Hey guys, I'm looking to squeeze a little extra life out of my laptop, she still runs well but i feel it could run better. Currently the specs are: Dell Inspiron 1525 CPU: Intel T550 Core 2 Duo @ 1.83GHZ RAM: 4GB Crucial stuff HDD:500GB WD Caviar Black GPU: On board generic crap What can I hope to slot into here? also if i could put a 64 Bit Processor into this could I then put more than 4GB of ram in? Cheers Matt
Not really worth it unless you find a really fast processor for free! The best upgrade for a laptop would be an SSD as the operating system drive. Highly recommend it. The only downside is space or lack of.
An SSD would probably speed things along nicely - it's one of the few upgrades you can make to a laptop that makes a noticeable difference in performance (the other main one being RAM, but your laptop already has 4GB). It is possible to upgrade the processor in a laptop, but it depends entirely on the mainboard. Even if you buy a replacement with a compatible socket then it still may not be supported. Unlike PCs, laptops usually only support a very narrow range of processors; if there is more than one version of a laptop with different processor specs (i.e. it's available with either a 1.8GHz chip or a 2.2GHz chip) then you might have a chance. Generally the first thing to try and check is whether your laptop uses a socketed processor. If it's a BGA (ball grid array) chip you have no chance; instead of using sockets, these processors are mounted directly to the board on tiny solder balls (they pass through a reflow oven which melts the solder and adheres the chip to the board). If it's socketed, then do some research on that laptop model and see if the mainboard supports different processors. I've had a quick google and the Inspiron 1525 seems to have a socketed processor (see http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1525/en/SM/cpu.htm#wp1179976 - I assume that you mean the T5500, not the T550) and reports suggest that it can accept any Core2Duo in the correct socket format. That's not a guarantee though and Dell don't officially support processor upgrades, so you may not get any help from them - though it might be worth at least asking them. Your processor is already 64-bit, but unless you're using a 64-bit version of Windows you can only use 3GB of RAM. Your laptop may not support any more RAM than 4GB. Again, it's not common for laptops to support as much RAM as desktops - the specs/manuals should be able to tell you the maximum amount it supports. To be honest, I'd question why you need the upgrade in the first place. There is no way - no way at all - that you can upgrade the graphics, so if the GPU is rubbish then any high-end gaming is probably out of the question. The rest of the system specs are more than adequate; if you think it's running slowly it's worth investigating potential software problems before charging headlong into an upgrade. You're probably not going to get a much faster processor anyway, even if you can upgrade. You probably won't be going much higher than around 2.2/2.4GHz, and if you're not gaming I'd question whether that tiny speed bump would really make any practical difference.
It still runs very well for a 5 year old laptop but having my new rig (in sig) when I use my laptop obviously it isnt as snappy, forgot about SSD will look into that, thank you
Well new computer probably feel snappy mainly because its a brand new install of windows on a faster 7200rpm drive. Try having a CPU meter running for normal use and your see you barely ever get to 100%