Upgrading my N71JQ-X1, need Opinions please

Ok, so first off I bought this - CompUSA.com | N71JQ-XT1 | ASUS N71JQ-XT1 17.3 Brown Laptop 03-_-CatId_17_A50-17333

It's got a nice processor, crap hard drive, decent but lacking ram, ok video card and some other features, but you know those are the major ones.

Well I didn't buy it for games, so I don't really care too much about the video card, that's why I went with this one that had a decent one for a decent price.

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BUT I do want to change a few things on it to make it a bad Laptop for cheaper than purchasing it already done. I think it was a good price for what it came with for $888

For 1 want to upgrade the Hard Drive with this - Amazon.com: Western Digital Scorpio 2.5-Inch 500 GB SATA Internal Hard Drive WD5000BEKT (Black): Electronics

1Step down frombenchmarks onthe best 500GB which is 55 bucks or so more (Momentum XT) than this one.SSD's that are too expensive, that till they are cheaper.

Then I plan on transfering the windows 7 pre-installed system onto the new hard drive using this thread and also I have 2 external hard drives for the image (If you know how to do this, it would help me out)

how to transfer windows 7 from a 20g hard drive to a 69g hard drive?

Then I plan on using the 500gb5400 RPM hard drive for my PS3 (I will need your help on that one too)

AS for RAM, I plan on getting this - Amazon.com: Corsair 8 GB DDR3 Laptop Memory Kit CMSO8GX3M2A1333C9: Electronics

It's not the best ram but it's a good company and I found out my mobo can run 1333mhz, so I'll be maxing out my system because it has only 2 slots and can have 8GB.

I have no plans for the 4 GB :-( lol

So after all, I will have utalized the ty hard drive making it perfect for my PS3. New Nice hard drive for only 66 bucks, then upgraded RAM to the fullest for 120.

Total upgradecost forPS3 and Computer= $186

Making my computer and PS3 pretty bad assed.

Only downfall would be the video card, but like I said it's better than what HP offers and I don't play games so it should last a bit with everything else.

BAD COMPUTER FOR $1074 and that includes shipping lol

Let me know what you think about my plan, I'm getting excited, but I haven't done any of this stuff before, but it shouldn't be too hard hopefully.

Have a good day!

T

 

You may want to look at the Seagate Momentus XT, its a hybrid HDD/SSD.

 

If you don't reboot alot than the Momentus XT loses alot of it's advantages. Go with the Scorpio Black.

 

Ignore the above remark about the XT. ?!???!!?


The only thing I can recommend is to do a clean install instead of an image, and consider partitioning the new HDD and using PerfectDisk Professional 11.


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...e-partition-strategy-better-than-cloning.html


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-hitachi-7k500-benchmark-setup-specifics.html


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-c-b-defrag-c-x-defraggler-perfectdisk10.html


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/6723837-post163.html

I too would recommend the Hybrid XT as it gives a noticeable increase in performance over the WD Black (which some have compared to the 7K500 and have found no performance differences).

Good luck and enjoy your system.

 

Thank you for your reply's on helping me with my system. As stated before in my thread, I was thinking about purchasing the WD over the Seagate because of two reasons. 1 it's cheaper by 55 bucks (pretty much another 500GB hard drive) and also in this benchmark comparison, it beats everything except for the Seagate XT in Tests. Even beets the Seagate 7200 and the Hitachi, which from what I've read arent that great anyways.
Western Digital Scorpio Black 500GB Review (WD5000BEKT) | StorageReview.com
I'm not trying to argue with anybody, but I would like to know. It looks as if the Seagate's only assists in booting up faster and with Apps that you run often over and over again. For read and write times for other things it seems to be on mark with the other hard drives. Why go for the Seagate, when you can wait for the SSD's to get cheaper and after that happens you'll look at the Seagate as a waist of time correct? Pay 2 times the price of a top of the line 7200 rpm drive and only get faster times on certain things. Also the reviews for the XT throw me off also. A lot of reviews state the drive fails a lot and some say they have compatability issues. I've seen nothing bad about the 7200 rpm drives or the SSD drives of any sort when it comes to these things?

I may be new to this, but I do a lot of research before purchasing. Am I wrong to say any of these things?

Also can someone please let me know 2 things. 1 is the Ram a good replacement, or is there a better one I should look at? 2 Was my idea on putting this together a smart one or could I have done better in my purchasing for the price?

Thank you

 

ya its a dollars and cents comparison.

Its worth more but how much?

When i got mine for 105, a wd black was 75

It boots faster.

Read and write times are exactly the same. It should be a touch faster even in that because it has a 32 mb cache but its not.

I think it took 10 seconds off my boot time

Other apps I havent noticed to be honest, I can neither confirm nor deny it doing anything else but I havent noticed. I dont have actual app boot times to compare. Seems the same to me.

I think though that its more valuable for a single disk laptop because ssd are not large enough really to be most peoples only storage. so it combines both..


Btw I was wondering, what is your laptops model number again? Jk

 

Thank you for the post Stamar. As of right now the Momentus XT is 120 bucks shipped. The WD is 67 Shipped. So that's 53 bucks different. Is the Momentus XT worth the price of another hard drive?

Also anybody have any idea's about the RAM idea?

 

I would stick with the WD. As for the RAM goes, wait for it to go on sale. Last week Newegg had 8 GB DDR3 1066 GSKILL SODIMM kit for 89.99 shipped.

 

I don't know why some people(^^^) don't like the XT, but you can get the 500GB XT for $108: Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS 500GB 7200 RPM 2.5" - eBay (item 200551002866 end time Dec-11-10 01:35:02 PST)

or the 320GB for $94: Seagate Momentus XT ST93205620AS 320GB 7200 RPM 32MB - eBay (item 150528268552 end time Dec-12-10 11:13:21 PST)

 

Do you trust buying stuff off Ebay like this? How would you be able to use the Warrenty if it were to break? Don't you need a receipt or something?

 

You do get a reciept on eBay, all you have to do is print it out.

I trust eBay 100%, I buy and sell 30+ items a month.

 

There is nothing wrong with Ebay. Just make sure you buy from a reputable seller, I've been burned once for a 150 dollar cell phone, took me 6-8 weeks to get a refund from PayPal.