M11x R2 overhaul and upgrade

Hi,


I am very new to upgrading laptops… well, I’ve never done it before! However, I am up for the challenge as I think it will be fun. I have an m11x R2 that I bought when it was first released for gaming. I am more of a console gamer but just thought it would be good to get m11x r2 back up and running to the ‘best it can be’…


Processor Intel Core i5 520UM (3M Cache, 1.066 GHZ with 1.866 GHz Max Turbo Frequency)

Memory 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 800MHz

Video Card 1GB NVIDA GT335M

Hard Drive 320GB SATAII, 7,200RPM


I think that is all the info required.


Any assistance, info, links to compatible upgrades would be really helpful because I am starting from scratch and don’t really have a clue what I am doing!


Thanks you

 

You are more or less stuck with the CPU and GPU unless you are willing to change the motherboard, and even then you won't see much of a performance boost with the i7 models.

You can:

- Upgrade the RAM. The M11x support up to 8GB of PC3-8500 (1066MHz) DDR3 RAM. G.Skill is a brand I like.

This should work for you:
http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f3-8500cl7d-8gbsq

- Upgrade the hard drive with an SSD. Any 2.5" SSD with a SATA interface will work, but speeds will be limited to SATA2.

I am using one of these in 120GB capacity:

http://www.kingston.com/us/ssd/v#sv300s3

You can also add a mini pci-e to USB adapter to the WWAN slot, then use the extra USB port to hide a wireless mouse receiver.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-PCI-E-...000545?hash=item3aadfad6e1:g:igcAAOSwMmBVpRWd

There's not much else you can really do with an M11X. You can replace parts on it to make it look newer, or add a silicone keyboard cover or screen protector, but there aren't any significant performance mods you can do other than the hard drive and RAM.

I recently resurrected my R1 by replacing all the panels, keyboard, screen assembly, etc. It looks brand new, but its still the same inside.

 

Same as above, you will be limited to what you can do. On my R1 I have a 160gb SSD, 8gb of ram and in the WWAN slot I added a dual micro sd card adapter for extra storage. When the price of 500gb ssd's drop some more one is going to go into this one. It will depend on how much stuff you want to store and keep on your laptop.

 

Thank you both very much for your help.

Last question, do you think it is actually worth doing? As in, will it improve the performance much? I am more interested in 'experimenting' with trying to do a mood / upgrade but if it will not make a huge difference to performance, I'm not sure it will be worth the cash.

Thank you both again

 

I think it's worth it to upgrade to an SSD. It will be a noticeable difference. You'll see faster boot times, load times, and better disk performance in general. Of course, this may come with sacrificing storage space because of the prices of SSDs compared to traditional drives.

The 8GB of RAM may also be worth it for you, depending on what kind of programs you use the laptop for. Basic tasks, and even some games may not benefit much from the extra RAM, but more memory hungry apps will be able to use it.

I would start off with an SSD upgrade, and hold off on the RAM upgrade until you feel you may benefit from it in the future.

 

Thank you again. I'm going to get the below:

SanDisk Ultra II 2.5in 960GB 1TB SATA III Solid State Drive SSD

Or

Samsung 2.5-Inch 1 TB 850 EVO Solid State Drive Brand New Sealed

They are both 2.5 inch so assume compatible with the m11x...

I can find both on eBay for about £180, and from a bit of googling, it seems like a good price!