Quick question (old inspiron 6400)

Hey guys I'm new here and I am thinking of purchasing the next xps laptop around december (I need to stack a few hundred bucks lol)

My question is about my inspiron 6400 notebook. I was wondering if you guys can point out why my notebook is that slow.

Here's the spec:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.0 Ghz, 667 Mhz FSB, 4MB L2 Cache)
120 Gb 5400 Rpm
2 x 1Gb 667 Mhz
Ati Radeon X1400 Graphic Card
Vista Home premium 32bit ( upgrade from XP

As I am looking at new notebooks, I see much bigger HDD (most still @ 5400 rpm). The new processors have 800 or 1066 Mhz FSB but are not clocked at much higer speed (2.2 to 2.4 for most ..)

Am I right to think that my setup is slow due to my Upgraded OS (When I purchased my 6400 it came with XP Premium and a month later they shipped my a Vista premium upgrade disc). If this is the reason, is there any way I could re-install Vista (maybe 64bit) and use the same Serial # that came with my Vista Upgrade?

Or do you have any other advices?

 

Slow doing what? Can you be more specific?

I have that exact configuration (with a WXSGA+ screen) and I have not noticed any slowness. I have upgraded to Vista32 last year and it runs great. I play World of Warcraft on it daily and it runs it flawlessly. I also happen to do some Java development and run Eclipse on it and it runs very well too.

In fact, I recently got the new HP dv5z with the ATI3450 card as an upgrade, but after using it for a few days I felt that the new HP is not noticeably faster than my 6400 to warrant paying for it. So I ended up returning it and ordering a dv5t with a 9600gt card instead. So whatever slowness you're experiencing maybe due to some specific issues with your OS/hardware drivers rather than the machine itself.

 

that's what I'm thinking too. I do CAD design and big files are a pain to work with, lagging all the time. And I don't know how to describe how slow it is I mean it's not THAT slow, it's just not That fast and when I think about all the new notebooks that come out with a core 2 duo 2Ghz.. I can't imagine they would be AS SLOW as mine. Anyways I think I'll do a clean 64 bit vista install before the back-to-school.

How and I only have 60ish FPS playing CS 1.6 in stupid Direct3D mode with low level graphics (no drivers update available for X1400)

 

I think your problem maybe due to the 2GB RAM more than anything else. Vista is a lot more resource intensive than XP. And while you could run it on its own comfortably in 2GB, it probably doesn't leave much for your CAD application to keep the big files in RAM, resulting in a lot of HD thrashing and significant slowness.

I'm not sure if the 6400 supports 3 or 4GB configurations (I don't believe it does). So your best bet would probably be to either drop back to XP or get a new machine with 3+ GB of RAM.

 

The Inspiron 6400 supports 4GB of RAM, so maybe you should consider upgrading the RAM

 

Thanks for the advice but when I upgraded my memory I based my choice using websites like http://www.laptopmemoryupgrade.com/memory/DellInspiron6400Memory.html and found that I can only use 2x 1Gb @ 667Mhz, which I have bought. So memory wise, I don't think I can update anymore since my chipset won't handle 800 Mhz RAM.

Except from buying anything new with 4Gb Memory, do you have any other advice. I guess I'll wait for the new XPS .. if they can release it sometimes..