Upgrading a Laptop for Video Editing?

Hi, I'm a college student looking to use a computer for image/video editing. Due to 'budget constraints' hah, I am unable to afford a new laptop. I do, however have a Dell Latitude C840. Unfortunately, it has a couple of problems that I hope you, my reader, will be able to help me with. I am hoping for upgrade information. I will list each thing to make it easier to respond to. If you can, please make your suggestions detailed (for example, the exact name of something I can use to upgrade).

Things I am hoping to upgrade:

1. The speed, as I said, it is very slow with both image and video editing. The computer has a Pentium 4m processor (2 ghz), and 512 mb of ram. Can either of these be upgraded?

2. I am constantly running out of space. I am currently outfitted with a 60 gb hard drive, but I have 33 gb of photos, and I am constantly having to delete photos after uploading them to the external. Is it possible to buy a bigger hard drive?

3. Now, I would be fine just working on my photos right off of my external hard drive, but the slow speed of the usb connection between my computer and the external makes this nearly impossible. I have Usb 1.1 (I think). Is it possible to upgrade my usb port to 2.0?


I very sincerely thank anyone who actually takes the time to read all this and/or respond with suggestions.

 

1. Ram can be upgraded easily, just be sure to buy the right type of Ram (DDR1/DDR2, PC2700, PC3200, etc)
2. Hard drive is upgradeable up to a certain point as supported by your bios (safe range is usually 100-120 gb.) Make sure again you buy the right type of HD, (SATA or PATA)
3. the USB can be upgraded if you have a PCMIA slot (im assuming you dont have PCIx slot) and you purchase a USB 2.0 card slot.
Just the 1st thing that popped up in a google search, you can prob find the price a lot better somewhere else, but this is what you'd be lookin for:
http://www.bixnet.com/2poruspcmcic.html

 

Oh, ok thank you very much Tsaijo. How much do you think all those things will cost?

 

Can you post the specs, or post the make/model of the laptop?

 

Sure Budding. It is a Dell Latitude C840.

Its specs are as follows:
Mobile Intel Pentium 4-M CPU 2.00GHz
512 MB of RAM
55 GB Hard drive

Is there anything else I need to state?

Thank you for trying to help so far

 

in all honesty, for the price of a new HD, RAM and other goodies, you'd be better off saving a little more and buying a new notebook. the base specs of a new notebook are significantly faster than what you have now and won't cost much more than the money you're already going to shell out for parts. it's at least worth a look.

 

In all honesty, you can spend 100 bux and double your memory and hard drive space and get a 2.0usb connection.

I don't think 100 bux comes anywhere close to a new notebook, and if it does, it probably doesn't come with any bigger hd or more than 512mb of memory.

 

What is your video card?

 

new 100 to 120 GB HD is probably around 100 bux. ram for an older system like this is probably around 100 bux for 1 GB. say 20 bux for a USB 2.0 PC Card. another 20 bux for an external case for the user's existing HD (don't want it going to waste). that's 240. add tax and shipping for the various components (8% for CA) and you're probably somewhere south of $300.

today on bensbargains.net, there's a listing for a vostro with the following specs and free shipping:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 1.7GHz TK-53
1GB DDR2 Memory
120GB SATA Hard Drive
8x DVD+-RW Drive
Radeon Xpress 1150 256MB
10/100 + 56k + 802.11g
15.4" WXGA Screen
Windows Vista Home
1-Yr Warranty
10GB Online Backup

...for $549 (plus tax)

that was only with 2 mins searching. if the OP actually puts some energy into, a better deal is likely to turn up.

the value for money is waaaaay better buying new versus upgrading a notebook with a 4M processor.

how can you even compare the 4M to a dual core 64 bit cpu? that upgrade alone is worth the price of admission. not to mention the RAM on the old system is probably PC2100 or similar. the upgrade in bus width just from 2100 to PC2-5/6xxx speed ram is also a huge bump.

 

My Video card is a nvidia Geforce4 440 Go

Adinu - details please lol, where can I spend $100 and do all that? I was under the impression that the Ram alone would cost $100

NotebookYoozer - Thanks for the great information, That really helps. That information on the ram was great. I'm wondering, how much faster would the 1.7Ghz dual core processor be than my pentium 4m?

 

1.7Ghz Dual Core would be much quicker. Not only would it have a new architecture, twice the cores, but also double/four times as much cache, and a faster FSB.
You will see a huge speed increase if you decide to purchase a new computer. However, gaming performance might drop if you get one with an integrated graphics card.

 

A RAM upgrade will make a big difference.

 

Alright, thank you. I still don't really even have the money to buy a $500 laptop, so it looks like my current best course of action is to get a usb 2.0 pcmia card, and upgrade my ram. And from the information i'm gathering here, both of those should cost me somewhere south of $130, which I can handle.

One more question though, someone mentioned that it might be possible to upgrade it to 1.5 gb of ram - is there any truth in this?

 

There you go, just about 100 bux for all that, like I said.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822116030 $67

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231045 $25

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16839200001 $13

Total $105 + shipping.

You double your memory, 40 more gigs of hard drive space and 4 USB 2.0 ports.

 

Adinu, you are amazing, thank you so much!

Now, if I can impose one more question on you guys - if I have an external hard drive disk, will that usb port be able to power it? I saw on there that some people mentioned in their reviews that the usb card you linked to, adinu, didn't come with a power source.

 

A SATA(Serial ATA) hard drive will not work in a C840. You need a IDE/ATA-6 hard drive.

Specification s of the Dell Latitude C840(pdf)

 

Yes that's true, but I just wanted to show him a general price range of an 100gb laptop hard drive.

That means that that adapter will not have enough umph to power an external hard drive by itself. The external hard drive would have to come with its own power supply in order for it to work.

 

Also make sure you have a free DIMM slot. If you have 2 slots, and each are filled with 256MB sticks you'll only end up with 768 (after buying a 512MB). Worse yet, you could only have one available slot. Best to check before spending any $$$.

 

another option might be to sell this for 50 bucks then scrunge up another 200 bucks for a secondhand dual core laptop off one of the big resellers on ebay, or something refurbished. Im sure there are heaps of sites int he Us that sells refurbished laptops.

video editing is slow enough on my 2.4 ghz Core 2 duo with 2 GB of ram, running dual 7200RPM HDDs[probably 4 times faster than your setup]. I'd hate to know how much time you are wasting with your current set up.

Or get a desktop together if you don't really need the portability. If you know a bit about building one yourself and get second hand parts.

the time you save will be worth it. I dont know how you get by with 512mb of RAM. i constantly get out of memory messages when i work on my projects. on my 2 GB machine.