need to make dell 600m faster

Ok I have a Dell Inspiron 600m with a 1.6 GHz Pentium M processor, 1 GB of ram in the form of two 512 MB sticks, a sxga screen with a 32 MB vid card, and Windows XP Home eddition. I tend to use this laptop like its build for gaming, as in I run big programs like Adobe Photoshop CS2 and 3D Studio Max 8 simultaneously and have a few internet browsers open. So needless to say it tends to run a little slow and freeze up sometimes. I was wondering what kind of hardware upgrades/mods I can perform to make my comp faster.

 

You can get a faster CPU, and more RAM. As well, a faster HD is easily attainable.

The graphics card you are usually stuck with though.

 

Buy a T60 Think Pad, that'll take care of the problem... you need a dual core processor . Multiple thread processing is the answer. Not even 2 gb of memory in your current syetemcan do what a t2400 intel Core duo centrino with 1g or even 512 will do. Time to go for the best

 

ok let me say this before anyone posts anything simillar to the last post. i am not going to buy a new laptop under any circumstance, voiding this one stops working alltogather.

 

If he had $2000 to use, he wouldn't be asking in the first place.

 

Before expensive upgrades, I always consider the money I will spend vs. the actual improvement. Many times the actual performance improvement will not warrent the money I put into an existing computer. I have done this. The good thing about thinkpads is they are very marketable used, especuially T's. For example, I sold my 2 year old t40 for 750$, Put it towards a T60 after 2 years. I don't think you could do likewise with a dell. Food for thought...

 

I would suggest first optimizing you're system. Check out this:

http://www.fixyourwindows.com/optimizewindows.htm

reducing the background processess will produce a more stable system.

As for hardware I would suggest at least a 5200rpm hdd upgrade and maybe keep an eye out for a faster processer -the cost of a new 2+GHz Dothan can be offset by selling your current processor.

You're looking at maybe $200 give or take depending on how good you are at shopping. Far less than buying a new computer...

 

For the kinds of performance improvements you're looking for ibm meister is right. You can upgrade the CPU to the max 2.1GHz Dothan and you might even get nearly 30% speed boost in applications, but if you're doing CPU intensive tasks in both Photoshop and 3D Studio Max, any single core system is gonna be unusable till the tasks are done.

 

But sometimes people need to make what they have work. I'd like to point out that coriolis has already said he cannot buy a new one. That and this thread is correctly in the upgrade section and not the what should I buy.

I would agree that a dual processor system would be ideal for his needs but maybe we should actually try to help and not impose a brand preference on someone but rather help.

 

ok first, your link didn't work. second i found a 2GHz Dothan on newegg.com for $300, there is probly a better place to buy from, wondering where that would be. and what are important things to know about a hard drive to know that it will fit in your comp?

 

Any 2.5" PATA hard drive will work. You're probably looking for 7200rpm drives to give you a decent boost in performance such as the ones here on newegg.