What will make my laptop faster

[Throwmeabone]

I have an HP notebook with an AMD Sempron 2800, a 4200RPM hard drive, and 512MB of RAM (128 of it is used for video). It seems pretty slow at loading things so I think maybe I should get a new drive like this one. Upgrading to 1GB of RAM will cost about the same because I have two 256MB sticks and I would have to replace both with 512's.

 

[Busithoth]

I'd opt for the hard drive first.
I've always found they made the greatest difference on my desktops, and you'd see a good bump from that upgrade.
the memory would help, too, but overall, faster HDD would be my choice.

 

[aceO07]

Get the 7k100 instead. It's supposed to be faster and quieter. I have the 7k100 and it's nice.

 

[Hacp]

Get a 7200 Hard Drive, and also set your ram for 32 megabytes. You can do this by setting it to lowest performance in the ATI Control Panel.

 

[chilled]

Originally posted by: aceO07
Get the 7k100 instead. It's supposed to be faster and quieter. I have the 7k100 and it's nice.

I moved from a Hitachi 4200rpm to the 7k100 drive in my HP/Compaq with A-XP 2400+ and the difference is mind boggling.

 

[i game with a gateway]

i would also suggest a faster hard drive.

http://forums.notebookpictures.com/viewtopic.php?t=13

i also bought a 7k100 drive. i plan on going to fry's today and buying another 512MB ram so i'll have a gig

 

[Koing]

Hows the difference from a 5400rpm to a 7200rpm laptop HD?

Koing

 

[deathwalker]

Originally posted by: Koing
Hows the difference from a 5400rpm to a 7200rpm laptop HD?

Koing

Depending on the drive, but in most cases its marginal.

 

[Koing]

Originally posted by: deathwalker

Originally posted by: Koing
Hows the difference from a 5400rpm to a 7200rpm laptop HD?

Koing

Depending on the drive, but in most cases its marginal.

Aight.

My 4200rpm HD on my 4yr old Sony feels SLOW...but 'alright' as I have gotten use to it . The 7200rpm on my pc are FAST.

Koing

 

[hytek369]

HD

 

[Leafblighter]

Yeah, I'm with em.... usually I would have said to up the RAM from 512 but considering the 4200 rpm HD I'd recommend upgrading that.

But of course if you're feelin that wallet is a bit too fat you may be able to up that to a gig for relatively cheap as well and probably get nearly as substantial multitasking performance increase.

 

[Tsaico]

I just went through this same thing. I got a Hitachi 7200 drive and it went dramtically faster. Boot and program loads were about 20% or so. I then put in a full 1 gig drive and then it really sped up. Since you were starting with more than I had, I second the HD first. Then as much ram as possible.