HP DM3-1044NR Gone Wild

regielya

New Member
Hey,

In the next June I'm going on a journey/project of circling the world with a minimum luggage, and I planned on buying a Macbook Air 11.6, as I read nice things about it. I planned to sell my current computer (which I absolutely love), as I guessed it's a bit too big for this kind of journey and its regular mechanical hard drive won't withstand the journey.

A few days ago, my laptop fell on the road and stopped working. Lab told me it's the monitor and hard drive which went dead, so I thought of replacing it with an SSD and try working with it on the way, instead of buying a mac.

Laptop Specifications:

13.3� Diagonal High-Definition HP LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1366 x 768)
Intel Pentium SU4100 1.3 GHz (2 MB/800 MHz)
4 GB DDR3 1066 MHz
320 GB SATA 7200 RPM
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD

This machine is awesome for my needs (Website building, 1080p streaming, photoshop and soon some really basic video editing). Took me 2 months of research before I bought it, and I absolutely loved it. My questions are:

1. I found that the original monitor panel is AUO102C (AU Optronics), and I asked the lab to put the same panel inside, but how can I know for sure that they did not put some cheap other one? and beside, how awful are the average panel replacement that unofficial labs put in laptops?

2. I don't need any more than 40GB, that's why I thought of getting the Intel X25-V, which is pretty low priced. How is it in terms of performance? Will I notice an improvement over my last (now wrecked) 7200RPM drive?

3. Simple logic tells me I'll also notice battery time improvement. If that's correct, how much ? (Laptop originally lasted around 9hours and a bit more)

4. I'm afraid of long term damage because of its fall. Is it possible to have something going improperly working in a few months, or is it just black and white (meaning that if it's working - it's working) ?

5. I have read that I should check that the SATA controller should not limit the SSD speed. Will the DM3 controller limit? It's the Intel(R) ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller

6. Is there any other SSD, if not the X25-V, that you recommend? I also found, for around the same price, a used "Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue 64GB SATA II 2.5in SSD". What's worth more?

Bunch of thanks,
Regev
 
Last edited:
i am personally a fan of the western digital ssd range, very reliable and quick drives, in 9/10 cases you would notice if they have replaced it with an inferior screen, depth of colour and some times even the response rate can be noticed, you probably would not have damaged anything else as the hdd and screen are the only real fragile items closely followed by the keyboard and touchpad areas if they appear undamaged then the should generally be ok.
 
Thanks buddy.

Hmm I'm not quite sure they got to check the keyboard and touchpad, since they didn't get past the boot screen, I believe. I hope I won't get an SSD only to find out that the touchpad and/or keyboard are also gone.

Well, I could not quite understand which one is better from this review, there are far too many variables to understand for me, but seems like the Intel has a major random read/write advantage, while the other has a sequential advantage. Which is is better for me?? (I just need it to get the OS going and Photoshop. I host all my files on a remote server)
 
Back
Top