9300 self upgrades?

I'm looking to order my 9300 before the current crop of discount codes expire on the 22nd. My question is which upgrades are relatively painless do to yourself, rather than pay Dell's ridiculous upgrade prices?

In particular, it seems I should be able to skimp and get the minimum processor, memory, and hard drive, upgrading them myself with parts I can buy for about half of Dell's upgrade price. (I would probably try to upgrade HD and memory immediately, and upgrade the processor in a year or so). I've built my own desktops for the past 5 years, so I'm familiar enough with computer guts, but I'm new to laptops and don't yet want to do anything that might involve bending, soldering, drilling etc.

So does anyone have advice to offer on easy self upgrades to Dell laptops, and the 9300 in particular?

 

It's easy to do. Dell includes instructions on upgrading ram, hard drive, optical drive, etc for that model (which I have). However, are the prices that bad? DDR2 notebook memory is spendy. Also, if you need upgrades to use the better coupon codes, you may be saving more. If you configure it at $2000 and get $750 off, all your upgrades are 37% off.

 

I would not skimp on the hard drive if I was you, I got the 7200 rpm speed, and although it's quick it still is not as speedy as my 7200 rpm desktop hard drive. I couldn't imagine using a 5400 or 4200(yuck)rpm. Especially if you skimp on the ram there is going be a lot of disk access.

 

I purchased 1GB (two 512's) from crucial.com for my 9300... but Doom 3 eats every single bit of it... so you may want to really look at what you'll be doing and order the proper amount of memory (unlike me)

 

Originally posted by fsacj
<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>It's easy to do. Dell includes instructions on upgrading ram, hard drive, optical drive, etc for that model (which I have).<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

Nice to know, thanks. Is the CPU on the list of things you can easily upgrade for the 9300, or is it too deeply embedded in the system to be easily swappable? And I presume making the upgrades they include instructions for won't void your 1-yr limited warranty?

<blockquote id='quote'>quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>However, are the prices that bad? DDR2 notebook memory is spendy.<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

True, but you can order 2* 512M 9300 compatible SODIMMs from Crucial for $246. Dell charges you $250 to upgrade from 256M to 1024M, so I could basically have a free 256M Dell SODIMM to resell for around $80 or so if I upgraded through Crucial instead. I would also be surprised if the random memory I get from Dell is as of high quality as Crucial's memory.

<blockquote id='quote'>quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Also, if you need upgrades to use the better coupon codes, you may be saving more. If you configure it at $2000 and get $750 off, all your upgrades are 37% off.<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

Getting to $2k isn't that difficult. It only took WUXGA, bluetooth, a 6800 Go, and a 9-cell battery to get to $2046.

 

Like they said, get the 7200rpm drive! Its a noticeable difference in just the overall way the system runs. If you are a gamer, get the 7200rpm drive and a good amount of ram for your needs. If the game maxes the ram, it will use VM accessed on your Hard drive, so having it at 7200 will benefit you!

*Dell Inspiron 9300, P-M 1.86ghz 533mhz FSB, 1GB DDR2 533mhz ram, 17inch UXGA+ screen with TrueLife, 256mb Nvidia GeForce 6800, 60gb 7200rpm drive, XP Pro SP2, WiFi*

*Sony MDR-G74SL Headphones for music and gaming, best 40 dollar pair i have ever bought!*

 

Originally posted by obigal<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>
I would not skimp on the hard drive if I was you, I got the 7200 rpm speed, and although it's quick it still is not as speedy as my 7200 rpm desktop hard drive. I couldn't imagine using a 5400 or 4200(yuck)rpm. Especially if you skimp on the ram there is going be a lot of disk access.<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

I would only be skimping on the HD/RAM to replace it with better myself, for less than Dell would charge me to do the same. Like you, I would hate to run a system on a 4200rpm HD or try to play a game on Windows with less than 1G RAM .

 

The CPU requires quite a bit of dissasembly, and instructions are only available through the online service manual. However, it is socketed and pretty easy to do if you don't mind tearing your laptop apart.

Also, I see your points about price. My desired configuration was about $2000 with 1 gig of ram, and I didn't want anything more. It cost much more to upgrade separately and get a cheaper system. The only thing I skimped on is the hard drive, since I'm waiting for something even better than is currently available to come out.

inspiron 9300
1.6GHz
1GB DDR2
X300 128mb
DVD DL

 

I'm pretty sure this 9300 will last me until the time I feel the urge to go for the next gen -- almost certainly a dual-core system.

I was thinking of upgrading the HD, but it seems a lot of trouble reinstalling/updating everything... lol Besides I'm not a big photoshoper or audio mixer person -- even if I am I'd rather go EXTERNAL for those kind of applications.

Games benefit *minimal* from a faster HD -- as they all tend to be mostly graphics-bound, and sometimes cpu-bound. Almost NEVER HD bound. Yea you can probably load Doom3 2 seconds faster -- but in game play will not be affected. Upgrading a little bit more ram will have greater effect for the same price than upgrading to a faster drive -- especially for those who already have a 5400rpm drive.

my 760 seems pretty speedy thou. [ ]

cheers,

yass