How to best maximise my laptop?

tonc76

Hi,

How can I best maximise my laptop and where is best to buy from?

http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5602WLMi_LX.AB105.094/version.asp

Thanks

AlmightyCushion

What exactly do you mean by maximise your laptop? That acer you link to is rubbish and extremely expensive. 500 sterling for a laptop with a 60GB hard drive and 512MB ram is a joke. If you want a good spec for cheap get a dell vostro, you'll get a lot for your money.

Voodu Child

It's also sold out in any case. Probably years ago going by the price/specs.

But yeah, need more info on exactly what your question is... Are you looking for recommendations?

Overheal

I think that is his laptop and im sure the price hasnt been updated since it was last in stock.

the only thing you can do with it is upgrade the memory. like #2 said, the specs are a joke but you cant do much about it. If you really have yet to buy a laptop i wouldnt ever pick an Acer personally. Dell or Toshiba. HP has lost favor with me.

tonc76

Sorry for the confusion but the link to the laptop is one that I bought 2 years ago - although mine has 80gb hard drive and 1 meg of ram. Just wondering is extra memory all that I can hope for?

AlmightyCushion

More ram and a bigger hard drive is all that you can install yourself. Maybe a new cpu or graphics card if you're lucky but this will be expensive.

Voodu Child

You'll upgrade the ram to 2Gb fairly cheap - I wouldn't even bother going any higher unless you're a power-user.

Bigger hard-drive if you need the space.

Best thing you can do if you're finding the laptop getting slower is to do a clean install of XP and keep a nice clean system (in terms of programs etc.)

Upgradeability is never a strong point of ANY laptop tbh.

Alanstrainor

I have a pretty similarly spec'd dell 6400: same processor, 1.5gb ram and 100gb hd...Unless you're doing anything very strenuous it should be running grand for general usage with xp. A fresh install of xp would probably help, i'm considering the same for mine as it's recently become sluggish and a bit of a pain, my eee pc runs runs better than it in some respects!

majiktripp

In fairness your laptop spec's aren't *that* bad really. I've seen people with a lot worse and much grander notion's of there capabilites.
I agree with the above suggestions of more Ram, www.memoryc.com - Use the Configurator to find compatible memory for your machine, and a clean install of XP to speed the lil' bugger up.

Black_Knight

tonc76 wrote: »

although mine has 80gb hard drive and 1 meg of ram.

1 meg. Something about that doesnt seem right....

I recently got 2Gb of ram for my old laptop (it had 512mb). The difference is unbelievable! Its got a similar spec otherwise to yours.

Also, a format and a clean start with XP would do it the world of good. Did this to my Girlfriends laptop as it was slowing down and again, excellent results.

Step 1: Format
If laptop is still slow, continue to step 2
Step 2: More Ram. 2X1Gb will prob cost 40quid or there abouts.

AlmightyCushion

When I said it was rubbish I meant in relation to it's price. Seeing as it's 2 years old it's actually a decent spec for the time.