laptop upgrade

kpd1982

Hi all
I have a toshiba c650 with a Intel celeron 3300 processor and 2gb ram, its a very basic laptop and very slow, is it possible to upgrade it and make it faster?? Change processor, expand ram etc. My wife has a toshiba i 5 8gb hdd and 1tb ram for work and the difference is ridiculous! !!!
Thanks for your help in advance.

yawhat!

What operating system is on it? Is it just general web browsing you do on it?

kpd1982

yawhat! wrote: »

What operating system is on it? Is it just general web browsing you do on it?

It is windows 7 64 bit, I use it for web browsing, downloading movies and some typing.

MyPeopleNeedMe

You could probably expand ram, or get an SSD drive but that's about it in terms of upgrades and I wouldn't do it with a budget laptop anyway. Get a new computer - a decent desktop will cost you much less than a decent laptop and is also so much easier to upgrade.

sawdoubters

the only thing you can do is buy ssd drive

Celeron is crap

TerrorFirmer

celeron is not crap. Since about 2005 or 2006 Celeron has been a respectable processor for desktop use. the e3300 is still OK for desktop use.

If its 'very slow' then its likely your PC is just full of junk more than anything else.

a small SSD and maybe more ram will make a huge difference, but simply reinstalling windows and making sure you have up to date anti-virus and something like spybot will keep the machine in good order.

kpd1982

Thanks for the replies lads, there is another laptop lying around but it wont turn on without being plugged in, its a bit of a beast weight wise but is much higher spec than my one its a toshiba a500-15m with windows vista, it for some reason though is actually slower than mine and I have tried everything with it including resetting to factory settings, defraging c drive but is still a shockingly slow laptop.
So is this a better laptop than mine to try improve?
I have looked at pc's but my budget won't stretch at the moment.

MyPeopleNeedMe

I say if you have some copy of Windows XP lying around you should replace Vista with it. You will not believe it's the same computer performance-wise.

TerrorFirmer

That other laptop you've posted isn't really much faster spec wise than your C650.

As I've said, Windows 7 is still completely usable with an E3300. It shouldn't be 'shockingly slow' on either of those 2 machines. Unless you're reinstalling from a partition riddled with bloatware.

Johnboy1951

kpd1982 wrote: »

It is windows 7 64 bit, I use it for web browsing, downloading movies and some typing.

You could put a Linux operating system on that laptop ..... I use one of those and it is not at all slow for the usage you describe above ...... and that is without doing any hardware changes.

I also left the Windows OS on there just in case I might wish to sell the laptop sometime .... but only booted into Windows once or twice in the last year. Windows is too slow on this machine for my liking ... it is frustrating TBH.

So yes there is another option

kpd1982

this is my laptop:
{SATELLITE C650-13G
Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit (pre-installed, Toshiba-HDD recovery)
Intel® Celeron® Processor T3300
Toshiba TruBrite® HD TFT High Brightness display with 16 : 9 aspect ratio and LED backlighting
320 GB
Black finish with textured pattern and black keyboard
2,048 MB
DDR2 RAM (800 MHz)
Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M}

this the the wifes old laptop:
(Satellite A500-15M
- Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium 64-bit Edition (pre-installed, Toshiba-Dual-HDD recovery)
- Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology featuring Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor
- DVD-RW SuperMulti drive (Double Layer)
- 4096 MB (2048 +2048) DDR RAM (800MHZ)
- 16" Widescreen TruBrite® XGA HD (1366 x 768) High Brightness display}

the a500 for some reason takes forever to load and also to shut down, the c650 will start quick however other applications like microsoft office are very slow to load.
Is it hard to replace vista with perhaps windows 7 or xp?
If you had the choice which laptop would you try to improve?
(open question to all posters)

Johnboy1951

I would suggest you download an ISO of Linux, burn it to a CD/DVD or USB stick and boot both of the PCs with it, to see which one operates the best.

It would be one way of finding how they operate while using the exact same operating system.

Because optical media is slow the USB would be faster and an installed OS even faster still.
Nonetheless it would give a proper comparison.

If you liked the OS you could install it for use ..... or reinstall a Windows OS on the machine you prefer.

Here is a link to one version of Linux

http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/pclinuxos/live-cd/pclinuxos-mate-2013.12.iso

There are other versions at this page

http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/pclinuxos/live-cd/

Good luck making up your mind

kpd1982

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I would suggest you download an ISO of Linux, burn it to a CD/DVD or USB stick and boot both of the PCs with it, to see which one operates the best.

It would be one way of finding how they operate while using the exact same operating system.

Because optical media is slow the USB would be faster and an installed OS even faster still.
Nonetheless it would give a proper comparison.

If you liked the OS you could install it for use ..... or reinstall a Windows OS on the machine you prefer.

Here is a link to one version of Linux

http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/pclinuxos/live-cd/pclinuxos-mate-2013.12.iso

There are other versions at this page

http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/pclinuxos/live-cd/

Good luck making up your mind

I'm probably goin to sound really stupid as I know very little about different operating systems but what is linux and is it much different to windows?

Johnboy1951

It is different yet similar looking, works differently underneath what the user sees, but does the same things ...... "web browsing, downloading movies and some typing" ....... firefox web browser or chrome as you wish ..... easy web browsing & downloading and provides Libre Office office suite similar to MS Office.

Just as Windows does not run applications made for Linux, neither does Linux run apps made for Windows ....... but all the most popular requirements are covered by both.

Linux can be run from a CD or USB device ...... and I mean fully run the OS as if it were installed, except somewhat slower because of the limitations of the optical media for the most part.

When run like this (called running 'Live') it will not touch anything on the hard drives in the PC, so is safe to try out and if it doesn't suit you are left with your PC as if it was never tried.

So, IMO, well worth taking the time to try a version of Linux running 'Live' to see if it would suit you.