Love your notebook, but hate how slow it seems? You could spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars buying a brand-new system, but you may not need to.
A simple, sub-$100 upgrade can breathe new life into your aging laptop and allow you to delay purchasing a replacement for a year or more. Here are five of the best ways to make that old notebook run like new again.
Upgrade #1: Move to a 7,200-rpm hard drive
Why You Want It: For many users, the way they measure their system’s performance is how fast it opens and switches apps, copies files, and boots. Since a 7,200-rpm hard drive is 20 to 25 percent faster than the 5,400 rpm hard drive your notebook probably came with, that’s a very noticeable speed improvement.
How To Buy It: Before you buy a hard drive, you need to make sure it’s the right size and interface for your notebook. Most notebooks sold since 2007 have 2.5-inch hard drives with SATA interfaces, but to be certain either contact your manufacturer or open your Device Manager, find the name of your current hard drive, and do a web search to see what type it is. Then head online or to your local retailer to find a 7,200-rpm notebook hard drive. Most models will provide similar performance, but strive for a drive with plenty of onboard cache, preferably 16MB or more. Prices range from $45 for a 160GB drive up to $85 for a 640GB unit.
Install It: If you have an external hard drive, you can use Macrium Reflect Free to create a full disk image backup and then restore it onto your new drive. Otherwise, you may want to buy a USB to SATA kit like the Apricorn DriveWire that lets you copy your whole system directly from the old drive to the new one.
Once you’ve backed it up, it’s time to swap the drives. Turn off your computer and turn it over. The drive bay is usually located below a panel on the bottom of the notebook that is marked with a cylinder symbol. However, if you can’t find the bay, you may need to consult your instruction manual.
Upgrading your drive is as simple as unscrewing and pulling the original out of the chassis, swapping its brackets or rails onto the new unit, and then sliding the new drive back into the port. After it is installed, you’ll need to restore the disk image onto it.
Upgrade #2: Upgrade Your RAM
Why You Want It: Whether you’re running several browser windows or editing a video while you play a game, you’re using up your system’s resources. In other words, the less RAM you have, the more your notebook has to swap data to your hard drive, causing the whole system to slow down. On today’s laptops, a minimum of 3GB of RAM is essential and 4GB is optimal. Fortunately, adding more memory is cheap and easy.
How To Buy It: Before you buy a RAM upgrade, you need to determine both what kind of memory you need and how many sticks to buy. Aside from your instruction manual, the best way to find out what type of RAM you need and how many slots you have is to use an online configurator like the one on Crucial.com. Most modern notebooks use either DDR2 or DDR3 memory and have one or two slots in total.
Chances are that at least one of your slots already has a DIMM (Dual Inline Memory Module) in it. So, depending on what’s in your computer now, you may need to buy only a single stick of RAM to put in an open slot, or you may need to replace one or both modules you have now so you can reach 3 or 4GB. A single 2GB DIMM costs between $35 and $50, depending on speed and brand. A 4GB kit costs close to $100.
Install It: Consult your notebook’s instruction manual to find the location of your RAM slots. On most notebooks, they are conveniently located behind a panel on the bottom of the notebook. Once you’ve accessed the RAM slots, just insert your new DIMM(s) at a 45 degree angle, while making sure the groove in the connector aligns with the slot.
Once your DIMM is correctly inserted, clips will pop into its side grooves. If you need to remove a pre-installed DIMM, pull the clips outward and it will pop out.
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