overhauling my laptop

M

mustangmelish

New Member
Ok guys, I need some advice.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 running Vista Home Basic.
i have a small hard drive, only 2 gb of ram, and i dont even know how fast my processor is i just know its an amd turion 64. (i will find all of this out once im done reformatting it)

BUT, it's slow, runs crappy, im reformatting it after only a year because things keep messing up so i want to know. What do i need to replace to do a complete overhaul on the system. can i get a new processor to put in? what do i need to do to make this a computer that can handle mostly anything? or can i even do that?
 
Hi mustang, welcome to the forums! :D

First off theres not much you can do to 'overhaul' a laptop outside of adding more ram but with vista you could only add one more gig and it really wouldnt do you much good. It is not economical, not to mention, usually not possible to replace the processor. Your better bet would be to just buy a new system if the one you have is not working out for you. Is it an older laptop you installed vista on? Or did you buy it with vista already installed?
 
i originally bought the computer with xp, but then i got the blue screen of death so dell sent me a new one and they had vista on it
 
How much are you willing to spend? If I were to recommend an average laptop, I would say it should have atleast a 2.2ghz processor, 2gb ram, (still average), atleast an nvidia 8400 graphics card, and a 160gb hard drive.
 
Sir Travis D said:
How much are you willing to spend? If I were to recommend an average laptop, I would say it should have atleast a 2.2ghz processor, 2gb ram, (still average), atleast an nvidia 8400 graphics card, and a 160gb hard drive.
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i dont want to spend much. if i can finally get rid of some car parts ~$1000 or so, ill try and pick up a good (used) laptop, but i dont have much to work with right now

claytonr1973 said:
Yes, you can upgrade the processor, hdd,and memory but reformatting the disk might take care of your problem.
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how do i upgrade the processor/graphics card? would i be able to do that myself?
reformatting the disk didnt take care of my problem, so im back to square one

oh and 2 more problems with the laptop that are pissing me off.

the battery died once so everytime i boot up the comp it says battery cannot be identified and that it wont be able to charge it (even though it does)
also, if i try and restart the laptop, it will get through everything and the screen will just become black and it will just sit like that forever (even though its on-wifi and power button are lit up) and it wont come back on. its in the middle of shutting down and booting up i guess....
what a POS, this is why i use my horribly old desktop thats running linux...
 
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You can't upgrade the graffics, but the CPU should be a plug and play deal. You will need to find which upgrades are compatible.
 
I would not upgrade the processor, it might be too risky and/or void the warranty. To be honest, I would buy a better laptop. That laptop has integrated graphics, a single core processor, half a gig of ram, and a 60gb hard drive. $1000 can get a MUCH better laptop, even $600 can.
 
alright well im looking on craigslist for used laptops since i dont have much to spend. how does HP rate among others?

what exactly should i look for that makes a laptop good? any certain brands to stay away from?
 
well, im trying to sell some car parts, and hopefully they will sell quick, and if they do i think im going to buy an apple macbook because im honestly just tired of windows and all the problems that are encountered with windows. im already using linux on the computer im typing this on, and getting a macbook is the practical version of using linux since more things are compatible with it
 
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