Help upgrading my somwhat aging XPS M1710

Hi all,

First post here.

I was wondering if you guys might be able to help me out. My XPS M1710 is starting to really slow down, especially while gaming. I'm thinking of a new harddrive (seems like the Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB 7200RPM SATA-II 16MB Cache is the one, based on threads from here). Seeing as I have only really limited computer knowledge, do yo uthink I could do this myself? Is it largely self-explanatory? I back-up pretty often so that's not a huge deal......I just don't want to find myself with a busted machine after a botched attempt to intall a new HDD.

Any help or moral support would be greatly appreciated. I've tried upgrading the RAM which helepd a bit but I can't get it over 2.5 GB. I bought two 2GB RAM sticks but the computer will only accept the original stick in "slot 1". I don't know why. I know I can't get all the way up to 4 GBs (only about 3-ish) but more is better, no?

Anyways, thanks for your time!

 

(1) If you want to upgrade your hard drive, it is relatively easy to do so. Here's a YouTube video showing you how to do it:
YouTube - Replace the Hard Drive of Dell XPS M1710

A Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB is a pretty decent hard drive for $60. However, I would recommend you go with the 500GB model for $70. You're paying +17% in cost for a +56% increase in storage capacity. And believe me, you WILL use that extra space, either in this computer, or your next one. And if you're willing to spend even more money than $70, you can also get increased performance over what you can find in a 7200rpm hard drive.

(2) As for your RAM - are you sure you bought the right kind of RAM that is compatible with your motherboard?
And 3-ish GB of RAM is fine. If all you are doing is running games and applications, you probably don't even use all of the 3-ish GB that you have. You really need to run memory-heavy applications like databases and virtual machines to use over 3GB.


(3) I would also seriously consider the value of upgrading an aging laptop. You're not really going to get any real-world performance benefits by upgrading your HDD or RAM that make the cost worthwhile. If you need more capacity, then yes, upgrading HDD makes sense. But if you want performance, your best bet is to just save your money. Continue to use your XPS M1710 until it either dies, or until you absolutely cannot wait any more and absolutely want more performance. At that point, buy a new laptop, with new faster parts built on a faster architecture, that also comes with a shiny new warranty.

 

Definitely go for the for a faster hard drive, have you looked at the Seagate Momentus XT drives? They are pretty fast hybrid drives. I have a Samsung 5400rpm drive in my laptop, and its quite fast. Samsung also makes very good 7200rpm drives, check Newegg.

Samsung 500GB 7200rpm: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152236&Tpk=Samsung 500GB

Momentus XT: http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...e-momentus-xt-hybrid-hdd-w-built-4gb-ssd.html

What processor do you currently have? I think the fastest option for your laptop is like the T7600G, which is quite expensive on eBay. The regular T7600 is a bit cheaper.

T7600G: INTEL CORE 2 DUO T7600G SL9U5 UP TO 3.16GHZ 4MB CPU - eBay (item 120687653763 end time Mar-22-11 09:29:31 PDT)

T7600: Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 2.33 GHz 4MB Cache 667 - eBay (item 320658014130 end time Mar-17-11 13:26:56 PDT)

T7400: Intel Laptop Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz Mobile CPU T7400 SL9SE - eBay (item 260734625966 end time Mar-10-11 12:23:48 PST)

 

What???

A cheap hard drive replacement will make his laptop much faster. A new hard drive is under $60. If he currently has a 5400rpm drive, manufactured in 2007, a new 7200rpm from 2010 will make his laptop like new.

 

Maybe a processor is what I want?

When I play games (especially Empire: TW) my CPU frequently jumps to 100% at which point everything just HALTS.

I have only 50 GB of harddrive space (which is a nightmare) but I have about 4 externals for extra storage and to provide several layers of defence against failure.

 

The Joker:

Thank you very much for your help thus far.

Quick newbie question: what is a hybrid drive?

 

Ah, also....

How do I go about re-installing stuff on the new harddrive? Since it won't have ANYTHING on it, how can I even access my externals to transfer my data (including OS!) over?

 

A hybrid drive has some small amount of flash memory like an SSD and uses regular platters for the rest of the storage. Its supposed to load commonly used stuff, like the OS, on the flash memory to speed it up.

Momentus XT | 7200 RPM | Seagate

You should reinstall windows from scratch. Backup all your stuff first. You shouldve gotten a DVD from Dell with Windows on it.

 

You're assuming he has a 5400rpm hard drive. But in all fairness, I'm also assuming that he has a 7200rpm hard drive.

If your assumption is correct, then yes, an inexpensive hard drive upgrade would increase performance. If my assumption is correct, then a hard drive upgrade would not be worth the cost. But we might as well ask the OP...

To jjkrause: Do you happen to know if you have a 5400rpm hard drive or a 7200rpm hard drive?

Unless you have a specific reason for going through a complete clean reformat / clean install, the best thing to do is to use a drive imaging program and clone your existing hard drive over. A drive imaging program will make an exact copy of your existing hard drive, and let you use a new hard drive with increased capacity without the need to reinstall anything.

For drive imaging software, you really can't go wrong with Acronis TrueImage. I think you can get a free trial of that software on their website. It's pretty straightforward to use, but if you need help, just Google "How to clone drive using Acronis TrueImage". You will find dozens of video & article tutorials walking you through the process.

But again, if you're after more performance, you'll need to let us know whether you currently have a 5400rpm drive or 7200rpm drive. If you already own a 7200rpm drive, getting something like a Western Digital Scorpio Black won't really help you. You will need to start looking into the "...spend[ing] more money than $70" option to get a performance boost.

Yes, a faster CPU would help with Empire: Total War. But I would advise against trying to upgrade the CPU in your current laptop.

The Dell XPS M1710 is about 5-6 years old. And in that time, the industry has already advanced CPU architectures by three generations. If you do decide to invest in more laptop performance, you will be getting a lot more return-for-your-money by buying a new laptop with a modern CPU (Sandy-Bridge Core i5/i7 CPU) and a decent GPU. That will get you a monumental improvement in performance, versus the incremental improvement you would see by dropping money upgrading your M1710.

A mechanical hard drive uses spinning metal platters to store data. They are inexpensive, high-capacity, and relatively slow. An example is a Western Digital Scorpio Black 500GB 7200rpm drive for ~$70 USD.

A solid state disk (SSD) uses NAND flash memory to store data. There are no moving parts. They are expensive, relatively low capacity, but nosebleedingly fast. An example is an Intel X25-M 120GB SSD for ~$200 USD.

A hybrid drive combines spinning hard drive platters (250GB or 500GB) with some NAND flash memory (4GB, which the drive essentially uses as a giant memory cache). They have high capacity, and are are in-between mechanical HDDs and SSDs when it comes to price and performance. An example (and the only example) is the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB hybrid HDD for ~$110 USD.

If you want to learn more about hybrid HDD's, check out this article on Anandtech. It's a great review about the Seagate Momentus XT.
Seagate's Momentus XT Reviewed, Finally a Good Hybrid HDD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

An SSD.

I am not sure why you can't get 4GB but a page file on SSD would mean you can extend the RAM on a relatively fast device. It also speed up other tasks.

 

Thanks for the rapid responses, guys.

How can I find out exactly how many rpms my drive is capable of?

 

Download the free program HD Tune, and it will list the drive model directly to the left of the temperature:



Or use HWMonitor:

 

There are programs that you can download (like Aida32) that will tell you the model number.

But the easiest way to get to it is probably to just get the model number, and post it in here. You can find the model number in two places, without downloading any software:

(1) In Device Manager. In WindowsXP, go to Windows Control Panel --> System --> Hardware (tab) --> Device Manager. Expand Disk Drives, and let us know the model # that you see in there.

(2) Or, you can find it in (assuming Windows XP): Start Menu --> Programs --> Accessories --> System Tools --> System Information. Expand the left-hand navigation trees for Components --> Storage --> Disks, and list the Description, Manufacturer, and Model that you see there.

Once we have that info, we can tell you whether you have a 5400rpm or 7200rpm drive.

 

It says:

Hitachi HTS721060G9SA00

 

According to google it looks like it's 7200.

 

Yup. Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 drive. It is a 7200rpm 100GB drive. Upgrading to another 7200rpm drive won't really give you much of a performance boost.

If you are dead-set on getting a larger hard drive with better performance, then your next step up would be a Seagate Momentus XT 500GB for ~$110 USD. Performance above that would require that you start looking at SSD's, which will cost around $200 USD for a 120GB unit.

But I would still stick by my original advice - you get the most out of your money if you were to save it, wait until your XPS M1710 dies (or becomes unbearable to use), and buy a new laptop.

 

Not so fast, the Hitachi in your laptop performs about half as fast as my curren Samsung 5400rpm:

Hitachi 7K100(7200rpm, 2006/07 model):



Samsung HM641JI(5400rpm, 2010 model):

 

The numbers that you're showing are sequential transfer rates, where areal density is king (rotational spindle speed is less important). And that's fine. You are absolutely correct that a newer hard drive with higher areal density will out-perform older drives with lower areal density.

But most of the activity (I'd estimate 95%- 98%) that hits your disk is random read/write patterns, and not sequential transfer patterns. And random read/write speeds, rotational spindle speeds are the major influencing factor. OS boot, application loads, etc are random read patterns where the higher areal density of a newer drive won't really bring an overwhelming performance boost.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not saying that a new hard drive WON'T be an improvement... of course it will be faster. If money was no object, of course get the newest, fastest drive you can.

What I am saying is that in my opinion, there are better ways to spend money than spending $70 to go from Hitachi 7K100 --> Western Digital Scorpio Black 7200rpm drive. You get far more performance for your money if you get a Seagate Momentus XT 250GB / 500GB drive for $95 / $110, or splurge for an SSD. And you really get a lot for your money if you were to save that money, run the existing Dell XPS M1710 into the ground, and buy a new laptop.

A new 7200rpm mechanical hard drive is all fine and good, but you get a lot more for your money if you spend that money elsewhere.

 

That is the first generation drive. And it is also 60GB.

Newegg.com - HITACHI Travelstar 7K100 HTS721060G9SA00 (0A25025) 60GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 1.5Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

I am sure a 7K500 will at least double the performance, if not triple that.


--

 

some thoughts...

Your best cost effective upgrades are going to be maxing out the ram, and upgrading to the fastest hard drive you can. Even if yours now is a 7200, the new 7200's are much faster, especially hybrids. If your HDD has a SATA interface then look into SSD as they are lightning fast, but they are costly. A cpu upgrade would be a waste of money. It would cost too much for a small performance gain. even the new core I3 cpu's would kick an old T series a-- , so its better to just save the money. I disagree with imaging the old drive. Nothing is better / faster than a fresh install of windows.
If your running windows XP then the max ram it can use will be just over 3gb. Also I'm not sure what cpu you have but the standard T2600 only has a 32bit instruction set (so no x64 windows).

 

OK. Thanks for the opinions and expertise.

Money is an issue as my future employment is not secure (I'm a young academic, still jumping from adjunct post to adjunct post). My plan was to get a new laptop once I found a permanent job (maybe as soon as September...got a few job apps out right now), so maybe that'd be the best bet? I just wanted somethign to make my computer a little more friendly in the meantime.

 

Yes, getting a new laptop would be the best bet. In fact, depending on the job you get, there's a good chance that your employer will just give you a laptop to use as part of your job, so you might not even need to shell out your own money to get a new laptop.

The laptop they give you will do everything that you need it to do for work. If for whatever reason that work laptop doesn't meet your needs (or can't be used) for a personal-use laptop as well, then you can spend money and get yourself a laptop for personal use.

If you're looking for a relatively modestly priced upgrade you can do right now to get a little more life out of your existing laptop, get a Seagate Momentus XT 250GB / 500GB for about $95 / $110 ( Anandtech's review here). That will give you a performance upgrade that is worth the money you spend. I would recommend you get the 500GB model to future-proof your purchase, because that drive is something that you can certainly carry over to your next computer, and continue to use for the next several years.

 

I would suggest just going with a standard 7200rpm. You can get a 500GB Samung 7200rpm for $55 shipped. Vs. the Seagate Hybrid for $100.

 

HAHAHAHHAHAH

You don't know many academics do you! Free laptops!?




To the Joker:

I looked at the Samsungs. I would want this one, no?

Eclipse Computers - Product Details

For 35 quid it doesn't seem like a bad idea.

 

Yep, that looks good, $57.