Upgrading a Laptop?

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reedOsama

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I'm wanting to upgrade a really crappy laptop since laptops cost a lot and have terrible resale value.

So I googled it and RAM, Optical Drives and Harddrives seem easy enough to upgrade but there's quite a pessimistic view on CPUs and GPUs... especially for older laptops.

Anyway my question is should I upgrade the laptop (an Acer travelmate 2310) or should I try selling it as it is or should I upgrade it, sell it and get a new laptop (a really cheap one...:erm:).

Also, do I have any chance in the world of upgrading the gpu and being able to play anything at all resembling a game (warcraft 3 lags on the laptop)
 
Sell and buy a better one... upgrades will cost more than a better new lappie.
(esp ones that'll fit, be compatible and complement an old motherboard) Not to mention an ageing battery, fading keys, and being a technofail.
 
I'm upgrading my ageing IBM T41 with cheap parts off Ebay. So far I upgraded the WiFi to 802.11 b/g and the harddrive to 160Gb. There is not a single part I cannot source from ebay, cpu, gpu, battery, you name it, it's there.
 
FrancTheTank said:
Sell and buy a better one... upgrades will cost more than a better new lappie.
(esp ones that'll fit, be compatible and complement an old motherboard) Not to mention an ageing battery, fading keys, and being a technofail.
Click to expand...

+1 rather get rid of your crap notebook and buy a new one...
 
okay so get a new one is the general idea here

but once I've got a new one would it be easier to upgrade later (meaning is it easier to upgrade newer laptops then older ones) or am I stuck in an eternal cycle of buying expensive laptops and then selling them for cheap.
 
Laptops are notorious for being difficult to upgrade, and it doesnt look like thats set to change anytime soon.
 
You can't really ever upgrade the graphics in a laptop (I know there are a few exceptions). You can upgrade RAM, and Hard drive with ease, and the CPU with some difficulty.
 
I have a Sony VGN-SZ38 which just happens to have a very easily accessible CPU - I think that it may have been designed like that in order to facilitate different model specs.

Anyway, so I installed a 2.33GHz T7600 Core2Duo, up from the 2GHz T7200 CPU that it came with. It works fine.

I also upgraded the hard disk (from 120GB to a 320GB 7200rpm), and the memory to 4GB (it came standard with 1GB).

I have been tempted to upgrade the DVD drive to Blu-ray, but rather got an external USB Blu-ray drive.

This is an unusual computer in that it has a PCMCIA cardbus slot as well as an Expresscard32 slot.

So I have a 64MB fast CF card permanently installed in a UDMA cardbus card, and use the Expresscard32 slot for all sorts of other things, including an eSATA card.

I also replaced the wiFi "G" card with an "N" card - both the original and the replacement were Intel mini PCI-E cards.

The computer had a fast graphics card, and it is still OK for what I do with it.

This computer is almost 3.5 years old, and it is still good enough for another 2 or 3 years.
 
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But do you need a Laptop? I mean isn't it ok just to upgrade a little? I mean you can upgrade your Harddrive and then get one of those, you know, 2.5" external casing and then just stick your old HD in there and WALLA you got yourself a bigger HD and an EXTERNAL HD 1 stone with 2 birds... ^ ^
 
Changing GPU usually means changing motherboard,unless it's a MXM type.
Changing CPU can be easy enough BUT most laptop brands code the BIOS and unless the new CPU is supported by the bios there's no guarantee it'll work.
I've changed both & it is expensive also.
Whats now in my sig was originally a 2.1Ghz CPU & Ati 4350 GPU
 
But I don't think anyone would change a laptops GPU.. I mean that's just going to cost alot..
 
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