Computer help

[Brian d marge]

Hi folks !

Now I may know the inner workings of a bike , but when it comes to computers ,,,, lets just say both I and the computer need a steady diet of cheap alcohol in order for us both to be happy!

Anyway The lap top, is getting a touch old, and needs a bit of umph. ( Big bore kit and new chain and sprockets) ...

Its a Fujitsu biblio life book, using a intel pentium 3 650 MHz proccessor, and wait 2 x 64 SDRAM ,,,Not just ur average ONE , but a whole 2 memory slots
The motherboard is a fujitsu acadia ( cant find any info on it )

I have Everest edition which tells you everything about the inner workings , But

A ,,,,I cant find any info on the motherboard to find out if or what I can do ..

B ..... I dont know WTF I am doing ( now, I more than make up for this in Pig ignorance and shear bravado ..oh and I have a complete set of near new Snap on Hammers ranging from a few Oz to a 2lb lump Hammer ( and a dead blow shot filled )

So My question is : How can I make this old girl work faster ......

I reckon ..Just pop down to computers R US and by some SDRam and a intel chip with the same pin config and slightly faster ...ssay 800MHz... Stick it all back together ,,, then get suitably pissed , and fire the thing up :stupid::doh::eek::oi-grr:

Any Ideas ???? Sound like a plan??? is there any real posibility that the fires created could be extinquished by emptying the cats litter box over said inferno???

Stephen

[Karma]

It's a laptop... upgrades are limited, don't bother, buy a new one.

[Harry33]

I think you answered your own question. Ram, CPU and harddrive are pretty much all you can upgrade on a notebook these days. Now the problem is with out knowing what motherboard you have you might be limited in upgrading the CPU etc. If possible try taking back to the place you purchased it from and hopefully they might have some info on what you can do. More Ram will make a huge difference.

[Harry33]

You can know get a good notebook for around the $1000 mark.

[limbimtimwim]

You can probably put more memory in it. But that ram (I guess PC100/133) is old school and is getting expensive. But not insanely so.

Chaging the CPU for another one would be pretty unlikely. And you'd be lucky to find the right one. The clock speeds on the FSB are probably hard set, Fujitsu probably didn't consider you'd change the cpu. I think you still had to change them in Pentium 3 days.. Irrk.. Actually, I can't remember any more.

Oh yeah, and you'd have to take it to bits. Laptops are worse than the worst bike ever. But with less pain and grease.

You could have a go at changing the hard drive too, you probably have a 4200rpm (Or slower) drive, they are 5400 rpm and have much larger caches now, which would speed things up quite a bit too.

Bad news but the easiest thing: Start saving for a new one.

[thehollowmen]

ain't most lappy CPUs wired in to the motherboard these days? Chip not very easily replaceable and if so, you really gotta change the motherboard too?

Of course new motherboard won't fit in the case...

[Cookie]

To make it go faster, you might consider dropping it off a tall building. :pinch: Oh wait, I see you want it to *work* faster...

Personally, I don't think you would get much more joy out of a new CPU. If you do go down that track, I think you need to identify the chipset of your motherboard in order to identify the correct maximum speed CPU you can put in - the pin configuration is not always enough to go on.

I have found RAM helps speed up to a point (and it might help a little) but on older machines, the othr components act as bottlenecks and you don't really get too much further.

You might get a boost if you add a newer harddrive with a faster "RPM" rate than the one you have now.

If you are running Windows XP, you might consider going back to Windows 2000. Its quite a bit less demanding and you can still get security updates.

I you don't need the Interweb on it stick Windows 95 on it. It will run like a cut cat.

Now someone else will post and say I wrote a whole lot of crap, but you have started the discussion anyway. :)

[Zapf]

Memory upgrade won't be too hard.

CPU upgrade will be full of suprises. CPU's in notebooks can be stuck to the heatsinks, good luck getting it seprated. Also if you upgrade the speed the cooling system might not be able to keep it cool enough.

Will be a safe bet upgrading the HDD. Get the fastest one. like a 7200rpm you'll be amazed how much faster your notebook could be.

Zapf

[N4CR]

Just do the ram, fucking around with a cpu unless it's double the speed and you are gaming you won't notice it. Ram makes a big difference, stops all the green flickering and flashing (and that ticking noise) from hdd light. Getting a 7.2krpm drive into a laptop (new tech) is going to be very hard on an old dunger like that, not worth the trouble. Also probably is a SATA interface instead of an E-IDE one that laptops of that era used.

Go ram upgrade, most cost effective. If using xp try get to 512mb, if win2k 256mb is fine and win 98 try 128mb win 95 64mb is fine. (Total and average for smooth use etc sizes).

[Ixion]

In bike terms :

You've got a 350cc sidevalve single. With girder forks.And a plunger rear end. And a 7 inch SLS front brake.

And you want to know which of these to "upgrade" so as to be able to keep up with a GSXR1000K5 ?


Have I answered the question?

[Brian d marge]

What do you mean of that era :rolleyes: .,,,I only bought it a while back, Anyway Just came back from the computer store and he sold me some new tools, ( see pic below, dont think the hammer is big enough but he is the expert!!!)

Second hand parts here are quite cheap and available, the ram isnt a problem though finding a live one in Tokyo might be !

It would be cool if the speed was bumped a little, I dont usually hear the HDD running ( This is a work computer and just types letters , checks KB and touches up any drawings on Acad ( no 3D ). Has a wireless modem, oh and watching Promising Overseas Risque Nocternal videos sometimes.

Thanks for the help, Ill have a look on sat ( have to go to a meeting tomorrow and then Tokyo Motor show on friday...:sleep:.....)

It would be nice to replace the HDD and the ram, its a good wee computer ,,,just getting a tad slow, much like its owner !!


Stephen

Dont get me started about side Valves , on a side valve you dont need to keep up with a gixer , the bling alone has them weak at the Kneeez ...when most young lads were drooling over stuff from the orient , I was drooling over TRW s ,,,it was about then my fathers hair went grey ....Things have changed a bit now ,,,I ride British and drool over the crackling from the orient.

[GR81]

i work in the computer industry as a wholesaler... but as far as laptops go, www.dse.co.nz is actually quite well priced for the retail market.
give them a whirl for something Acer.
should be able to spend about the $900 mark for something suitable :)

[WRT]

You pointing him towards Acer? Dear god, noooooooo . . . . having worked in the second hand industry for far to many years, steer well clear of Acers. The are ok when new, and are cheap, but thats also the problem. They are cheap. And slow. And fall apart. I'd put them in the same league as the IBM machines, under the heading "Crapola". Granted, you do get the odd one that keeps on trucking, but with even the slightest abuse (and lets face it, we are talking about a guy that thinks he needs nought but a hammer to make it go faster) they just fall to peices.

If you are going to upgrade your current laptop, RAM will give you the biggest return on your investment. If you can find a faster drive that will fit, then upgrading that will have a big impact on the speed, but I cant really see it being worth your while to be honest. On an older laptop, the best bet is to throw some RAM at it and call it quits at that. Anything more and you are just spending way more than its worth.

[sAsLEX]

stuff.....

any suggestions on what is a good brand of not to exensive lap top? dell?

[imdying]

Big laptop repair section here at work. Avoid Acer, Dell, NEC, and anything you can't pronounce. Asus seems ok, but I'd go for Toshiba, Compaq, or IBM.

[Flyingpony]

Big laptop repair section here at work. Avoid Acer, Dell, NEC, and anything you can't pronounce. Asus seems ok, but I'd go for Toshiba, Compaq, or IBM.
Vouch for Toshiba but Gateway aren't too good.

[WRT]

Traditionally Toshiba have been the best. They too are now producing to a budget so they arent quite the leader they used to be, but they are still good. Asus for the price are good, but again, they tend to be a little cheap and plasticy. We use HP/Compaqs here at work, with very few probs (bar user error).

HTH.

[magicfairy]

Before you go mad replacing / upgrading parts, sometimes just a clean up and possibly a rebuild will help performance of an old machine.
Defragging the hard drive, making sure there is no spyware, old programs running can help.
Or if you have a way to backup data, reformat the hard drive and reiinstall operating system.

[WRT]

Actually magicfairy might be on to it here. I just assumed these avenues had already been explored (mother of all fk-ups I know), but especially in light of his comments about watching movies, clearing some of the spyware out might be a damn good place to start!

[Zapf]

oh here is a good idea...

install Dos 3.3 and Windows 3.1 it'll run much much faster I promise you. :lol:

[danb]

Here is the best thing for it. - or should I say what you still end up doing after you have tried to make it faster. See Attached. :killingme

[danb]

BTW please make a video as well if you decide to go down that path.

[SwanTiger]

So My question is : How can I make this old girl work faster ......

Hi Stephen,

You are the owner of a very nice laptop. I quite enjoy the look of these and feel that you would be making the right decision in upgrading this Laptop. It appears that it already meets your current needs but could do with a bit more omphf. Fair enough.

Basically, any computer system, whether it be a laptop or a desktop, is easily upgraded. Just like on a motorcycle, how much you modify the system is dependant on how much knowledge and experience you have personally, or how much money you can affoard to pay someone else with the knowledge and experience.

As mentioned by previous posters, your best bet is going to be upgrading the Memory and Hard Drive. It would also pay to look at choosing the best operating system for your hard ware, generally Windows XP will match anything however sometimes you will find Windows 2000 or Windows 98 performs better. For shits and giggles, you might even like to try some of the Open Source alternatives.

All the information you need to know is available on this website: http://www.pc-ap.fujitsu.com/support/faq_lb/index.html

Fujitsu have dished out a lot of good information and it should be easy for you to establish the relevant support information with your model of laptop.

And on a side note - I find it interesting how the majority of these posts are related to personal preference rather than giving actual advice based on the variables at hand.

[danb]

Hi Stephen,

You are the owner of a very nice laptop. I quite enjoy the look of these and feel that you would be making the right decision in upgrading this Laptop. It appears that it already meets your current needs but could do with a bit more omphf. Fair enough.

Basically, any computer system, whether it be a laptop or a desktop, is easily upgraded. Just like on a motorcycle, how much you modify the system is dependant on how much knowledge and experience you have personally, or how much money you can affoard to pay someone else with the knowledge and experience.

As mentioned by previous posters, your best bet is going to be upgrading the Memory and Hard Drive. It would also pay to look at choosing the best operating system for your hard ware, generally Windows XP will match anything however sometimes you will find Windows 2000 or Windows 98 performs better. For shits and giggles, you might even like to try some of the Open Source alternatives.

All the information you need to know is available on this website: http://www.pc-ap.fujitsu.com/support/faq_lb/index.html

Fujitsu have dished out a lot of good information and it should be easy for you to establish the relevant support information with your model of laptop.

And on a side note - I find it interesting how the majority of these posts are related to personal preference rather than giving actual advice based on the variables at hand.


I see your points but seriously how much longer is this laptop going to last - nothing lasts forever. You could very end up spending $100 - $300+ to end up with a dead machine a few weeks later. I have a Compaq P3 933MHz laptop and is slow as hell for the basic things like Internet, Word, Excel etc and the guys at work can tell you the same with me ranting at it. Running XP Pro, 320Mb ram and brand new 40Gb toshiba HDD (Yep I need a new machine as its my own not works, but the bike and other things comes first in my case). Generally if you have a laptop out of warranty in this day and age is not worth it. If you decide to go down the path of a new machine it would be wise to get 3 year warranty as well. Buying second hand I also would not recommend for a notebook unless you are willing to spend an extra $140 or so on a HDD (unless fully tested) at least if it has been moved while on (bad sectors) etc.
Lastely do you need a latop computer?

[Brian d marge]

Thanks all
I will go down the ram path , ( I will make a video , but how crass just banging the laptop on a desk, when you can get perfectly good pyrotechnics to do the job for you )

I looked at the fujitsu site , Thanks swanny , and asfar ar I could make out ( I cant find if I have a A, B , OR XYZ model ..not clear ...but it seems well I reckon anyway that the ram is 2 x 128 PC 100. Thats cheap enough to buy...

If I do experience a smoke leakage , then I have had good results with sellys no more nails. ( used it as a gasket on me Hillman Grunter ,,worked a treat ,,,So should hold in that loose smoke )

Tomorrow I is Smoozing at motor show so saturday will go to pc shop !

Sunday we should Know if we need sellys help or not

Thnks kindly everyone I got learned heaps !! much appreiated!

Stephen

[N4CR]

Yeah what danb said... do you need one!?

And yes dan's computer SUCKS at the internet to put it bluntly. Would help if he closed all the remote desktop windows and other shit he has open though :lol:

Keep us informed.

[danb]

You might be better off purchasing 133Mhz ram as its generally backwards compatible with 100Mhz to be safe, You should be able to open the machines ram cover and look up the numbers on the current ram modules that are in it (or on the chips them selves) in Google to find this out. Some machines may not boot with 100Mhz ram in them if they need 133Mhz minimum. Laptops are fussier than desktop computers when it comes to this.

[danb]

Yeah what danb said... do you need one!?

And yes dan's computer SUCKS at the internet to put it bluntly. Would help if he closed all the remote desktop windows and other shit he has open though :lol:

Keep us informed.


Oh you shut up about remote desktop right now u!.:shake:

[Cookie]

[...]You are the owner of a very nice laptop[...]

Stephen's techie has already supplied him with the correct set of tools for the job:

http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=29173&d=1143645955

Save the last bullet for yourself Stephen (just in case it doesn't work out).

Yes anything can be upgraded but just like a bike, the parts work in concert to produce high performance.

There is no point me putting high-spec tires and suspension on my bike for example, because there are too many other factors slowing it down. The only way to make it go super fast will be to replace everything (i.e. buy a new bike).

The main benefit to tinkering with this one will be the things you learn along the way - if that's your goal, then yes, you will be able to get more life out it, there is no doubt. If you can think of better things to do, I would start with the hammer...