How to upgrade laptop help...

[Farneyman]

All the best for 2015 everyone.

Looking for some help and advice on how I can boost my laptop. Mainly used for surfing and watching skygo. Use CCleaner and AVG. Im not interested in buying a new laptop just want to spruce this one up a tad.

(Are there other free security programmes I should run?)

Currently using

Toshiba Intel (R) Celeron (R) CPU 900@2.20GHz 2.19GHz
Memory RAM 2.00GB (1.87GB usable)
64 bit operating system

(I understand from others that Celeron is pretty poor???)

Windows 7

Speed test result was 12.66Mbps

Went to http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en and was recommended the following

http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Toshiba/satellite-l450-16q


So should I go for something from this and ultimately will it help my laptop run a bit faster?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Beezerk]

Dunno how it works but my laptop came up with exactly the same upgrades as it suggested for you.

 

[Farneyman]

I assume it will have some similar components for similar laptops.

Im thinking an extra 2GB of memory and some form of ssd upgrade.

Hopefully some PC guru will point me in the correct direction.

 

[Beezerk]

Yeah, I have 3Gb of ram fitted but it looks like I can have a maximum of 8Gb, does adding ram really increase speed?

 

[guest100718]

Yeah, I have 3Gb of ram fitted but it looks like I can have a maximum of 8Gb, does adding ram really increase speed?

If you are low on RAM the OS will use a page file on the physical disk to move memory to. If you increase the amounnt of RAM you will see less paging and hopefully a performace boost. I'd be wanting at least 8GB in a windows 7 or higher machine.

SSDs are much faster than a standard hard drive, but this is the most involved upgrade. i.e do you want to start a fresh or image your existing drive to the new one?

 

[Ethan]

More RAM is great, and crucial is a reliable seller of it. I am considering more or less the same (more RAM plus an SSD) for my Mac Book Pro from exactly the same place.

 

[Farneyman]

SSDs are much faster than a standard hard drive, but this is the most involved upgrade. i.e do you want to start a fresh or image your existing drive to the new one?

There is nothing on this I need as all photos are stored on external HD. So would a new upgraded SSD help speed it up?

 

[guest100718]

There is nothing on this I need as all photos are stored on external HD. So would a new upgraded SSD help speed it up?

If you go for a fresh install on a decent SSD + RAM then you will see an improvement. SSDs are less power hungry too so can help improve battey life

 

[PhilTheFragger]

There is a limit to how much more RAM will help as your CPU is as much use as a cracked Pro V 1

The report should tell you how many of your RAM slots are filled, but it will do no harm to eyeball them to be sure.

On the underside there will be an access panel which when removed will show the RAM .

You will have 2 slots, and you will have either 1 slot free and a 2GB chip in the other OR both slots used with a 1GB chip in both.

If it is the latter, buy 4gb of new ram (2 x 2GB) and throw away the 1 gb chips
If the former, buy 1 x 2 GB chip and slot it beside the original.

Your machine can only take 4GB max so no point in buying more.

installing an SSD hard drive is quite advanced and not cheap ( 128Gb is too small so a 256 Gb HDd is your next option and they are around the £100 mark) and I would suggest a clean install, so unless your Tosh came with a system recovery disc set, you will need to create them using the Toshiba software on your lappy.

back up all your data onto an external hard drive and then physically replace the hard drive with the SSD one . Run the system recovery disc set, windows updates, load programs, security and data.

To be honest, id just do the RAM if it were me, worst case its going to cost you £35 and will have an impact on the machine. You bought cheap when you got this lappy, Im guessing it was a £279 job from PC Universe, 3 years ago so spending £140 isnt out of the question, but if you need to get a bloke in to help, then it quickly becomes uneconomical.

Good luck and feel free to PM if you get stuck

 

[Foxholer]

For all computers, adding memory (Ram) is the simplest way to get additional speed.

For 64 bit ones (even Celeron chips), it's possible to give quite a boost relatively economically as the 64 bit chip can address (point to) a much greater value (around 16Gb) than 32 bit ones (around 4Gb). As Ram is the fastest upgradeable component (apart from the Chip itself) it makes sense to go that way first. And having Ram in 'pairs' of the same size adds a bit more speed, as the chip can actually send messages 'in parallel'.

Speeding up the Hard Drive is the other simple way of speeding up a Laptop, and using a Semiconductor as opposed to Platter/Standard Hard Disk Drive is a simple but significantly more expensive way to do that.

The other way to boost performance can be to upgrade the Video card. Not applicable for Laptops, as Video is (normally) built into the Laptop board, rather than being a separate plug-in module.

Hope that helps. It has highlighted the fact that I could speed up mine by adding 2Gb of memory to this 32bit one that is just a bit creaky - t about 10 years old!!

I hope I've got most of that accurate. The 'Pros' like Fragger are welcome to correct any of my errors. I'm a mainframe guy, so while the concepts are the same, the scale is different!

 

[guest100718]

you can pick up a decent SSD for about 70 quid these days, or less if you go for a 120GB. Like I said, its the most ivolved part of any upgrade though.

 

[Farneyman]

Cheers guys. Might just open it up for a nosey... and go for the extra RAM option once I know exactly it has.

Are there any other tips to help maintain a smooth running laptop?

I have run AVG, CCleaner and currently spybot search and destroy. Should I be doing anything else.

Thanks

 

[PhilTheFragger]

For all computers, adding memory (Ram) is the simplest way to get additional speed.


Hope that helps. It has highlighted the fact that I could speed up mine by adding 2Gb of memory to this 32bit one that is just a bit creaky - t about 10 years old!!

Before doing anything, go to www.crucial.com/uk and download their system scanner, this will give you all sorts of info about your system including the Maximum RAM your motherboard can take.

Now Foxy, if your system is 10 years old, its running XP 32 bit and you may well have a limitation of only 1 or 2 Gb RAM total, so there is no point in exceeding this .

If this is the case, might be worth visiting your PC/motherboard manufacturers website and seeing if there is a BIOS update that might increase the RAM allowance
BIOS updates can be tricky in older machines so all at your own risk

As regards hard drive size, if you arent going to be keeping any big chunks of data (photos/ Music Videos etc)then 128Gb is ok, bearing in mind that the operating system and programs will take up about 30Gb. But for normal domestic use I would look at 256Gb as a minimum for a laptop, SSD drives are getting larger in capacity and cheaper all the time and it is only going to be a short time before they are seen as standard in mid range laptops

 

[guest100718]

A defrag, remove any programs you don't need. Ssds also don't need defraging

 

[Farneyman]

A defrag, remove any programs you don't need. Ssds also don't need defraging

Is that like a disk clean up?

 

[PhilTheFragger]

Cheers guys. Might just open it up for a nosey... and go for the extra RAM option once I know exactly it has.

Are there any other tips to help maintain a smooth running laptop?

I have run AVG, CCleaner and currently spybot search and destroy. Should I be doing anything else.

Thanks

Did they find anything? If not then reduce the scans to weekly , some people have them set on daily and they hog all the system resources for an hour or more

Spybot has an element called "TeaTimer" and if this is running in the background it will slow things right down

I'd ditch Spybot and download Malwarebytes free edition, but only run it every couple of months or unless you have a problem

Id be careful with CC cleaner, in the wrong hands it is a powerful tool and if you take it off default settings then gawd knows what could happen

Anti virus is personal choice. AVG and Avast are getting bloated, panda is gaining in popularity

 

[PhilTheFragger]

A defrag, remove any programs you don't need. Ssds also don't need defraging

Windows 7 defrags itself so no need to look at that. and yes an SSD drive does not need defraging and Windows would recognise this too

 

[guest100718]

Is that like a disk clean up?

Nah its a utility that keeps the blocks that make up the files on your hard drive in an organised state, so they can be accessed as efficienty as possible. Win7 onwards runs on a auto scedule but you should check that it hasnt been disabled.

 

[Foxholer]

Now Foxy, if your system is 10 years old, its running XP 32 bit and you may well have a limitation of only 1 or 2 Gb RAM total, so there is no point in exceeding this .

If this is the case, might be worth visiting your PC/motherboard manufacturers website and seeing if there is a BIOS update that might increase the RAM allowance
BIOS updates can be tricky in older machines so all at your own risk

Windows 7/32 for this one. It was a pretty advanced but very good deal at the time (just when 64 bit was announced/introduced from memory). I did say 'about' btw. The Crucial software says 2 slots, 2Gb in one, so room for 2Gb more in the other slot and now watching a couple of Ebay items! Not sure how much use it'll be after seeing Wyziwyg.TV's announcement though!

The Dell was XP and severely restricted, but did actually work when this one had the problem with the power/board connector needing to be re-attached! Additional memory (through DrMemory) helped that too though.

 

[PhilTheFragger]

Windows 8 has been out for 2 years, and windows 7 was out for 3 years before that, so if you bought your PC with windows 7 on it then it aint 10 years old, its 5 years max.

Duff gen = duff recommendations keep up the goodish estimates