700m question about HD

Hello all. Great forum. I just won an auction on ebay for a Dell 700m laptop. Here are the specs:

1.8ghz
512 ram
60gig
wireless card
24x cd / dvd player
XP home

etc....for $890 including S/H and insurance (not bad i guess)

I am just curious as to what speed do you figure this HD is? I am hoping it is 5400rpm, but i dont know because it doesnt say. I know that dell changed the HD from 4200rpm to 5400rpm some time ago. I emailed the seller and asked him, but is there any other way i can tell , or should i just assume it is 5400 since dell had this changed some time ago.

thanks so much for your help
msucurt

 

I would assume it's a 4200 RPM drive unless otherwise disclosed. You can check when it shows up, ut if the seller won't answer, short of the Service Tag, you have no way of knowing.

 

Well crap....just what i didnt want to hear. I dont understand how it could be the 4200rpm drive seeing that Dell changed to the 5400rpm drives some time back. That would basically mean, the guy would have had to had this computer "laying around" for some time now.

So, if it is a 4200rpm, what kind of performance issues are going to be comprimised? I heard the 4200rpm drives are noisy. What do you think? Hopefully there wont be much of a drop off in performance....daggumit!!

EDIT: After writing this message, i went back to ebay and checked several 700m systems and no seller had what speed the HD was.

thanks so much
msucurt

 

Are you in the states? I just bought the same set up with a couple of extra stuff new from Dell for $900 shipped.

 

Dell only changed to the 5400 around a month, maybe 2 months ago, so i'm going to go with Brian and probably say it is a 4200. When you get it, you could always buy a 5400 from Dell and switch it out.

 

or u could use some tools to c wat RPM speed ur hard drive is ...from www.lavalys.com

 

To answer a few questions and ask a couple.....

1. Yes i am in the states. I got it all for $894 (including S/H and insurance). Pretty good deal i suppose , saying it is 1.8ghz / 512ram / 60gig / wireless / etc

2. How much of a performance difference would i get if i switched to a 5400rpm drive?

3. Would it be worth buying another HD and switching it out? (I am only going to use the laptop for surfing, IM, downloading, word processing...no games, no editing, etc....just general stuff...maybe running 2 or more applications at once.

4. How much is the 5400 HD from dell? (i know im lazy, but figured someone
would have a $$ off the top of their head...thanks).

5. Is it hard switching the drives out?

thanks so much for your help

msucurt

 

If he's had it for a while, it's 4200 rpm. I wouldn't worry too much about it, they're very easy to replace anyways (you might even be happy with the speed)

 

you wouldnt even have to buy the drive from dell. Maybe try www.coboc.com or www.newegg.com