Re: advice on upgrading hard drive and cpu of laptop
On Friday 05 January 2001 08:50, Dan Christensen wrote:
> First, the hard drive: the main reason I want to upgrade is to get
> something faster. My HD is a 6G Hitachi that came with my Vivante
> when I bought it almost two years ago. I find it to be very slow.
> Can anyone recommend a faster drive, which is also relatively energy
> efficient? 8 to 9G would be perfect. Can anyone guess how many rpm
> my drive would be? I can't find this in any of the docs. Will any
> 2.5" IDE drive work?
All the 2.5" IDE drives are supposed to be compatible (which doesn't mean
that they will be).
If you buy from a large store you should be able to buy on the basis that it
will work in your machine and the store will take the risk that it doesn't
work.
Laptop drives are slow. They are slow because they are engineered for small
size and resistance to shock rather than performance. They are also slow
because laptops have slow IO buses and can't handle full performance on
modern drives.
A drive with a higher spin rate will have greater force on it's bearings when
you tilt it. This isn't a big deal for desktop machines which don't move
much. It is a serious issue for laptops which get used on trains!
If your hard drive is slow then install more RAM for better caching.
> My CPU is a Celeron 300. I chose this because it was inexpensive and
> doesn't consume much power, but now I'd like a bit more speed, maybe
> 50 to 100% more. Would something like a Celeron 500 be a good option?
> Or a Pentium? Or something from AMD? Will any mobile chip fit into
> my motherboard? How will the energy use of a modern 500MHz cpu
> compare with that of a two year old Celeron 300?
Replacing a CPU requires totally disassembling the machine. If something
goes wrong you can't get replacement parts (laptops are known for breaking
when you disassemble them). You may end up with a dead machine if you take
it apart.
A Celeron 300 is a good enough machine that it's not something you want to
risk losing, I recommend not trying to upgrade it. Try upgrading it in 2-3
years time when it's just a toy and you don't care if it dies!
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