on the computer tab later when I ring her and see the exact specs and I will re post them here and see if that makes any difference to advice available. Thanks again to Donnie for previous help re defrag etc and the PM. Cheers all, more later.