Is it time for a laptop upgrade?

MontyUK

MontyUK

MontyUK

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Joined
9 May 2005
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I have a Toshiba Satellite A200 with Intel core 2 Duo T7100 @ 1.8Ghz and 2GB RAM with Windows XP/3.

Used mainly for business type applications - Word, Excel, Internet. No gaming at all.

Please can anyone suggest whether it is worth upgrading to 4GB memory and/or Windows 7 to speed it up?

Or is it time for a new one?
 
Is it time for an upgrade?

Only you can decide.

If you really want help, where do you experience slow down? What kind of usage are you? Lots of programs at once? Is this a work computer and what kind of resources do you have to spend on it?

You need to give us some propper information.
 
Thanks for your reply.

It's my computer, used for some work and some personal use. I would rather not spend more than is worthwhile. It would be good to speed the reponse to web access, spreadsheets. Some Photoshop. Generally only one or two programs running at once, difficult to say where it is sluggish - it just seems slower to respond than other laptops around. I seem to be waiting for things to happen quite often.

My feeling is that options are to upgrade the memory to 4GB at a cost of around £60-£70 and/or Windows 7 at £80. This would compare with a new laptop at around £500+.

Is it worth spending on the upgrade? Would there be an appreciable improvement, or would it not be noticeable?
 
If by slow you mean starting up the programs, then it could be the hard drive, or your system bloated by years of usage.

2GB maybe a bit short. If your system is hampered by processed and background applications, it will feel sluggish. The processor should cope with apps. I have a SU2300 which does the job nicely, but I also have 3 gigs, and a SSD, which makes the machine really responsive.

1) do a defrag on the hard drive. See if it improves.
2) do a clean install of XP to get rid of the bloat and see if it improves.
3) If you do not have an antivirus and spyware detector, install one (Microsoft Security Essential if it is available for XP - not sure-, or Avast! + malwarebytes, something like that).
4) run a hard disk performance check and see if it's really bad, or acceptable. HD are the slowest components in a PC, especially cheap laptops.
5) can scout for a cheap 2 gig stick to use to replace one of your 1 gig slot to bring the memory to 3 gigs (max a 32 bit OS can manage). Your system maybe crippled by background apps taking memory, and forcing page faults and thrashing the HD. However 2 gigs should be enough for light use. My NC10 with Win XP was fine with 2 gigs.
 
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