Inspiron 1520 - upgrade or buy new?

Hi everyone,

First time poster so please be gentle

I have an inspiron 1520 with the following specs

Intel Core Duo T7250 @ 2.00GHz
Memory - 2.00 Gb
32 bit operating system
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT

I use the laptop mainly for browsing, photos, emails and playing games (such as Football Manager )

Over the last year or so it has become slower, not as responsive, generally lagging a bit. Whenever I buy a new game it seems to get even more slow.

The battery is also caput and needs replacing.

I have tried all the usual disk defrag, cleanups, register fixers, etc. But it doesn't seem to make much difference.

My question is, would it be worth upgrading the RAM or something else (As well as getting a new battery) or shall I look at a new laptop?

Many thanks

Matt

 

I mean clearly this isn't going to run the latest games particularly well... if you're looking to play the latest and greatest, you should probably consider a new machine.

Otherwise consider re-installing Windows or buying an SSD.

 

Hello,

Thank you for your response. Fully accept that it isn't going to run newer games particularly speedily. How much difference would SSD and reinstalling windows make? What sort of cost am I looking at? I'm no where near an expert in these areas so your advice is much appreciated.

Matt

 

In general day-to-day use an SSD should make a big difference. Most of this stuff is still bottlenecked by mechanical HDD I/O. Re-installing Windows will only make a difference if you've got a lot of junk on your system at the moment, particularly stuff that runs background processes, etc. Of course, if you're just going to re-install all that stuff anyway, re-installation won't help much. The SSD can definitely mitigate the lag on a bloated Windows install, though.

 

It kind of depends on when it's slow. If it's slow during the games you are playing, chances are the games are simply too powerful, and you aren't going to be able to upgrade it to help appreciably with that. If it's just slow in day-to-day stuff, upgrades could potentially help.

If it's slow when, for example, web browsing/using Office (assuming you don't have gigantic Excel spreadsheets), re-installing Windows to get rid of any cruft probably is a good, economical first step (back up first!). You probably did get a reinstall disk, right? The 1520 came with them included when I bought mine; awhile later Dell quit shipping them automatically with new laptops.

Also, have you ever cleaned the vents/made sure they aren't filled with dust? The 1520 is somewhat prone to gathering dust; I find I have to clean it every 18 months or so to keep it running happily. If you haven't ever cleaned the vents, chances are, there's a ton of dust collected inside, and that can make a noticeably speed difference if it's slowing down to avoid overheating.

Beyond that, an SSD could help (although, aside from the games, it shouldn't be necessary on the 1520 to make it seem decently responsive), and if you tend to leave tons of stuff open at a time, upgrading the memory to 4 GB might also help (though only 3.5 GB will be usable with a 32-bit operating system), and should be less expensive than an SSD. Though, if you tend to only have 1 or 2 programs up at a time, it won't make a difference.

The battery being hapless isn't surprising; mine lasted about 3.5 years until it was not good for much beyond 40 minutes, and I replaced it.

 

What games are you trying to play? My Vostro 1500 can run SC2 on low/medium, TF2/Dota 2 on like medium-high. Doesn't take much to run Source engine games.