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

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. 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 .,,,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........)

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.