Inspiron 8600 - Upgrade HD/RAM or Replace?

Hi

I'm hoping that I could get your thoughts in regards to my what I should do with my laptop.

I've had my Inspiron 8600 for 3.5 years now, and over that time its performed well without any issues, however its not getting a bit slow and I'd like to upgrade it to extend its life by another year or two. I used to use it for games, but now I mainly use it now for surfing, email, photo editing, minor video editing, so the outdated graphics card isn't an issue for me.

Specs are:
Pentium M 725 1.6GHz
768MB RAM, 80GB HD, 128MB ATI Radeon 9600 Pro Turbo
Windows XP Home SP2

I'm considering doing the following:

1. Increasing the current 768MB of memory to 1.5GB by replacing the 256MB RAM chip with a 1GB chip.
2. Replacing the current 80GB hard drive with a 120GB model (I've read that the 8600 won't recognise any space on a HD that is greater than 137GB - is this correct?)​

What does everyone think about the above? It would cost me about AUD$200-250 to do both the RAM and the hard drive, and I'm hoping this would buy me 1-2 years before I would need to upgrade to a new machine.

Given the age of the laptop, is it worth upgrading the memory and HD as per the above, or is it likely that something else will "break" soon which would mean I would just have to replace it anyway?

What are your thoughts? Could I do anything else or anything different to the above that would also yield an improvement in performance?


Thanks in advance.
John

 

just replace it

 

I disagree. Put more RAM, if possible 2 GB, HDD only if you need the space (I have 60 GB and it's enough for me). My laptop has the same processor and a lousy GPU, but still serves me very well. It is now 4.5 yrs old.