Just been given a free laptop! What to do with it...

Soldato
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Colleague at work told me he was going to throw out a Laptop that he'd never used (!!!) so I told him I'd have it for the price of a couple of bottles of wine.

Spec:
Dell Inspiron n5110
i5 2410m
4GB RAM
500GB HDD
Windows 7
1366x768 Resolution 15"
2 x USB 3.0/1 x USB 2.0/1 x USB2/eSATA
Ethernet
VGA port
Lots of weight

It's no slouch in terms of general performance (I thought it would be a poor Celeron or something, not an i5!) I currently have the following planned for it:
Windows 10 Upgrade
4GB extra RAM (~£20)
The HDD looks like a PITA to replace so I probably won't bother doing anything with it.

Can anyone think of anything else I can do with it to bring it closer to a modern laptop? Can screens be changed or anything like that?
 
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Soldato
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Being honest its probably not worth doing much more to it other than maybe the 4gb you mention and an SSD. The SSD will certainly improve things.

There are a few guides on youtube for doing it, but Id say that would be about it.
 
Man of Honour
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Changing the screen is usually quite a job with a good chance of doing damage to the laptop if you aren't familiar with stripping down that model.

If the HDD isn't easily changed looking into caching options might be worthwhile.
 
Soldato
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Changing the screen is usually quite a job with a good chance of doing damage to the laptop if you aren't familiar with stripping down that model.

If the HDD isn't easily changed looking into caching options might be worthwhile.
By caching options do you mean this or is it something else?
 
Associate
Joined
19 Jul 2011
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2,343
I've got one of those laptops in front of me. Works fine for browsing, netflix etc. Its not going to run Battlefield 1 anytime soon but so what.

Turn it over.
Unscrew the HDD cover.
Pull it out carefully.
Clone it to a new SSD using Macrium Reflect or Acronis.
Put the SSD in.
Put the cover on.
Enjoy.

Or if your reinstalling, just take the HDD out, put the SSD in, install windows.
Job jobbed.
 
Man of Honour
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By caching options do you mean this or is it something else?

I was meaning more like hybrid caching (one of the USB ports apparently doubles as esata? which might give some options) - on one of my older laptops I was using a high speed SD card as a cache for the HDD with reasonable results.
 
Soldato
OP
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4,288
Location
The moon
I was meaning more like hybrid caching (one of the USB ports apparently doubles as esata? which might give some options) - on one of my older laptops I was using a high speed SD card as a cache for the HDD with reasonable results.
Any links to a guide or similar to give me pointers? Drawing a blank with Google.
 
Associate
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I added an ssd to the same laptop, then removed the cd drive and replaced it with the mechanical one. Massive overall improvement. That was 6 years ago. Surprises me that its as snappy as it is today.
 
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