The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Back To School Upgrade Guide: How To Revive Your Old Laptop Discussion

    Discussion in 'Notebook News and Reviews' started by dietcokefiend, Aug 6, 2010.

  1. dietcokefiend

    dietcokefiend DietGreenTeaFiend

    Reputations:
    2,291
    Messages:
    3,023
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    106
    Don't have the budget for a new laptop this school year? The team at NotebookReview.com is here to help make that old notebook last a few more years. When looking to upgrade your personal notebook make sure you research online to find out how far you need to go to access the part you will be replacing. Our little guide examines a wide range of laptops that all require different ways to get inside to make upgrades.

    Read the full content of this Article: Back To School Upgrade Guide: How To Revive Your Old Laptop

     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 7, 2015
    dietcokefiend, Aug 6, 2010
    #1
  2. Jason

    Jason Overclocker NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    908
    Messages:
    5,056
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    206
    Nice article. One thing I'd mention is about the 7200RPM vs 5400RPM.

    You can not generalize and say that 7200RPM will be faster then 5400RPM.

    My Latitude E6400 has a 250GB 7200RPM that does about 60MB/s in HD tune.

    My new Latitude E6410 has a 640GB Samsung 5400 RPM that does 75MB/s.

    Platter density comes into play when comparing larger 5400 RPM drives with smaller 7200RPM drives. Sure if your comparing 500GB 5.4k vs 500GB 7.2k, then the 7.2k will win out.
     
    Jason, Aug 8, 2010
    #2
  3. dietcokefiend

    dietcokefiend DietGreenTeaFiend

    Reputations:
    2,291
    Messages:
    3,023
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    106
    Yea it really helps though when comparing current generation models though. My old 7200.2 seagate would lose the sequential MB/s battle against most modern 5400rpm drives but as soon as you started working with random transfers the faster spindle speed won out.
     
    dietcokefiend, Aug 9, 2010
    #3
  4. pitz

    pitz Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    56
    Messages:
    1,034
    Likes Received:
    70
    Trophy Points:
    66
    LCDPARTS.net has some interesting LED upgrade/retrofit kits for LCD panels that use CCFL lighting. So if one's backlight is on the fritz, and/or if a new inverter is required, going to a LED conversion might make sense.

    For some panels, apparently, a LED retrofit can double the brightness. As soon as the postal strike in Canada is over, I'm ordering a kit for my machine (WUXGA, panel rated at 12k hours, already have ~14k on it!).
     
    pitz, Jun 21, 2011
    #4
  5. debguy

    debguy rip dmr

    Reputations:
    607
    Messages:
    893
    Likes Received:
    4
    Trophy Points:
    31
    Recommending Ubuntu in this article for performance reasons is a bad idea. If you make the step from Windows to Linux because Windows is too bloated you'll chose a lightweight distro like Crunchbang or Salix, but not a heavyweight with messed up dependencies and Compiz.
    I wish people who include Linux recommendations in their articles would get informed about Linux first before shouting "Ubuntu" because it's the only Linux they know.
     
    debguy, Jun 21, 2011
    #5