How Can I Immediately And Conveniently Boost My Laptops RAM and Performance?

IT Loser

I'd like to do this using the expansion slots on my V4000 Compaq Presario Widescreen. Mainly doing this with a view to boosting her performance for games and the like.

Do you recommend opening her up and doing a manual??:eek:

Is there any way to improve the performance of the video card using the expansion slots??

Many thanks for any help and suggestions.

IT Loser

Anti

You used ot be able to buy pcmcia video cards, but they are no longer a option. Asus have brough out a external solution, but you need a new pcx slot for that. Upgrading your processor will be impossible, as 99% of all compaq's have soldered cpu's. You can how ever upgrade your ram to a maximum of 2/4gb.

The best thing you could do to boost performance is to backup all important data, and reinstall windows. And update to the latest drivers for your hardware.

Silenceisbliss

you can also go into msconfig and able all unnecessary start-ups.

start->run-> type 'msconfig' and press enter-> choose the startup bar on the top of the window that opens and untick all the boxes. apply and restart

IT Loser

Thats great, I assume that might help with smoother running, what about RAM and the like??? Can you buy plug in RAM? The system is 512 Standard, I wanted to double that for gaming.

Thanks again.

Anti

yep you can certainly do that. And it will help when you go upto 1gb. What laptop is it you have ?

IT Loser

Anti wrote: »

yep you can certainly do that. And it will help when you go upto 1gb. What laptop is it you have ?

Compaq Presario V4000.

Plug in is the way I wanted to go, because I'm not an expert and I don't want to open my machine up.

Thanks!!!:cool:

Anti

To install the ram you will have to open just a small slot on the underside. IT is pretty much the easiest thing you can do.

TerrorFirmer

It has the GMA900 video card so good luck trying to run any remotely modern games on that.

Pointless trying to use that for games, unless you meant ancient games like the original Half Life, UT 99, that sort of thing, it's virtually useless for most other things. Most games from the past 2 or 3 years either do not run at all or run like dirt even on low settings. Though to be fair it was never intended for gaming. Upgrading the ram won't really help as any game that actually runs good on the GMA900 will be fine with 512mb of ram (or even whatevers free after the card takes what it needs).

I've tried a few games on it, basically went as follows:

Far Cry: Playable but jumpy occassionally on lowest possible settings.
Half Life 2: playable sometimes, alot of the time gets too choppy to play - on lowest settings, in crappy DX7 mode.
Dawn of War: Runs on lowest possible settings.
Doom 3: Ran like crap on lowest possible settings, unplayable.

Anything decent like Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 2, etc, do not work full stop.

Games that DO work relatively well: GTA 3, Call of Duty, Soldier of Fortune 2, etc, basically the really old games from about 2002-2003.

Anti

HavoK wrote: »

It has the GMA900 video card so good luck trying to run any remotely modern games on that.

Pointless trying to use that for games, unless you meant ancient games like the original Half Life, UT 99, that sort of thing, it's virtually useless for most other things. Most games from the past 2 or 3 years either do not run at all or run like dirt even on low settings. Though to be fair it was never intended for gaming. Upgrading the ram won't really help as any game that actually runs good on the GMA900 will be fine with 512mb of ram (or even whatevers free after the card takes what it needs).

I've tried a few games on it, basically went as follows:

Far Cry: Playable but jumpy occassionally on lowest possible settings.
Half Life 2: playable sometimes, alot of the time gets too choppy to play - on lowest settings, in crappy DX7 mode.
Dawn of War: Runs on lowest possible settings.
Doom 3: Ran like crap on lowest possible settings, unplayable.

Anything decent like Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 2, etc, do not work full stop.

Games that DO work relatively well: GTA 3, Call of Duty, Soldier of Fortune 2, etc, basically the really old games from about 2002-2003.

QFT !