Dell Inspiron 1720 performance help

When I bought my inspiron 1720 it had an index score of 4.8 for vista. I had 3 gb ram in it. My question is now it only has a score of 2.8. Its being held back by the RAM and the processor. How can I fix this? I have reformated my C: partition and reinstalled vista. When it had the 4.8 it was at 3 gb ram. Now it has 4. What might be the problem?

Also whats the fastest RAM I can put in it and is it possible to upgrade the proccessor?

It currently has the Intel(R) Core(TM) Dou CPU @ 2.0 GHz
It also has a DDR2 stick of RAM I believe its the Corsair 2gb 800Htz and a 2bg 667 Htz stick

I also want to put in 2 500gb Hard drives in it. Will i see any gain if i go with 7200rpm?

Also can the graphics card be updated? It has NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT

I also need a new dell adaptor because the one I have has a nick in it or something and I get the typical error message that it isn't recognized. Any help on boosting my preformance would be appreciated. Thanks guys, I'm new to the forum and just had some questions. Taking apart the laptop is no problem because I've done it many times. Thanks

 

The problem is that WEI is not a terribly effective benchmarking tool and you should ignore it for the most part.

The 1720 officially supports 4GB of 667MHz memory, so you already have that spec maxed out. It can take any 800MHz (or less) FSB Socket P processor up through the T9500, but a BIOS update is probably needed. Upgrading to 7200RPM drives will give you a speed boost in loading times, etc, but it won't be terribly big. Get an SSD if you really want storage performance.

GPU cannot be upgraded. You could downgrade to the 8400M, though

 

Ah ok, thanks for the help. I also found that by replacing the powercord with another one that was working properly my computer seems to run a lot faster. And as uneffective as it is, it solved my question on the WEI. It went back to the original 4.8 that I had, simply by replacing the powercord. Thanks again

 

By default if it doesn't recognize the power adapter I believe it runs at the lower "battery" power level.

 

Didn't you made a similiar thread? LOL.

And Commander Wolf, yes, officially on paper it supports 4GB RAM. It MAXES out at 6GB. And it works. It seems like many people are unaware of this, but it DOES support 6GB RAM MAX and with BIOS A09 and it's working beautifully up till now. It can also take up the X9000 processor with BIOS A09 flawlessly and the temps don't even hit 59*C on full load. However T9500/T9300 is a better buy for price : performance ratio and since the X9000 can't be OCed on the 1720,

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=305464

Anyway DR650SE, I'll reply to you on the other thread instead of this one. It's eventually the same. And yes, forget about WEI. Anyway if you have to know, my lowest WEI score was 5.0 But I care-less about it.