[ale] feasibility of motherboard & HD replacement in portable, rather than computer replacement ?

[Vernard Martin]

Courtney Thomas wrote:
> I have an older Dell Latitude C810 that is fine for it's use except that the
> HD is slow and no more RAM may be added, which is now 512mb.
>   
It is possible to get a faster hard drive for the unit. Based on the age 
of the model, its almost guaranteed to be using a 4800rpm drive. You can 
get a 5400rpm drive or even a 7200rpm drive and that will give you some 
very noticeable improvement.

While putting more RAM into a machine will most likely speed it up 
(almost certainly), you need to determine if that is the real issue. if 
you run the command "free -m" under a linux shell then you'll see how 
much free memory in megabytes you have. You'll also want to make sure 
that the amount of swap you are using is not high as well. That is also 
given with the "free" command. If you are using swap and most of your 
RAM is used then you need more RAM.
> The only reason I need, I think, a new motherboard is so I can add more RAM.
>   
Laptops in particular are difficult to upgrade when it comes to their 
motherboards due to the niche market and how quickly the motherboard 
models are replaced. With the particular unit you have, the best you can 
hope to do is to find a similar model laptop that is compatible that 
would take more RAM. That is going to be a lot of work and will most 
likely not get you to where you want to be. Even if the cost of the new 
motherboard were negligible, getting someone to swap them out would 
probably cost you $150 (2 hours of bench time by a reputable laptop 
repair person). And then getting RAM that would work with that (mostly 
like PC133 sodimms) is going to cost you TONS as those sticks are 
exceedingly uncommon these dys (another $50). At $200, you are half way 
to being able to buy a completely new laptop that will dwarf your old 
one on speed and capabilities.
> Would it be cheaper to just replace the machine  ?
>   
It might be. The cheapest machine that is similar that you can get that 
will take more than 512MB of ram is going to be a Dell C640 going for 
$150 to $200 on ebay. And that is before you buy thee RAM to > 512M.

I personally recommend getting a new laptop if you can afford it. The 
total improvement across the board in various technologies are going to 
give you a vast improvement in speed.

hope this helps

Vernard