What was your best notebook upgrade?

If I recall: it was XP SP2 that made the bigger RAM commitment needed.

This is exactly the reason why you should fully upgrade a system as soon as you buy it: not only will it be usable for longer (and you can plan your new system instead of 'needing' to buy right 'now'), but you will also be enjoying the full power it offers from day one - instead of upgrading it just before you sell it (basically for the new buyer!) for a much better/newer platform that will trounce it handily.

 

how about upgrading in the middle, so you get like a new notebook, but much more cheap?

and my best notebook upgrade was (as any best pc upgrade) a fitting ssd.

 

first most profound upgrade of all time for me was 28.8 to dsl. i was just amazed. i don't think it was fast dsl, it was such a new thing back then...

 

Best upgrade for me was throttle stop

 

as a gamer my best upgrade wud have been from an i5 430m to the i7 720QM. Games are much more smoother and my frames do not dip as much in intense situations

 

T8400
4GB DDR 2
400GB HDD
GF 9600M GT

to

X9100
8GB RAM
4x 128 SSD
GF 9600M GT

 

ocz w840 DI aka AW m17
T8400
2Gb DDR3
320Gb HDD 7200rpm
1xATI 3870

to

QX3000 ES
4Gb DDR3
2x500Gb 7200rpm
2xATI 4850 CF

 

I just did my best upgrade. I installed 1gb ram on my almost 5 year old VAIO FS. It now runs with 1.5gb and what a joy it is to use it again.

 

actually mine was a complete replacement/upgrade, i have asus g50vt in 2 years and a half, now what i have is in my sig.

 

Best upgrade for me is the SSD by far!!!

 

Blu-ray writer. I will one day get an SSD or SSD hybrid, but I chose space over speed. My laptop has 2TB of space.

 

do you need that storage on the move, or at home? if at home, i suggest a split storage solution: networked big storage, and per-computer fast ssd storage. it's the way i use, works great. obviously just an option.

 

Getting a G73-JH. I went from an HP dv9000, which had a bad nvidia chip - the 8600M GS. cooked itself twice on me before i got fed up. That thing was so slow and creaky, I didn't realize what i'd been putting up with until i got the G73...
That had been an upgrade from a gateway with integrated graphics (ATI xpress 1150), which was an upgrade from an old dell with a PIII 800MHz (windows 2000, i think that's my favourite windows OS so far). I remember playing Homeworld on that ancient dell. ( /nostalgia )

As for components, an SSD. By far. The first time i clean-booted from it,
I had to reboot 2 more times to convince myself it really was loading everything that quickly.

After that, it would be having enough RAM to disable the page file. I know on an SSD this doesn't really matter, but this was pre-SSD - and it made windows so nimble.
(in my case, 8GB. I like to play starcraft2 with my buddies and play assassin's creed 2 when they need to go afk for a bit. I also like not having to open and close either one )

 

Well, depends on what you consider an upgrade.
(1) either the GTX 460M coming to replace my 240M in a few days, or....

When dell replaced my XPS M1530 with an Alienware M15x.

 

A SSD. The result is a instant-on user interface without any delay.

Before the SSD I had the WD5000BEVT which wasn't a multitasker.

 

So far, bumping the memory on my M17x-R2 to 8GB but then it was necessary for doing VMware work on it; beyond that adding an SSD drive to my M11x-R1 made it a true pocket rocket.

 

My best upgrade was when I spilled a glass of wine over my FE 41.
Tried CPR and a shot of adreniline but she died.

I was forced to search the internet for a replacement and at the time the AW had just come out.

I said goodbye to my fe by selling her on ebay but she got lost in the post, some postman thought it was a working laptop and stole the packege.

Lucky for me PayPal paid me back for the loss, all of £70, spare me the loose change lol.

Now I am at one with my AW and not even wild hoarses could drag me away.

PS the SSD upgrade was the best..

 

When I upgraded the RAM from 1GB to 2.5GB, she ran like a trooper after that! Still going strong too, ready for my next upgrade!

 

An SSD, either that or for my one bay notebook a Seagate Momentus XT 500gb - was very happy with that purchase as well.

 

My best upgrade was going from a 56k modem to a 256k ISDN line. This was many years ago before DSL or cable or any other broadband was available. I was desperate for more speed. My mother paid for it so I'm not sure how much it was at the time but it was significantly more expensive then 56k it was over 150 a month for the 2x 128k channels combined. It came in options of single channel 64k up and down and 2 channel 128k up and down and you could combine more lines for additional fees but my mom would only let me get 256k up and down.

At the time the speed increase was amazing. Web pages felt so much snappier. I was into IRC downloading of music and my music downloads were so much better. My online gaming was boosted significantly and I had a big advantage over everyone else in some games because my ping was much lower then all the 56k'ers playing. Played a game called arc where you played on teams and it was 2d and you were a little UFO that shot lasers and you had to capture the flag to win. Now you had to adjust your shot ahead of the player so whatever direction he was moving you would shoot in front slightly but having 256k speed made me a god. People shot in front of me all the time because they were leading thier shots like I was on 56k. Also because of my much higher speed I did not have to lead my shots nearly as much because i got the location data of the enemy ships much faster. So basically people would shoot in front of me and miss and aiming for me was supremely easy. I won tons of tournaments and was a legend in the game.

I felt like I was the man cause I had this expensive advanced dual channel ISDN line. My local phone company at the time AT&T provided it. It also connected so much faster then a regular 56k modem. You know how the 56k modem makes all those crazy noises and takes forever to connect and then even though you got a 56k modem it would rarely connect at the full 56k speed. usually anywhere from 33k to 48k. Also getting busy signals on AOL trying to connect during peak times. No busy signals with ISDN no crazy noises just click and connected in seconds always at the full speed and back then 256k was wicked fast.

Also going from a 5400 RPM hard drive to a 256GB Crucial Realssd c300 was an incredible boost but overall the 56k modem to 256k ISDN line was the biggest deal for like a 6.5x internet speed increase

 

Interesting thread, since the major upgradable components for laptops are HDD and RAM.

My first laptop upgrade was RAM, boosted from 1GB to 3GB, heaps of space to run programs which allows me do my job easier.

Now i have a laptop with med range 5700 series Radeon gaming graphic i started treat it as a console, connect via HDMI to LCD TV, with wireless keyboard + mouse i can find a good seat, enjoy my drink and have some fun. That should be the best upgrade for my laptop. Next nice upgrade would be a 2.1 Speaker system and a 64GB SSD. Though all of it can be fitted on a desktop PC but i bought the laptop already.

 

Looking back, if I were to say within the last 5 years, I'd say upgrading to an SSD made the most dramatic difference, however I've been keeping my hardware fairly updated moreso than the average user so I haven't made any HUGE upgrade jumps either (i.e. going from 1gb to 4gb RAM or a single core to quad core CPU etc).

If I were to say within 10 years, It'd definitely be going from a 33.6k or 56k modem to a T1 line (when I moved from home to the college dorm which had a T1 line).

Within 15-20 years was going from a 286 and 386 desktop to a 486DX2/50 laptop which at that time I found supremely powerful (the jump from 28 to 386DX/33 was quite good as well, but both those machines were desktops, not laptops).

 

I remember the 486dx2 that was the first computer i ever had. the 386 was a little before my time when i discovered the usefulness of computers

 

I'm 34 years old, I started my computer experience on a DOS 286. The upgrades from 286 to 386 to 486 were quite big upgrades, much more noticeable than upgrading to newer families of CPUs these days. I remember vividly though that one of my roommates in college my first year of college brought an old Cyrix 486DX50 computer that was so pathetic that my old 386DX/33 back home outbenched it!

By the way I love your desktop build. I have a desktop build that's somewhat similar, 1100T as well and SSD but no RAID and just one 5870.

 

Hehe, I know how you feel, I'm 40! And keep my computer for a long time!

So I went from Commodore Vic20 (1982) 64k to a 128k two-three years later WOW! I learned all the basic language that became obsolete when DOS came out. I kind of quitted for a time because of that.

When I finished my protestation (LOL) I bought a 286 in 93 I think.

Then I bought my first laptop : a Pentium 100 with 16GB HDD (don't remember the RAM) in 1997 IIRC.

Then a HP R3000 Intel Pentium 4 processor at 2.8GHz and 512MB of PC2700 DDR memory in 2005 IIRC.

This one I just gave it to my son, only upgraded the RAM on it, still working good, slow but good.

Then I just bought a Sager 8150 (i7-2820QM, 8GB, SSD, Blu-ray, GTX 460M...). Can't wait to have it.

Of course I had a few more desktop after the 286, and I have a Hp pavillon zd7000 at work, upgraded the ram only, still working good.

So all in all, the only reel upgrade I made over time was RAM, or change the whole machine.

Eric

 

Going from I5-460M to I7-920XM really helped alot ( gaming )
Much better improvement than I had thought.

 

The most obvious as everyone else will probably post is upgrading the RAM to 2GB and upgrading the HDD to either an SSD or just more Gigs.

 

SSD. Lots of precious minutes saved every single day. In a year it give me lots of hours i can do something else with

If i should do something today i would have chosen this order:
1. CPU
2. GPU
3. RAM

Arrandale -> Sandy Bridge
GT 240M -> Something better
4 GB -> 8 GB

 

RAM upgrade from 2Gb to 4Gb...fantastic...

 

First post in this thread.

m11x in my sig ran quite hot. Best upgrade ever was ripping it apart and putting in arctic silver 3. The tech that installed the cpu did a crappy job, you can see where he applied it at an angle, then twisted it to get the screw holes to line up, and as a result there was a section on both the CPU and GPU without any of the thermal pad touching it. As soon as it hits 94 celsius it freezes the system, which happened all the time. Pretty sloppy move by Alienware/Dell.

Anyway, as of today it now runs at ~80 celsius, stable, at the largest overclock you can get on it (~2.4ghz) with throttlestop to keep it from throttling down... Games are runnin smooth, again!

 

Upgrade from 3GB to 6GB RAM with pagefile disabled. Also overclocking CPU speed from 2GHz to 2.65GHz helps immensely on CPU limited games, while the GPU memory overclock from 750MHz to 932MHz helps a lot in modern games

My previous laptop is ASUS K40AB, I wanted to gain performance while costing more or less the same so this is what I get

K40AB --> A42JE
AMD QL64 --> Intel P6100
4GB DDR2 --> 6GB DDR3
HD4570 DDR2 -> HD5470 GDDR3
2 hours battery life -> 3+ hours battery life
Price RM2100 --> RM1520

Its cheaper yet its more powerful, runs cooler but important thing is its battery life improves in the process

 

My very best switch/ upgrade was from Win XP to Linux, a long time back (well long time for me anyways). I love my *nix but that was done during my Pentium III desktop days


My best mobile upgrade is definitely moving from a HP Tm2 (Intel SU9600 + 4550 ATI switchable graphics, 6GB ram, and Patriot Inferno 120GB SSD) to a HP 2730p (SL9400, 5GB ram, and a crappy 4200rpm drive- that I will upgrade eventually).
I like my 2730p because it is far more mobile, is built far better, has an AMAZING screen (as opposed to the crap screen in the Tm2), the awesome slim dock & slim battery, and the pointing stick
What can I say -I like my mobile computers to have Tablet PC functionality as well as being a regular Laptop.


Best "parts upgrade" was from a 7200rpm drive to the Patriot Inferno 120GB; though it lacks space, it is very nice to have that speed -if not entirely un-necessary


My best "envisioned upgrade" will be getting (or making) a portable external screen (take a really good screen [laptop or desktop], add a signal converter [if it is a laptop screen], a power inverter [might not be needed], and a laptop battery with charging board. And then you have the ultimate "portable" external screen) But I know I'll have to learn a lot more about complex electronics (or wait for one to come to the market at an affordable price)

 

no cpu -----> QX9100

 

My best lappy upgrade was the cpu of my Toshiba x505-898. I took out the
i7 740qm, and replaced it with the i7 940xm. It was my best upgrade since I had to literally dismanlte the entire lappy, and reassemble it. Thank goodness for the service manual.

 

I replaced the 1.4Ghz Celeron M in a Dell Inspiron 6000 with a 1.73Ghz Pentium M - HUGE difference in performance... until the system's age and general degradation caused it to throttle the new Pentium M after about half a year's use. No amount of cleaning of the insides or re-pasting of the CPU helped, after that.

Also, Windows Vista to 7 on this Asus G50 (or any system, really) helped immensely with the every day feel of the system.

If I had the budget, I'd drop some cash on an SSD, I hear they're amazing.

 

Hello.
Not big deal... just
2 gb ram -> 4
160 hdd -> 320 gb

Looking forward to T7250 -> t9300

Oh my, ssd prices :-s

 

My best system hardware upgrade was dropping 2gb of memory in my X41, after years of thinking I had it maxed at 1.5gb. In Windows 7, the 2gb really made a massive difference.

I won't count my more recent "upgrade" - the X201 that showed up today - as an upgrade. It seems too good to just be an upgrade. I feel like I've stepped out of the stone ages. I never could imagine Aero/Compiz running well on a laptop! Crazy kids and their advanced technology - now I see what all the fuss is about.

 

for the 500mhz or 25% cpu increase you could get a huge ssd (cpu is around 300$ here). esp. if you don't need the 160gb hdd anymore and can sell that, too. and maybe even the 320gb one.

might be worth more than increasing the cpu. find out whats your systems bottleneck.

 

Windows XP -> Windows 7. The overall change in experience was extremely eye opening.

HP desktop (AMD athlon 4400+, 1 gig RAM, integrated GPU, 100 gigabyte HDD) to Acer 5740-6454 (i5 430m, 4 gig RAM, ATI Radeon 5650, 500 gigabyte HDD). Definitely a huge step in computing for me. First game I played was COD WAW. Was one of the best experiences in my life.

 

considering myself from those first users of computers (like one of two to have computers in my class at school), I know what you're talking about, thought it seems to me that you jumped into that train a bit late. Being 3 years younger than you, I started with a 16 bit 8088 CPU computer running at 12MHz, compared to the normal ones that were at 8MHz, and the older models at 4.77MHz. It had the bigger 640KB RAM, compared to the others with 512KB. Damn I played games on that thing, lol. Had 20MB 5.25" HDD, which was much better than the 10MB double slot bricks that some had. I also tried adding a 8087 co-processor but it didn't add too much performance-wise and I returned it.

here's the big jumps for me

- a 486DX-40MHz jump from that 16bit machine, lol. Following the overclock to 50MHz it marked the trend for me overclocking stuff. And then I was one of the few to upgrade the 4MB RAM to 8 ... omg what a performance boost in Win 95, lol. The HDD from 420MB to 540MB was good too.

- desktop to laptop upgrade - awesome

big jump to HP Pavilion P4-2.66GHz laptop with ATI graphics, my first. That thing was among the most expensive, with the new wireless B card - thank god I got that one back then, as my mom is still using that laptop just because of it, for internet mostly. RAM went from 256 to 1MB - the most supported by the MB.

the current T61 replaced it like 3 years ago. So far:
- RAM from 2 to 4GB - nicely running XP with no page file.
- HDD from 100GB to 160GB to 500GB to ... SSD soon I hope.
- CPU from T7500 to T9500 - nicely runs cooler and adds 45% more performance that I need to play UT3

maybe I'll try W7 on it but not sure yet. I expect the SSD to blast with performance increase though

 

Haven't touched computers for quite a while, and when I look back there was such a leap in tech industry. My best upgrades:

- Pentium 2 500Mhz to Sandy Bridge
- 56k Modem to Apple airport extreme base station
- Windows 95 Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate
- Floppy Drive to Hybrid Floppy-Bluray Burner
- 15" CRT to 30" Apple cinema display
- 10GB HDD to 256GB SSD

 

You made that big of a jump in hardware without any upgrades in between??

 

yeah, that's just a crazy upgrade, were you in prison for 13 years?

 

my biggest was 15.6'' 1366x768 to 15.6'' 1920x1080

@torai windows 95 didn't have an "ultimate" version.... unless you wrote that one yourself
.... and floppy-bluray burner??? where do you come up with this crap?

 

LOL. Take it easy folks I guess each of you has at least once looked back to those old days right? Technology has changed so fast... Just imagined you went back to that time with an Alienware M17x in hand, bring it to class.. and guess what? ALL the girls in your schools would be like this "wow, wow, wow..i definitely would be your girlfriend if you let me touch that super machine a bit" LOL

 

wt the heck kind of comp do you have running 96gb?!?! Please do share the specs with us as well as how much and where i can get my grubby hands on it!

 

My best notebook upgrade, this month friend sold me he's used Intel X25-M 80GB SSD (1 year used) for 110$. Now I have Dell E6400, 2,4GHz C2D, 4GB RAM, and 80+250 HDD.
Biggest difference was not moving from 2GB to 4GB RAM but change to SSD. Also quite good upgrade was 50$ 2nd HDD BAY - where now HDD sits. This versatility that Dell's have are really important. Now I can set RAID 0/1 on two drives in one small 14" laptop ... that's really nice. Especially if someday that second drive will be second X25-M.

So to summarize: best option for notebook is good SSD.

 

I was very hesitant about upgrading to SSD. But I am so glad I did!!!Best laptop upgrade for me.

 

Windows vista to windows 7 ultimate 64 bit

320 GB HDD to 120 GB SSD(OS drive) + 500GB WD HDD(Data drive)

4 GB DDR3 PC8500 (1066MHz) to 8 GB DDR3 PC8500 RAM

Intel P8400 2.26 GHz CPU to a Intel x9100 3.06 GHz CPU OC'd to 3.30 GHz

 

6 Cell battery to a 9 Cell.

Hopefully I'll get 3 hours gaming life from it