Possible to upgrade this laptop?

Lemlin

I'm starting work for a new firm in two months. They allow me to work from home a bit. I don't really use a laptop though so the only one I have is seven years old and came from PC World.

It's a Toshiba Equium P200-1IR. Just wondering would it be possible to upgrade it or would I be better off just investing in a new laptop?

Spec is:

Product Features
Screen size (Inches) 17
Screen Resolution (pixels) 1280 x 720 (WXGA)
Operating system Windows Vista Home Premium
RAM (Gigabytes) 2
Hard disk capacity (Gigabytes) 120
Number of cores Dual
Processor brand Intel
Processor series Core 2 Duo
Processor number T2330
Processor speed (Gigahertz) 1.6
Number of USB ports 6
Connections Wireless
Built-in disc drive DVD drive
Built-in disc drive CD-ROM drive
Battery life (Hours) 2.83
Weight (kg) 3.27
Graphics card brand Intel
Graphics card model number GMA X3100
Remote control No
Release date 2008-02-11

http://www.toshiba.ie/discontinued-products/equium-p200-1ir/


I work in insurance so the software I will be using shouldn't be too taxing. Mainly just stuff from Office like Word and Excel.

mordeith

The only real upgrades you can make to a laptop are additional RAM and a replacement hard drive. Your laptop can possibly take a maximum of 4GB ram and it may be possibe to install an SSD (I think you need a SATA connection for that)

Lemlin

mordeith wrote: »

The only real upgrades you can make to a laptop are additional RAM and a replacement hard drive. Your laptop can possibly take a maximum of 4GB ram and it may be possibe to install an SSD (I think you need a SATA connection for that)

Thanks for your response.

So would I be better off just spending my budget of €500 on a new laptop?

mordeith

Lemlin wrote: »

Thanks for your response.

So would I be better off just spending my budget of €500 on a new laptop?

Possibly. Depends how well your laptop is performing currently. A RAM upgrade would certainly help and you really don't need much storage if you are working on word, excel stuff.
An SSD would drastically reduce your boot time but if that's not a concern then probably not worth the investment. Better off getting an external hd to backup your work stuff.

Lemlin

mordeith wrote: »

Possibly. Depends how well your laptop is performing currently. A RAM upgrade would certainly help and you really don't need much storage if you are working on word, excel stuff.
An SSD would drastically reduce your boot time but if that's not a concern then probably not worth the investment. Better off getting an external hd to backup your work stuff.

Laptop is very slow to be honest.

This was suggested on another forum - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00S6DPAGM/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?qid=1442827907&sr=8-5&pi=AC_SX110_SY165&keywords=lenovo+laptop&dpPl=1&dpID=41XRVDCtO0L&ref=plSrch

bonzodog2

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Toshiba/equium-p200-series says max RAM is 2GB
I'd try ReadyBoost with a fast SD card. You might also be able to change the optical drive for a hard disk caddy if youre short on space with the 120GB HDD

Lemlin

bonzodog2 wrote: »

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Toshiba/equium-p200-series says max RAM is 2GB
I'd try ReadyBoost with a fast SD card. You might also be able to change the optical drive for a hard disk caddy if youre short on space with the 120GB HDD

So you think upgrade rather than buy new?

mordeith

Lemlin wrote: »

So you think upgrade rather than buy new?

At this stage I'd just get a new one. Support for Vista ends in Apr 2017. Not an immediate worry I'll grant you but if you are going to be using it for sensitive work material then probably better off starting on the right foot.

bonzodog2

Lemlin wrote: »

So you think upgrade rather than buy new?

I have several laptops from roughly that vintage, and with 2-4GB and Win7, they run just fine for light use. Trying readyboost would involve little outlay.

edit:or you could use a USB stick.either way it needs to be a fast one.Windows will test it for you.

Patryk

You can install SSD drive and Intel Core 2 Duo t8300 processor and Windows 7 32 Bit.
250 Gb SSD Drive will cost you 60 Euro and the Processor 10 Euro (Aliexpress.com)
For 70 Euro you will have a fairly quick laptop for every day use instead if Spending 400 Euro for an average slow new laptop.
My girlfriend has the same model. I resurrected it 3 times now

TerrorFirmer

I would buy new. These days a 5th generation i3 with an SSD and Win10 can be had for under 400 euro and would run rings around your old laptop. Look at it as an investment for work.

cerastes

Ive a Laptop that came with Win 7, its got 3GB RAm and I think it can supposedly take 8, its probably 4-5 years old, Packard Bell.
It was horrendously slow, I did a complete reinstall of the OS previously but it just returned to its usual self quite soon.
I've done a complete reinstall of the OS again and it is better, I did it this time as it was impossible to do anything, simply locking up for ages, I noticed there were errors when it was trying to update.
Having found a few ways to resolve this online, I tried them but to no avail.

I did have an option of upgrading to Win 10, and thats also why I did the last reinstall of the OS recently. Now that isn't allowing the upgrade to complete as there are updating issues, gives error codes, different ones, which Ive tried to fix but without success.

It seems functional, less lagging and as of yet, no locking up. Ive got kaspersky anti virus software on it.

I cant really afford to outlay for new so have been considering a secondhand replacement, plus I dont want to buy a cheaper new type that will end up in the same scenario down the line.

I had previously considered
Upgrading the RAM, Upgrading the HDD (it is SATA), Upgrading the OS(Free Win 10), I just dont know if thats mostly money down the drain.

Options?

TerrorFirmer

You haven't mentioned the overall spec, if it was an ultra budget model when it was bought and has a slow processor, nothing can be done.

There was, and still are, a criminal amount of budget laptops sold with appallingly bad processors that can barely cope with current demands, let alone a few years down the line.

As above very decent current gen i3 laptops can be had for about €350, or €400 with an SSD which makes a massive difference also.

cerastes

Processor: AMD Athlon (tm) II P320 Dual Core processor 2.10 GHz
RAM: 3.0 GB (2.74 useable)
System: 64 Bit
Win 7

Oddly its been the best its ever been today, Im wondering if this is the calm before the storm of it finally giving up.

Would prefer not to have to replace it, for cost reasons, where would you recommend a good place to buy? Online?
I got this in Currys or PC world, it was kind of mid range I think, not too cheap and not the top end either.

I would need a keyboard (ie laptop, not large tablet), touchscreen might be a nice feature but really a keyboard is necessary for me and one with a seperate keypad (just find that handy).

Anything I can do with this or older laptops, there's a few laying around, they work, but aside from XP not being supported (had ubuntu on a few, they were just handy for browsing) not sure if anything can be done with them, seems a waste to just bin them.

TerrorFirmer

It's pretty slow, but shouldn't be unusable. It may be the hard drive then, if you're finding Windows often unusable. And also, assuming that you're not using Firefox with a load of tabs or other things what would overwhelm your amount of ram.

More ram and an SSD wouldn't cost more than about €80.

cerastes

What do you mean "its pretty slow"?

It is quite slow, but how are you estimating this? from the RAM or processing power?
What are current models up around now, I didn't think iot was hugely over what I've got. While I'm sure there is a large difference in performance, I didn't think there was large increases in RAM or Processing speeds to allow for this.

I recal when it was the processing power which was raved about and there was year on year increases, Im not sure where its at now with performance increases.

I would use firefox and usually have a few tabs open,
It also seems to have have a problem accepting updates, something I didn't notice until I looked into preparing for an upgrade to Win10 which doesn't look possible due to the upgrading issues.

I'd put in the HDD and RAM myself
but
I may have to relent and bring it somewhere to be repaired for the Windows upgrading problem, Ive done the usualy googling and youtube searches for answers.

TerrorFirmer

A basic €350 i3 laptop would probably be twice as fast - that CPU you have now was low-end/budget orientated when it came out. Notebookcheck equates it to a mobile Celeron processor from 2009 for example.

The ram is not a problem, in that you can upgrade to 4GB if you wanted to, but 3GB is still somewhat OK for casual use. Upgrading to 4GB would cost very little.

Speed increases come from architecture, not from clock speed, so even though your processor is 2.1Ghz, it's probably equivalent to a modern i3 running at 800mhz or similar.

cerastes

So in terms of current processors, is the i3 a reasonable starting point?
I believe I've seen i5 & i7 also, I still see Atom processors are available, in smaller notebooks.
I'm thinking of getting something secondhand possibly from a business as Ive seen advertised in Adverts as an option for some form of warranty of the product, so not new but of a better quality as an option versus new but basic standard from PC world/elara/theres another Irish online store, but cant think of the name of it, begins with E also I think.

I did not realise my own processor was on par with a Celeron, I specifically avoided Celeron as I'd considered it an old design.

TerrorFirmer

The i3 is very reasonable for a starting point, very fast and will last years. The only difference between the i3 and i5 mobile's is mostly the fact that i5's have turbo boost, but for normal desktop use, there isn't any perceivably difference between them.

Unless your budget is something like €200, I wouldn't advise buying 2nd hand, it's not very cost effective. All i3's are not equal; a first generation i3 versus a current (5th) generation i3 for example is night and day. Many 2nd hand laptops, particularly those sold by businesses, which be the older generation models. Which are still much faster than what you have now, but with new laptops so reasonable these days...

Here's an example of an excellent buy for €350 - 5th gen i3, 4GB ram, and an SSD. This would be incredibly faster for deskop use, due to the combination of the strong processor and solid state drive.

cerastes

Thanks for all that, I forgot about dabs,
there is another online store other than elara (an irish one) that Ive heard a bit about, cant think of the name right now, I'll prob review them all, but that Lenovo one looks like it might be ok (at that price).
I dont want a tiny portabl;e laptop, but was a bit concerned cheaper newer versions, particularily from Currys/PC world would really be bottom of the range in terms of spec.

My first laptop was a Lenovo and its a sturdy well built job, still running on ubuntu, it had Xp and I never upgraded to a OS newer than that and I wish I had at the time as I may have been able to hold out using that one for quite a while, as I found that a lot of drivers were not supported or that I just couldn't find drivers for even the wireless card, where they are supported in ubuntu automatically, just dont have time to be mucking about too much with ubuntu and its simply for browsing, but it can be slow at times too (actually just reloaded ubuntu on it today as my main laptop of use was getting so bad, then the main one seemed to revive after reinstalling the OS and then actually managed to upgrade it to Win 10 today too, it seems better, but I still think I want to upgrade as its still lagging a bit.


Just dont know what to do with all the older laptops laying about, I dont think they are worth anything and it seems a shame to just dispose of them.

Patryk

Patryk wrote: »

You can install SSD drive and Intel Core 2 Duo t8300 processor and Windows 7 32 Bit.
250 Gb SSD Drive will cost you 60 Euro and the Processor 10 Euro (Aliexpress.com)
For 70 Euro you will have a fairly quick laptop for every day use instead if Spending 400 Euro for an average slow new laptop.
My girlfriend has the same model. I resurrected it 3 times now

After upgrading the processor to t8300 laptop it stopped overheating. It is noticeably faster and quieter. It runs at about 37-42 Degrees of Celsius now when browsing the internet. The fan starts occasionally.

I just tried 4Gb Ram on the Toshiba Equim P200-1IR after bios update to 2.7 and it does not take it well. I boots up but freezes/crashes right after. I even tried one 2Gb stick and one 1Gb stick. It does not work..

Other than that laptop started freezing randomly so I replaced one 1Gb stick with new one and it works like a champ again.

Regarding buying new laptop, for 400 Euro you will not find Decent laptop with SSD. I was testing brand new HP laptop for 400 Euro recently and in comparison with Upgraded Toshiba P200-1IR was very slow (system load up time etc). SSD Makes huge difference. I do not recommend Windows 10 yet on new/old laptops. It has to many faults it is not ready for us yet.
Windows 7 is still the way to go.. Windows 8.1 is supposed to be better but the interface is terrible on not touch screen devices.

cerastes

Interesting,I just managed to upgrade to win10, I was holding off as I thought my laptop was working so poorly that it wouldn't manage with a newer OS.
It had gotten so bad that I was willing to try anything and during one attempt to accept the upgrade that had been sitting at the bottom of my screen for nearly a year? I realised then that my laptop was not allowing upgrades to occur in win7 for some time, after a few failed attempts at resolving that problem following directions online which seemed to suggest this was a common or known problem in win7, I decided that I'd do a clean reinstal of the original OS (win 7), and started its updates, which seemed to work, but soon after I could still see the laptop was still slow, but not as bad as it had been.
Upon trying to accept the win 10 upgrade, it still wouldn't accept it, showing that updates had not been completed in win7, I followed a few online guides again, but to no avail.

I dont know what happened, must have done something right as without requesting it at that time, in the updates section in control panel it was offering to upgrade the OS to Win10, I knew I could revert to win 7 so I tried it. Maybe it was after I'd powered down on the last instance of making changes?
couple of days now with win10 and I have to say it seems to be running ok and I like the look, definitely faster, maybe thats more to do with it being a new instal? but from what task manager is showing me its not maxing out the RAM or the processor which were at their limits previously. I do think there was some error which prevented win 7 upgrades from downloading, and maybe someone knows if this was part or all of my problem, but at least now its not locking up, which had recahed a point that it had become impossible to do anything.

I think I'll still upgrade the RAM and look into an SSD too, but the urgency to fork out for a new laptop tight now isn't there, which is a relief.

devnull

I have Windows 10 on my HP Spectre X360 (Core i5-5200U, 8GB Ram, 256GB SSD) and it's been fine since I upgraded it a couple of months ago from Windows 8.1.

However when I first upgraded to Windows 10 when it first came out there was issues with blurriness and Wifi so I went back to Windows 8.1 but since the second attempt it's been fine.