Future Laptop Upgrade

[lti]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

I don't think there are any good new laptops. Every laptop I've seen that was made in the past two years was worthless junk. HP, Toshiba, and Acer use exactly the same Quanta hardware, which is so poorly designed that you will never get one of those laptops to be stable. They also have horrible displays that appear to be backlit using blue LEDs instead of white and a Conexant sound chip. Other brands might use the same hardware as well, but they use different plastic parts. Of course, Toshiba is one of the most recommended laptop brands below Samsung (the only company besides Quanta that is capable of making such poor hardware).

What model is the HP laptop?

[shovenose]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

Lenovo is seriously not crap yet...

[ratdude747]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

What model is the HP laptop?

It's a DV6810us

My best friend wants me to sell it to him fixed... or trade it for Cash plus one of his two laptops:

-A beat up Dell Inspiron with 4gb RAM, a C2D, a fried battery, and busted screen hinges.

-A Toshiba with a Turion X2.. decent shape but has had cosmetic work (used to belong to a heavy smoker).

However, if I like the HP too much I make keep it as a media laptop...

[ratdude747]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

Lenovo is seriously not crap yet...

Only if you compare it to ASUS.

They were well built (but picky as hell) when it was IBM. Lenovo made them average build (and still picky as hell). Unless I found one so cheap it had to be a joke, No thanks.

[dood]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

SSD will be far faster than a 7200rpm drive. As I stated in my first post... I upgraded from a WD Black (7200) to an SSD and the difference was huge.

I also am running Windows 7 x64 on 4gb with no problems. You don't disable the swap file, you set it to a static size so that it's not always growing/shrinking. I have mine set to 1gb static.

As for battery life, if anything it went up. Plus the ssd runs much cooler than the 7200rpm drive did.

[ratdude747]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

SSD will be far faster than a 7200rpm drive. As I stated in my first post... I upgraded from a WD Black (7200) to an SSD and the difference was huge.

I also am running Windows 7 x64 on 4gb with no problems. You don't disable the swap file, you set it to a static size so that it's not always growing/shrinking. I have mine set to 1gb static.

As for battery life, if anything it went up. Plus the ssd runs much cooler than the 7200rpm drive did.

I though the idea was to disable Swap (which is by linux definiton static sized) since it gets read and written to far more than a plain old data partition would. After all, it acts just like regular RAM would... and due to the high number of read-write cycles, the SSD would wear out a lot faster than if no swap was used.

Now if I had a Much newer laptop, then such costs would seem more justifiable. However, I don't know how much life is left in the laptop. It could outlive me; however, it just as easily die in 6 months.

I just find it ludicrous to spend $300 (SSD + RAM + Battery(s)) on a $275 (best estimated value) laptop. If SSDs and RAM were cheaper, I might try it. However, they aren't, so I don't see it as a reasonable investment.

[shovenose]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

You can re use the SSD!

[ratdude747]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

You can re use the SSD!

Yeah... but without a laptop to put the SSD in, it's just a paperweight.

---

Part of it is that I've never owned a SSD based system.. so I have no way to "try before I buy" without dropping $95 on an SSD of the right size. Any smaller would only be good as a test (one OS only, no dualboot).

What I could do is disable the swap on my laptop and simulate heavy work and see whether I run out of ram (and of so, how big of a clusterf*ck it creates).

Personally, The most I've ever seen was during a large lab report a few months ago, where I also happened to have a lot of tabs open at the same time. I think I had maybe 2.6GB of my 4GB used and like 512mb on swap... so 3.1GB. Yeah, it fits in the 4gb, but I'd feel safer with 8gb.

Anybody know where I can get RAM and SSDs cheaper than ebay (other then the five finger discount)?

[shovenose]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

Dude, I don't know what you're worried about. If you don't like the SSD you can return it or just sell it!
But you won't be disappointed. First step will be when Windows is installed in literally 10 minutes from the time you put the disk in

[ratdude747]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

Dude, I don't know what you're worried about. If you don't like the SSD you can return it or just sell it!
But you won't be disappointed. First step will be when Windows is installed in literally 10 minutes from the time you put the disk in

Dude, my main OS is linux, not windows

(long post ahead)

I'm worried about getting ripped off in the end... I'm trying to get the most performance and usage for my $.

Without a RAM upgrade, I simply refuse to use a straight up SSD. If I'm gonna SSD it, I'm going to do it the right way and not use any page file/swap. Doing so would require a RAM upgrade to ensure wouldn't run out of RAM at a critical time. This laptop is a workhorse; I can't gamble with reliability.

That said, here is how I came to the conclusion of "it's a poor investment":

If you go back a few posts, I figured out that in order to meet my storage needs, I'd need at least a 120gb SSD. At the cheapest fixed prices (no auctions), that plus the 8gb RAM upgrade would cost $225

Part of the upgrades (if I were to refresh the D630) would be Batteries. Given that my 9 cell is starting to wear significantly (23.5%), by the time I was looking to be upgraded (around this summer), It would probably have around 30% wear, which is starting to get sketchy.

The best value would probably be an NOS battery (Hving had 0% luck with china batts, I'm not going that route).

Option 1:

Another 9 cell:

$20 for a supposed "genuine" refurb:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Genuine...item35be60cb1d

Not so sure on that... They never said what brand cells they refurbed it with. Could be a china batt in disguise.

$60 for a New NOS one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-GENUINE-...item589a7ed4b2

There is no D640... and I'm wary of the location. Given that I paid $75 for the first NOS, we'll use it as a reference price.

Option 2:

Two Bay batteries:

$40 ($30 + $10 to ship) for a NOS one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Genuine-...item416982c80b

I'd prefer to have two since they can be hot-swapped. That would be $80 for two.

Average the two options and we have $70

Add the cost of the SSD/RAM and we get $295.

Let's see what my laptop is worth:

Here's a similar D630:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Latitud...item43b76785ca

it has a bigger HDD and W7 bundled... but mine has a better battery, bluetooth, and possibly better wifi (I have a kick-ass intel 4965 AGN). He wants $250... which given the negligible price differences, is a fair value for what mine is worth on the used laptop market.

I'm not goign to say the D630 wouldn't benifit from the upgrades... but is it worth $295 to upgrade a $250 laptop?

Or perhaps look at it this way... with the SSD, batteries, and RAM, would it now be worth $545? If we look at it this way, maybe it is:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Latitud...item43ae7022b0

$575 for one like mine only with an SSD, no RAM upgrade or Batteries (it has the standard 6 cell). Granted, I suspect the guy is padding the @#$% out of the price... Which leads me to this:

for around $295, Could my my money be invested wiser?

Things to keep in mind (both positive and negative):

-The D630 will be turning 6 this June
- Other than a bit of bubbling paint on the bottom RAM cover, Scuffs and a miniscule dent on the bottom Magnesium base, and some worn hinge cover buttons, it's in pretty decent physical condition
-It lacks many modern I/O (no HDMI, eSATA, internal SD reader, or internal webcam).
-It does have Internal bluetooth and intel Dualband draft N.
-It has an Nvidia GPU (anybody who saw the war that caused would know). Mine happens to be a newer one; the Laptop Blew the stock GPU sometime in 2010 and was given a new board under warranty. The new GPU is the same as the old one, only it was made in 2010, which from what I was told awhile back, means the "bumpgate" issue is corrected. If this is correct, it probably has plenty of life yet; if not, then it's due to die soon.

You (anybody viewing this) tell me if and why (or not) it makes logical sense to invest $295 in this laptop as opposed to doing something else.

I'm skeptical but maybe someone who hasn't posted in this thread yet could shed some new light. Anybody's advice will be considered (even if I don't follow it in the end).

[ratdude747]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

After discusing things with a buddy who I'd say is a d630/d620 expert (some of you may know who I'm talking about), I decided to snare one of these while it was $55 (sale ends today):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136280

Yeah, I know how much faster SSDs are blah blah blah... But given my usage patterns, if anything, I need more space, not less.

Batteries will wait until I snare a deal somewhere. I may consider getting one from dell since I heard they actually store thier batteries in a refrigerated warehouse (so they don't wear nearly as fast). Yeah, the prices are a bit $$$, but it is what it is.

Would it be cheaper to have my existing battery re-celled?

[Phaihn]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

After discusing things with a buddy who I'd say is a d630/d620 expert (some of you may know who I'm talking about), I decided to snare one of these while it was $55 (sale ends today):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136280

Yeah, I know how much faster SSDs are blah blah blah... But given my usage patterns, if anything, I need more space, not less.

Batteries will wait until I snare a deal somewhere. I may consider getting one from dell since I heard they actually store thier batteries in a refrigerated warehouse (so they don't wear nearly as fast). Yeah, the prices are a bit $$$, but it is what it is.

Would it be cheaper to have my existing battery re-celled?

i would think so and its possible to do that your self i think.

[dood]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

Yeah... but without a laptop to put the SSD in, it's just a paperweight.

Not sure why you would think that. It'd work in a desktop just fine.

As for the page file, do some research on SSD optimization. There are plenty of guides out there. Most of them say that either configuration is acceptable. Some software doesn't play nice if there's no page file at all, even if you have plenty of memory.

[ratdude747]

i would think so and its possible to do that your self i think.

I tried to DIY one... it was a fail to say the least. I had a hard time breaking the spot welds attaching the batteries to the contacts.

Not to mention I'd need a battery chip resetter. Which I don't.

Not sure why you would think that. It'd work in a desktop just fine.

As for the page file, do some research on SSD optimization. There are plenty of guides out there. Most of them say that either configuration is acceptable. Some software doesn't play nice if there's no page file at all, even if you have plenty of memory.

Moot point. See my last post.

An SSD is useless in a desktop to me... My main rig will have 3x 74gb 10K drives in a RAID 0 setup.

I had always read that at least for linux, SSD=No Swap.

[shovenose]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

I personally think you just wasted money on that hard drive.
Money that could have been better spent on an SSD.
I could have sold you my 64GB Kingston SSDNow V100 drive for $50, just ask next time!

[ratdude747]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

I personally think you just wasted money on that hard drive.
Money that could have been better spent on an SSD.
I could have sold you my 64GB Kingston SSDNow V100 drive for $50, just ask next time!

Too small. If anything I needed more space, not less.

[ratdude747]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

Update:

Good thing I went with a BIGGER Hdd.

As it turns out, I need XP for a class this semester.

The issue is that the lab is short 3 computers... And we have to use autocad for our schematics (The prof called my KICAD schematics "ugly").

As luck has it, the professor has a unlimited use copy of Autocad 2000... which is no good on X64. I read it will work on anything x32, including vista, but the prof says XP and lower only.

For now I added my d400 to the cause... but it's a bit slow and between the New HDD and the HP DV6810us currently in the mail, I may be able to come up with the 3 laptops:

-The D400
-The DV6810us, with XP pro x32 via a HP OEM copy
-The D630, with XP pro added as an extra partition. Since x32 is required, I'll enable PAE (so I can see all 4gb RAM)

Since all my classmates don't have xp (they're too good to use such an "outdated" OS), I may have the solution...

[shovenose]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

Ratdude to the rescue!

[ratdude747]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

Ratdude to the rescue!

Unless mr. pirate (A classmate) cracks AutoCad 2010...

No thanks, I'll stay legal.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Future Laptop Upgrade

sorry but hold the phone on the ram. You have a intel GM956 chipset, incapable of using 4gb ddr2 sticks. 4gb ddr2 single sticks have only been out a little while, for the past few years they were limited to 2gb a stick, and chipsets were designed around that. Only NEW chipsets, and very few of those that actually do use something as old as ddr2 will support 4gb sticks

I love my laptop. T7300, not too powerful, not too running hot (since was designed around the weakest socket P PDC), Win7, 3gb ram (chipset refuses to take 4), and recently replaced a clients 640gb toshiba drive with a WD blue 1TB, he gave me his for free, bringing this from 120 to 640gb. Mmmm. windows HD access score went from 4.6 to 5.8