Point of diminishing returns?

I didn't see this covered in the stickies, and I'm doing some searches now so hopefully I'll find what I'm looking for, so please forgive me if it has been discussed to death.

At what point is it no longer efficient to upgrade the hardware of a laptop?

I have an old - like, really old... I bought it in Feb '03, so it's now been on the end of 8 years worth of abuse - Inspiron 8600 that my daughter has been using for several years. I just recently swapped her out with a desktop and want to do something with this.

I replaced a few things (cracked bezel, cracked/loose hinge, etc) and wiped/reinstalled the OS, but it's still pretty slow these days, especially when trying to stream Netflix/Hulu.

I'm wondering if this could be upgraded cheaply, or if I should just resign it to garage duty and wait until I can get a new one (currently allocating funds to a kitchen remodel and a truck that needs a new bed

It's an Inspiron 8600
Bios: Phoenix ROM BIOS Plus Version 1.10 A14
Pentium M 1400
512MB RAM
nVidia GeForce FX Go5200 64MB
1200 x 800


Thanks for any help/insight/suggestions.

 

That model isn't worth putting money into IMHO. You would be better served in picking up a sub $500 laptop with a dual core processor, 2-3gb of ram, 500gb hd, etc...

 

Put it up on ebay to get probably $100 out of it.

 

You can get an i3 laptop with a 500 Gb disk, 4 gb ram, and 17" screen for approx $500- Includes a 1 year warranty which usually doubles to two years if you pay via a major credit card.


Same laptop with an i5 cpu is generally less than $100- more.

 

To be fair you could likely put a 2ghz pentium M in there, but only if you found it REALLY cheap.

 

If you wanted to keep it, you could install Linux on it. But other than that, it's time for it to be sold. Not worth spending any money on.

Since you seem handy with hardware, (to whom warranties don't seem to matter), you could find a good used Intel Dual Core Montevina platform from 2009 on eBay for $300 or so. Like an HP DV-5 or some such.

 

I think if you added another gig of RAM and a new processor, you'd double the performance of this system.

I had an Inspiron 6000 (made January 2005) for about 3 1/2 years, and went from a Celeron M 1.4 to a Pentium M 1.73, and 256MB to 2GB RAM and it was a night and day difference, although the RAM was probably the most noticeable.

You can pick up DDR (or DDR-2 if that's what the system takes... it has a Pentium M so it's possible) for a decent price, $20-25 for a GB. And Star Micro is a great source for cheap older processors. Assuming your notebook supports it, if you're comfortable replacing the CPU (Dell is one of the best brands for documentation of how to take apart their systems, replace CPU's, etc), Star Micro has a 1.73Ghz 2MB cache Dothan series Pentium M for $10, and they usually have free or cheap shipping.

StarMicro Inc. - Intel Pentium M 740 1.73GHz 2MB 533MHz CPU OEM in Pentium Mobile

For $40-45, you could triple the RAM and vastly improve the CPU.

 

Not worth upgrading, even if you find a monty chip and some ram. It's probably still using an old IDE harddrive too. For $500 even a basic consumer laptop from bestbuy will easily be twice as fast as what you have, and if you look around for deals you can find i5 equipped stuff, not to mention it will likely have win7 installed on it. XP just won't cut it for much longer, and unless you make it a linux box that thing isn't getting any faster either.

 

I also have the Inspiron 8600, and its still in service today (as a backup computer for my mom, but it served me well for 5+ years). I agree that its probably not fiscally prudent to spend a lot of money upgrading that old machine, as it can end up costing $100+, but if you're set on upgrading it, I would upgrade the RAM to at least 1 GB, get a newer hard drive in it (I put the Samsung HM160HC in there), and swap out your Banias Pentium M for a Dothan Pentium M. I went from a Banias 1.4 Ghz to a Dothan 1.7 Ghz, and it was somewhat snappier and could almost play 720p content (if I remember correctly).

You'll notice the difference, but it won't come cheap.

 

If you are willing to spend time on it (looking for cheap CPU and RAM on ebay, installing, etc.) - you might succeed making it faster, but generally it is not worth the time and money. I'd still upgrade it as much as possible whenever I have time to deal with it just to keep it as a spare machine, but would just buy a new one whenever possible.

 

Thanks, y'all, that's what I figured.

I doubt I'll sell it, though, as I can use it out in the garage for looking up parts, how-to's, etc. I also just recently ran cable out there and set up a TV & stereo, so I could run the aux jack to the laptop for MP3s or Last.fm/Pandora/etc streaming.

I did try putting Ubuntu 10.04 on there last year, but it wouldn't work with the proprietary Dell drivers required for its wireless card (verified by searching Ubuntu forums). I suppose I could get an external USB wireless stick if I was determined to stay with Ubuntu (which I loved), or I could look for another distro that works with the existing card.

That might be worth considering, thank you. I know I'll eventually need to buy a new laptop, but right now I have too many things going on (kitchen renovation, truck needs fixed, project car, recently divorced and now having to pay for everything by myself, including primary care of my daughter, etc). If I can bump the performance up considerably for $50-100 to get me through another year, then that would be awesome. It'll also need a new battery, though, as it is still using the original and it no longer holds a charge.

I built a beefy gaming rig, so the latptop wouldn't be performing any extremely demanding tasks, but it would be nice if it could at least stream video smoothly.

 

For simple stuff you can definitely put 2GB of RAM in that system. I had one and it'll still be fine for running web stuff. A faster CPU wont give you any benefit for anything that you'll want to do with that system anyways so don't waste time.

NO need to spend $500 on a system to just check email and facebook. If it's gonna be a primary system for usage then sure but a $500 backup machine? Doesn't make sense.

 

I loved my Inspiron 6000 - best build quality out of a laptop I personally have seen. Had the hinge not locked up and refused to work properly (and had I not ordered the wrong part online to replace it on accident ), I'd probably still have the system.

That $499 system (at the time) had much better build quality ironically than my $1249 G50. This is part of what excites me about the Alienware I'm on the phone right now ordering.

 

It's worth looking at eBay/hardware forums/etc. to see if someone's selling used RAM cheap that you can use. If people do have extra RAM of such old age and want to clear the space, they tend to sell it cheap.

I'd try upgrading the RAM before the processor, though - more likely to make a noticeable difference. I'd also put a definite upper cap on how much to put into upgrading - $15 for doubling or tripling the RAM probably would be worth it, but at a certain point it's not going to make sense versus just saving up for a new laptop later.