Upgrading my laptop, have i missed out anything?

Well here goes my post virginity....
Been browsing the internet and this forum for a little while now in the quest to upgrade my dell 640m. I purchased the laptop 2 years ago, obviously the spec i bought it with doesnt compare with the latest laptops for an equivalant price:
Dell 640m
Intel Core Duo T2060 1.6ghz
Intel 945GM chipset
1Gb ddr2 4300 ram
Windows XP home
60Gb 5400rpm hard drive

I'm starting to run alot of intensive programs such as autocad/photoshop etc as i'm due to be starting an architecture degree and ideally i'd like to keep the mobility of a laptop (and keep this one particularly it was a present from my grandparents).
Upgrade:
-So according to my reading, i can upgrade to a Intel core 2 duo T7400, it is compatible with my chipset as the chipset can accept upto 677Mhz bus speed, although there currently is a 533 in there. Also the socket type is the same and i've seen 640m's specced with that processor and the T7600. Am i right in thinking this upgrade will be ok?
-As for the OS i want to upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate x64 (obviously i'd have to upgrade the processor first as my current isnt for 64-bit architecture), i have a copy of the installation disc and a valid serial. Dell have the drivers for the OS on their website so i'm not worried about compatibility. Upgrading to x64 would aid me in my next upgrade...
-Adding 4Gb of crucial ram, i'm currently running pc2-4300 though, can i use 2x2Gb of 5200? My laptop is compatible with the higher speed, i'm just concerned from things i've read that it will still run at the lower speed even if i upgrade, is there any truth in this?
-I also want to upgrade the hard drive to a 7200rpm seagate, 5year warrenty if i buy new and there are several available new on ebay, looking at going to 120-200Gb depending on the price i can get.

As for my budget, the cpu and hard drive i hope to get from ebay, ram from crucial and vista ultimate i already have.
-Ram costs £64 from crucial
-T7400's go on ebay for approx £60-70 or £120brand new boxed (dont mind buying second hand from ebay shop as long as its been fully tested.
-Seagate 7200rpm, 120-200Gb hard drive anywhere between £50-80

So thats approx £200 or approx $400 if your from across the Pond

Can everyone just check these upgrades over and make sure i havent overseen something, or made a mistake in my readings on the subject?

Additional notes: I have "undervolted" my current CPU and got some really good results, lowering 12x multiplyer voltage to 0.9875 from 1.2625V knocking 23degrees C or my 100%CPU load, i'd do the same if i upgraded to the T7400. I'm aware that a concern of upgrading is extra heat so hopefully this will address it.

Thanks in advance,
Dan

 

1) Yes your chipset supports up to T7600 processors.

2) Theres no need to get vista ultimate. The price for the extra features isnt worth it. I suggest you purchase Vista home premium x64

3) Im not definite about the ram for your model. Use the crucial.com memory scanning tool

4) A 5400rpm 320gb will perform the same as a 7200rpm 200gb due to platter density. You will benefit more with a larger 5400rpm.

 

Your system can support every socket M processor, including the T7600.

However, your system will not be able to support 4gb of memory. Your chipset is only going to accept 2 gb of memory. AKA you can only use 2 x 1024MB cards.

I would not go with Vista, cine most cad and 3d programs do not work well with vista. I know rhinocerous and auto cad 08 both run much better on xp than vista. This is why all architecture firms use xp or server 2003.
I am an architecture student at RPI, and really the operating system is a huge deal. We basically only use rhino at rpi, and the best thing is, the RPI laptops only come with Vista, and Rhinocerous has many known problems with Vista. As a result every student other than myself has an rpi laptop, as I sold that POS, and I use my own lappies. If we render the same things on the T61 in sig, which is the school laptop and my E1505 with slightly slower specs, my e1505 will finish the render in about 10 minutes while the T61 with Vista will take over 2 hours. This is because Rhino cannot make use of all of the system resources in Vista.
This may not be the case for other cad software, but I know that its the case with Rhino and auto cad 08.
I use cad 08 at my internship with KPF.

For the harddrive I would go with the 200gb momentus drive or any 320gb 5400rpm drive, as they are all on the same performance level, which is 52mb/sec on average.

If you can get the T7400, I recommend undervolting your processor and installing i8kfangui so you can control your fans and have them turn on at a lower temperature. That will help keep your system running cool and stable. Reason being the T7400 has a much higher TDP than your current processor.

K-TRON

 

K-T is that a BIOS limitation? As it is not a chipset limitation on the 945GM?

1.1.2 System Memory Support
• Supports single-/dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM
• Maximum Memory supported: up to 4 GB at 400, 533 and 667 MHz
• 64-bit wide per channel
• Three Memory Channel Configurations supported:
— Single-Channel
— Dual-Channel Symmetric
— Dual-Channel Asymmetric

 

I have the i945 in my e1505 and it only lets my system use 2gb of memory, and his system is slightly older than mine, so I assume it also has a 2gb memory capacity. (my system does not turn on with 4gb of memory installed, or a single 2gb card)

If the i640m manual says otherwise than it may support 4gb of memory.

K-TRON

 

K-T do you know which 945 you have? Because of another thread I read up. Here is a link to the Intel specs on the 945 family. I know you don't have time to read. There seems as if maybe Intel document is wrong but no one responded point blank. 3 945 support 4GB's 4 945's support 2GB's 1 945 supports 1GB. So which one do you have? And I do know it is more than just the chipset but that is why I ask.

 

Check chipset revisions and make sure the intel documentation is the latest

 

cheers for the brilliant responses guys! According to crucial my system can take 4Gb, also the intel documention from my specific chipset (945GM) does state it can support upto 4gb.
In response to flipfire, i already have a disc of vista ultimate so its not costing me anything extra.
Can someone explain to me why a larger 5400prm would be fatser than a smaller 7200rpm? I dont need a 200GB+ hard drive (if i was using more space i'd stick it on externals), therefore isnt it more worthwhile me buying a 120-200Gb 7200prm?

Ideally i would like to stay with XP, but Dell have very few drivers for XP x64, whereas they have full support for Vista x64, also i want to try something new

Does anyone know which ram i should buy though (refer to OP)
cheers guys

 

Average reading speed is the same, but 7200rpm has better seek times. If he don't need extra capacity, 7200rpm is right choice.

Btw I don't know, if it's reasonable to upgrade two years old machine.

 

Just a thought… wouldn’t it be better to get a new one than spending $400 on upgrading that 2 year old entry level notebook?

If you can sell yours (as it is) for around $300~400, that gives you $700~800 to spend on a new one. Maybe you’ll have to spend a bit more than that to get the performance of your current upgrade plan, but you are getting a brand new notebook + warranty.

 

cheers. Ok it doesnt seem that worth while but looking at current prices on ebay, i'd get about £200, $400 and with the amount i want to spend (£200, $400) that'd give me about £400, looking around, its impossible to get anything near my sec for £400, similar spec (admittedly with dedicated graphics) will cost easily £700, $1400, well out of my budget and i'm not fussed about warrenty particularly, if something breaks i'll replace it.
The other thing, as mentioned is that it was a present. Not meaning to go into a sob story but when my great nan died she passed money to my grandad who bought the laptop for me. It would seem right getting rid of it for a little while when i'm not particularly struggling with it.
My intentions are to keep it going for the next 1.5-2years and save up in th mean time, then get rid of it.

 

I recently upgraded my 3 year old notebook's CPU and RAM. I plan to use mine for another 3 years. Upgrading might be worth it on the long run specially if you plan to use for a while.

I actually see this as a good idea, unless the notebook isnt cutting it for its purposes even with upgrades..

 

should more than cut it with planned upgrades, or so i'm hoping. Glad to hear someone speak positively about upgrading an old laptop, almost all others that i've spoken to (outside of the forum) have basically told me to bin it.
Everyones response has helped me out so cheers guys!
Only thing i still need to know is whether to use the ddr2-5200 or 4300 ram, my laptop supports both, just wondering if i use a pair of the faster ram, whether this will out perform the 4300 considering they are the same price?

 

If you upgrade CPU to a 667Mhz FSB I would also go with PC5300. It will not be a great improvement as CL will likely go from 4 to 5 but should see some. Good luck!

 

buy the PC5300 ram... especailly if you are going to upgrade to a CPU that uses the 667FSB,,, no reason to save a dollar now to loose a bit of possible performace with your planed upgrades

you might even consider PC6400 ram as it might have lower latencys at 667Mhz

hope it helps

bigO