• We'd like to take this opportunity to wish you a Happy Holidays and a very Merry Christmas from all at Golf Monthly. Thank you for sharing your 2025 with us!

Laptop upgrade ?

spongebob59

spongebob59

Journeyman Pro
Joined
Jul 13, 2012
Messages
7,319
Location
Kent
Visit site
Morning, Found my old work laptop last night, its a SONY VAIO VGN-FW21L (265GB HDD, 2GB RAM, WIN 7 HOME PREMIUM) 16.4". Is there anyway to modernise this ? Runs perfectly just slow.
Procesor is an Intel (R)core TM2 Duo, P8400 2.26hz.
Local shop says to replace HDD with SSD and can install win 10 for about a ton.

Help !
 
The only things you can realistically influence in this are the drive and the memory. Yes a SSD will make it faster, yes more RAM will make it more responsive. But, and it's a big but, it's a 10 year old machine so has limitations within it's limitations.
RAM is DDR2-6400 IIRC, which is 800MHz transfer rates, slow by any stretch. More will make it responsive. Best to run something like Crucial memory scanner or Mr Memory scans to see what the maximum RAM limit is.

Those are your only two real options but it still won't be fast by any real-world comparisons. You also have the situation that it's not always a simple case of chucking a copy of Windows 10 on a machine. You may have physical hardware that isn't driver compatible. In my experience, machines older than 6 years tend to have issues with things like audio chip sets and graphics chip drivers being compatible.

The question, as always, is what do you need it to do? It will never be "quick" but can you make it quick enough without spending more than the actual machine is worth? (IMO, £100 is more than even the sum of it's components is worth).
 
GreiginFife said:
The only things you can realistically influence in this are the drive and the memory. Yes a SSD will make it faster, yes more RAM will make it more responsive. But, and it's a big but, it's a 10 year old machine so has limitations within it's limitations.
RAM is DDR2-6400 IIRC, which is 800MHz transfer rates, slow by any stretch. More will make it responsive. Best to run something like Crucial memory scanner or Mr Memory scans to see what the maximum RAM limit is.

Those are your only two real options but it still won't be fast by any real-world comparisons. You also have the situation that it's not always a simple case of chucking a copy of Windows 10 on a machine. You may have physical hardware that isn't driver compatible. In my experience, machines older than 6 years tend to have issues with things like audio chip sets and graphics chip drivers being compatible.

The question, as always, is what do you need it to do? It will never be "quick" but can you make it quick enough without spending more than the actual machine is worth? (IMO, £100 is more than even the sum of it's components is worth).
Click to expand...

Thanks, He was trying to flog me a refurb for £350, ive asked him what the specs are but he hasn't got back to me.
 
As a (partial) aside, would an older machine like that be able to run on Linux and, if so, would that be quicker that W10?
 
If its light usage then you can pick up brand new for less than that. IMO just avoid Celeron or AMD Ax processor models. 4GB RAM min and you can add a 120GB SSD for leas than £20 these days.

https://www.ebuyer.com/909255-hp-15-6-full-hd-intel-i3-7020u-8gb-1tb-win10-home-laptop-4aq45ea-abu

Prime example. i3 processor, 8GB RAM. Even with the mechanical HDD will still be lightening compared to what you have.

Its all about usage at the end of the day. My home laptop is a HP i3 based machine that does perfectly with a NVMe drive and my work laptop is a Ryzen 7 based machine with 16GB RAM and 1TB NVMe drive but its a workstation. So usage for me determines spec.
 
Agree with Greg, I3 7 or 8 generation is generally better than a Ryzen.

I wouldn’t bother putting a SSD into a 10 plus year old laptop.
It’s only a matter of time before something else goes wrong.

Cut your losses and get a new one, with an SSD in it of sufficient capacity it will last another 10 years plus
👍
 
How much experience do folks have from buying off places like eBuyer or LapTops direct?

I'm currently looking at replacing our committees laptop that it uses to process competition results (Handicapmaster)...and can get a quite a reasonably well specced machine at these sorts of places at a lower price than when compared to say Currys/PCWorld, Argos, John Lewis etc. (I'm trying to spend as little of the committees money as possible!!)

My concern is that for those that follow me on the committee, should there be an issue with whatever I buy, they will be the ones who need to go and get it repaired and it will be far easier for them to do it via a bricks/mortar retail outfit than via a web based supplier....especially as we cannot afford any more than a couple of days downtime due to the frequency of competitions needing processing.

What are sites like ebuyer and Laptops direct support services like?
 
Personally, I use eBuyer quite a lot. I avoid Laptops Direct as I had several poor experiences with them (once supplied a clearly used laptop and denied that it was used - despite a deep scratch in the top cover and, more tellingly, someone else's documents being on the hard-drive!)
Never had to use the returns service so can't comment. But even the likes of Curry's or John Lewis are only bricks and mortar in the sense of dropping the machine off, it still needs sending away. IF you buy a decent machine, look after it and run updates and patches as necessary, it's unlikely that you would need to use the RTB warranty anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Farneyman
How to upgrade laptop help...
2
Replies
33
Views
8K
FrankJR319
FrankJR319
Warbur
New Laptop Advice Please
Replies
13
Views
2K
Warbur
Warbur
Region3
Slow Laptop
Replies
6
Views
1K
brendy
brendy
Top