Studio 1555 - Additional Upgrades

I got the Studio 1555 delivered to me two days back. Now I am thinking that I should have got two following additional upgrades:

1. Wifi 5300 card - I got the default 5100 one.
Should I upgrade to the wifi 5300 card? Will it be really worth it. I need to connect to my Wifi router for Internet. Will I be able to connect from more distance if I upgrade to the 5300?

2. HDD 320 7200 RPM - I got the 5400 RPM one.
Should I upgrade to the 7200 rpm and will it give better performance? Will games run better on the 7200 rpm one?

Sorry for bothering u all. Please let me know so that I can order if these two give really better perfromance.

 

1) In theory the 5300 should be better, but in practice a lot of people say they're about the same. Can't really comment from firsthand experience, though; I'm using one of the silly Broadcom cards.

2) You'll get a little more performance in installing and loading applications (and anything else that really trashes an HDD), but that's about it. I'd say it's not worth it, just because the performance difference between a 5400RPM and 7200RPM drive is puny compared to the difference between a mechanical hard drive and an SSD. The hard drive will have no affect on actual gaming performance; that's up to your CPU and GPU.

 

Thanks. Even if I decide to upgrade to 7200 rpm one can anyone please tell me that how much will it cost in INR?

And should I buy from Dell or from the market?

 

Definitely don't buy from Dell. They'll charge waaaay more than what a 7,200RPM hard drive is worth.

 

One more question.

After I replace the 5400 rpm with the 7200 rpm drive will I have any problem installing the Vista OS from the accompanying DVD in the new 7200 rpm drive? Will it ask for the product key? When I installed Vista again on this 5400 rpm drive from that DVD, it did not ask for any product key.

And infact I do not have the product key as it was not printed on the cover of Vista DVD which I received.

 

you might look at this hard drive,,,,,,wd has sold a ton of em

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136280

 

Thanks for the link.

 

If you're using the installation disk that came with your machine, you will not have to activate it. Even if you did, the product key should be on the underside of your laptop. It's illegal for Dell to sell you the laptop without a product key.

 

No dear. I do not have the product key sticker underneath the laptop. There is only one sticker underneath it consisting of the service tag and express service code.

 

Remove the battery and look underneath that.

 

Thanks for the info..

 

Will I have 2 uninstall Vista and all my licensed software from the 5400 rpm HDD before setting the new 7200 rpm hard drive? Will I b able 2 install Vista and all my other licensed softwares such as Antivirus on the newer 7200 rpm HDD without doing this?

 

You don't really "uninstall" Vista. You just wipe the hard drive partition clean.

As for licensed software, there shouldn't be any problems unless you have software that specifically only allows a certain number of computers to be activated. In that case, just deactivate that software before you swap hard drives.

For example, I have some DRM-protected iTunes music, and you can only have up to 5 computers authorized at any given time. So if I'm about to reformat or swap hard drives, I just deauthorize my iTunes account right before I switch.

 

Do I really need 2 wipe the HDD Vista partition clean on the 5400 rpm drive before setting up the 7200 rpm drive or it is really not necessary before installing Vista on the newer 7200 rpm drive?

 

You don't need to wipe the old drive clean at all. As long as the old hard drive is not online at the same time as the new one with the same Vista license in a different computer, there won't be any license issues. If you've already deactivated any licensed software that requires it, then it's pretty much shut down, yank the old hard drive, pop in the new one, fire up, boot from the Vista disk and you're good to go.