2 laptop upgrade questions re:RAM and HD

[Quintas]

I have a Dell inspirion noptebook. 1.7ghz processor / 2GB RAM /60GB 5200 HD.

I found a notebook 250GB/7200 HD at newegg for 49.99.

1.)are notebook HD's interchangeable?
2.)I have a new copy of Windows 7. If I upgrade to 4GB RAM, will Win7 recognise it?
3.)Will I notice much a performance difference in doing the above or is my 1.7 ghz processor too much of a bottleneck?

Spending $130 to get another year or so out of my laptop sounds attractive compared to buying something new.

I use the laptop when working from home occasionally. VMware seems to be the biggest resource hog. World of Warcraft is the only gaming I use it for right now. It does fine with that as it is. I have to decrease some of the graphics options but that's fine.

[Electronic Chaos]

Do you have the 64-bit edition of Windows 7? If not, then your computer will only be able to address somewhere around 3.5GB of the memory. It might boost performance a little bit, but it's difficult to say.

[Bbusyb]

Originally Posted by Quintas

1.)are notebook HD's interchangeable?

Yes, Most Notebook Drives are 2'5" and are interchangeable. Some Thin and Light notebooks require slimmer drives or use 1.8" drives but those are pretty rare.

2.)I have a new copy of Windows 7. If I upgrade to 4GB RAM, will Win7 recognise it?

It should recognize it. However You will need to be running Windows 7 64Bit if you want the system to use all 4Gigs. 32Bit will only give you access to 3 to 3.5 Gigs depending on the graphics card.

3.)Will I notice much a performance difference in doing the above or is my 1.7 ghz processor too much of a bottleneck?

More RAM will definitely give you quiet a boost as most Apps get bottlenecked by memory then CPU. You'll probably see more of an improvement with Vmware and also with WOW, but probably to a lesser extent.

You've not said what OS you are running, but I'm assuming you are on XP. With XP, the upgrade to Win7 will in itself not give a boost, but the additional Memory will provide a much better experience. If you were going from Vista, You would have seen quiet an improvement as W7 is much better at memory management, and handles lower spec'ed systems better

[engineer_comp_geek]

1. There are different types of hard drives and interfaces. There's a "notebook" size and a "desktop" size. Most notebooks are 2.5", which is probably what is what is in your Dell. Most are SATA these days but your laptop is old enough that it might have a notebook IDE (PATA) interface. Check the docs for your laptop to see what you've got before you go and order a new drive for it.

2. What Electronic Chaos said.

Windows 7 will run on 2 GB of RAM. Adding more RAM might or might not not give you a performance boost. It depends on how much memory your programs are using.

3. I'm assuming that you are running XP now, since Vista is probably going to run like a snail on sedatives on that era of computer. Microsoft did a lot of work for Windows 7 to get its performance and resource use close to XP's level. If you don't change any hardware at all you probably won't notice much of a performance difference between XP and 7. Windows 7 does take up a bit more RAM than XP, so while you can run an XP box with only 512 MB of RAM, you really need at least 1 GB for Windows 7. You've got 2 GB, so that's ok, and upgrading to more RAM would completely eliminate any performance issues from XP to 7 due to RAM usage.

You may need to upgrade to one of the latest versions of VMware. VMware also tends to be a bit of a memory hog, so you are more likely to see a performance issue with this than other programs.

WoW might have some issues with the video driver. You might want to poke around on the net for folks using WoW and 7 with your particular video chip. In general, a lot of games can get around these sorts of things by running in a lesser quality mode or with certain options turned off.

[Quintas]

I am running XP pro on my laptop. The copy of Win7 that I purchased for my desktop is the 64 bit version.

1.) Wouldn't my laptop need a 64bit chip to use 64 bit windows and recognise all 4GB of Ram?
2.) If I stick with XP and my 2 GB of RAM, will I notice much of a difference going from a 5400 to a 7200 HD. I'm probably gonna get it anyway simply because i'm running out of space on my 60G drive. I'm just curious about the performace boost, if any.

[Quintas]

A side thought: If a 7200 drive is only 49.00, I wonder why Dell is still bundling 5400's on their laptops?unless you pay for an upgrade. $49.00 seems a pretty rock bottom price. And they must get them even cheaper. Is there more of a heat issue in the faster drive I may need to be aware of?

[ZenBeam]

Just wanted to mention that if you ever thought about trying out Linux, this is an easy time to plan for it. Just set aside 12 GB or so on the new drive. I did that when I upgraded my laptop hard drive, even though I didn't start really using it for another year or so later.

[astro]

Originally Posted by Quintas

A side thought: If a 7200 drive is only 49.00, I wonder why Dell is still bundling 5400's on their laptops?unless you pay for an upgrade. $49.00 seems a pretty rock bottom price. And they must get them even cheaper. Is there more of a heat issue in the faster drive I may need to be aware of?

7200 rpm drives generate more heat and noise and use more power vs lower RPM drives. In balancing the performance envelope the somewhat quicker access does not outweigh the disadvantages for the typical notebook form factor and performance targets. Also, given how often a notebook hard drive is spun down for power conservation I'm not sure a 7200 RPM drive will confer a meaningful performance boost to the average notebook in battery powered use.

[xash]

Originally Posted by Quintas

I am running XP pro on my laptop. The copy of Win7 that I purchased for my desktop is the 64 bit version.

1.) Wouldn't my laptop need a 64bit chip to use 64 bit windows and recognise all 4GB of Ram?

Go to the following website and download and run a simple app (115k, .exe) to determine if your processor can run a 64-bit OS:
http://www.grc.com/securable.htm

In very simple terms, think of it as a 32-lane highway vs. a 64-lane highway, but only for memory addressing and transferring data from specific parts of the computer to certain other parts. Meaning, not all roads in 64-bit City are 64-lane roads, but some important ones are.

Differences between 32-bit and 64-bit Windows (this article relates to Vista, but the same information applies to Windows 7):
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946765

To use a 64-bit version of Windows Vista, you must have a computer that has a 64-bit processor. Also, you must have 64-bit device drivers for the devices that are in the computer.

The main differences between the 32-bit versions of Windows Vista and the 64-bit versions of Windows Vista relate to memory accessibility, memory management, and enhanced security features. The security features that are available in the 64-bit versions of Windows Vista include the following:

Kernel Patch Protection
Support for hardware-backed Data Execution Protection (DEP)
Mandatory driver signing
Removal of support for 32-bit drivers
Removal of the 16-bit subsystem

One of the greatest advantages of using a 64-bit version of Windows Vista is the ability to access physical memory (RAM) that is above the 4-gigabyte (GB) range. This physical memory is not addressable by 32-bit versions of Windows Vista.

Advantages when you install a 64-bit version of Windows Vista
Increased memory support beyond that of the 4-GB addressable memory space that is available in a 32-bit operating system
Increased program performance for programs that are written to take advantage of a 64-bit operating system
Enhanced security features

That last bolded line is important because not all software is written to take advantage of 64-bit Operating Systems at this time. In the future, more software developers will migrate to developing 64-bit versions, as more people start to use 64-bit OSes. For now, mostly only memory intensive apps are written with 64-bit architecture in mind, such as graphics, games, video, productivity suites, etc. However, apps written for 32-bit Windows work just fine in Windows 7 64-bit.