upgrade or replacement

Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop is slowing down & I keep getting messages saying I am running out of disc space My query is should I upgrade & how do I do that & what is involved or should I think about changing it. I only use it for surfing, Emails that sort of thing. I have tried a registry cleaner & have not noticed any improvement.
Any suggestions would be appreciated
Tel

 

Were not all familiar with Dells product line. How old is it?

Anyway, you can try deleting all your unwanted junk. After that, just purchase more disc space.

 

for the usage you described, it should be powerful enough. i think its just that you need a reformat. you're still using xp are you?

 

A reformat should help. Try to get your data backed up on an external device and use the good old recovery method to get it back to factory defaults. I still use my Inpiron 9300 (from same generation as your 6000) for web surfing/email/etc.

 

If I remember correctly, that model has a Pentum M with an Intel i915 Chipset. Those specs are perfectly fine for just web-broswing/email/general tasks. I'd recommend getting a bigger uATA HDD if you use iTunes or anything like that on it though. The included one was small IMO. But like everyone said, try backing up your important stuff, and doing a fresh wipe/install of XP.

 

I'd buy an external drive to use for back-ups and move your pictures and music to it, then do the clean install as recommended. Unless you travel and want to keep a lot of media on it...then get a bigger internal drive as well.

 

Plus if it's using an older slower 4200RPM drive, a newer faster drive would speed things up a bit.

 

Thank you all for the input, could you recommend any particular drive & external storage device what about a memory upgradeas well, I have 1gb Might as well "splash out" if I am not buying a new laptop!
Porky2

 

If your OS is W7 you'll need at minimum of 2 GB (yes, 3-4 is better). And as stated, a faster HD would also be necessary.

The reinstall fixes the registry mess that accumulates over time. But deleting the start-up connected baggage, you would also improve the start-up sluggishness as well. I'd start by deleting any unused programs, then removing the other start-up connected junk first. Then move on to hardware.

 

Stick to XP as it's the best OS for your system. As suggested above backup your files and reformat your HDD.

If you want a new one, you can invest in the Seagate Momentus XT (hybrid) and this will speed up your boot times - which is a very good thing for the non-enthuasiast laptop user. There are a lot of written and video guides around for replacing a laptop hard drive so you should worry about available info. It's not very difficult to accomplish.

As for your RAM, the maximum amount you can have is 2GB for the Dell Inspiron 6000. The type of RAM you have is a DDR2 533MHz (PC2-4200) 200-PIN SODIMM. You can add 1GB if you already have a 1GB stick in one slot. If you have two 512MB on two slots, you have the option of buying 2x 1GB RAM sticks. The installation should be straightforward.

It also wouldn't hurt if you can have the thermal paste replaced by a service center or a computer shop. This will extend the life of your laptop by at least a year I reckon. I recommend Arctic Cooling MX-3 paste should suit your needs.

Best of luck!

 

Thanks again for your help. If I don,t post for a while I may be having problems! (think positive)
Porky2

 

I don't think your laptop has a SATA drive if I read an earlier post correctly. If so you cannot upgrade to the Seagate Momentus XT. For ATA drives I believe Hitachi brought out a 250GB drive about a year back that was pretty nippy.

 

Yep, my bad, on that - sorry no Seagate Momentus XT for you then

 

You can look in device manager to see which it is. Google it and it will tell which RPM it is. You could bump up to a 7200RPM drive, which will have a bit more spring in it's step, but the largest capacity is 100GB if you care. Since they've not been being for 3-4 years, they command a bit of a premium on eBay, which is where you'll likely have to buy it. Otherwise there some good 5400RPM PATA drives if that floats your boat.

 

Intel Pentium M, PATA hard drive, 1GB memory, Windows XP. That's pretty old school.

You might be better off just buying a new laptop. For about $400 you can get a dual core CPU, bigger hard drive, more memory and Windows 7.

Just as an example, here's a Dell for $449:
http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15/pd?oc=dndozv1&model_id=inspiron-15

 

I think that goes outside the scope of DIY - non enthusiast user. By the time you pay the computer shop + purchase a new drive. You'd be better off buying a low end notebook for $300-400.

I'd stick with a hard drive update and nothing else. Since you'll be getting a brand new drive, that will take care of the "reformatting" that some people have suggested.

 

I agree. Selling your laptop on Ebay and then buying a new bargain bin laptop will put you far ahead of what any upgrade can do, would be less of a hassle if you are new to opening up your laptop, and would probably not cost you much more. Look for deals at local stores for $300 or so laptops.

 

On the other hand, he can get gain valuable experience working with his old laptop without incurring much of a loss should anything go wrong. He's also made it clear that there's still lots of life left in his current laptop for the limited uses he has in mind. With that in mind, an upgrade may still be viable. Since there is no hard and fast rule in making this type of decision, the OP will have to rely on the suggestion here, along with his own best judgment.

Personally, I say if the cost of an upgrade approaches half the cost of a new laptop, it's time to move to the next generation, and leave the old behind.

 

Loading a webpage like Hotmail creates a 80% CPU usage spike on my Core 2 Duo SU4100. With Youtube HD it reaches 90%. And that's with Adblock enabled.

A Pentium M would be maxed out often even during simple webbrowsing. He might believe it's his hard drive that's slowing him down but in reality his whole system is.

 

My own Dell Inspiron 1300 has a Celeron M at 1.6Ghz (OC-ed to 2.13Ghz), 2GB RAM and Win 7 Ultimate x86.

Web browsing in all kinds of forms works perfectly fine (standard web-browsing is NOT maxing out the cpu all the time - even when viewing medium to large youtube videos).
Slowdowns are not really present, and the laptop is capable of running 3dsMax 2009 (primarily for modelling meshes up to 500 000 to 1 million polygons).
Not trying to multitask on the laptop in question would be preferable, however it can also handle several tasks at once depending on how hard on the cpu they are.
So it's not really as 'slow' as some people think.

I did upgrade the HDD over the years, but it's an ATA 5400 rpm drive just like the previous one was, only with a larger capacity (and it was slightly faster).

To the OP:

It really depends on what your needs are.
Depending on the price of the hardware, you could always upgrade to a higher capacity HDD and 2GB RAM, plus you can also PIN-mod the cpu socket so the cpu would run on a higher frequency (mine does for 3 years now without issues).

Alternatively ... it might be time for a new computer.
But, if I was in your position, I'd wait until Sandy Bridge from Intel kicks in which should happen late this year, or early 2011.

Either way, upgrading the hdd and RAM (and a clean OS install) on your present laptop will give you a nice performance boost (provided the HDD and RAM aren't cost prohibitive ... but don't think they should be).
It will certainly be enough to hold you until Sandy Bridge comes out and you can splurge on a completely new laptop.

 

I didn't say it would be maxed out all the time, I said it would often be. Every time the CPU is maxed out there's a slow down. You may not be aware of it but it is still there.

 

Well, I can tell you that I have not noticed these slowdowns to begin with even when viewing multiple youtube videos on my old Inspiron.
Experiences differ from person to person.
I was actually looking at the task manager and just how often the cpu was maxed out ... it rarely was ... most of the load hovered over 50%, but went up usually up to 80% when viewing several youtube videos.
Standard browsing never really affected it to any noticeable level.

Browsing habits differ from computer to computer.
Oh and let's not forget that I don't have garbage programs installed on my Inspiron (which only uses MSE in the background).
The OP's OS is likely old and was probably filled with all kinds of programs that hinder performance.

If the OP doesn't need a new laptop just yet, he/she should wait until Sandy Bridge comes out (because it's a new architecture) and simply conducts a small upgrade of existing system with the HDD and RAM (re-intalling the OS in the process) which will keep him/her in the loop easily enough.

 

It might work ok on an overclocked Celeron, but even then a single Youtube HD video would max it out.

And as far as I know we don't know what CPU the OP has, he might have a Celeron M350 1.3GHz. We're talking less performance than a Atom N270.

 

For the record, the OP never mentioned if watching HD youtube videos was part of his/her browsing habits.
Furthermore, I just did one more check-up on my Inspiron watching a 720p (HD) video.
CPU utilization was oscillating between 75% and 92%.
There was no choppiness in sight once the video was fully loaded (aside from intermediate moments when the HDD was trying to process it all properly for the duration of the loading process - but that happens on contemporary computers with HDD's as well).

So I really see no problem here.
It's a single core cpu, and multitasking too much on it will choke it for sure, but honestly, for what the OP is doing, it will be adequate just a bit longer.

The Inspiron 6000 for the most part features a Pentium M at 1.7Ghz, 512MB RAM and 60GB HDD.

Upgrading the HDD to a higher capacity 5400 rpm unit along with a RAM upgrade to 2GB and a complete OS reinstall (which can be done for a relatively small fee) will improve overall performance enough to make the cut for contemporary browsing habits of most individuals.

Doing this upgrade and waiting until Sandy Bridge is released seems more than a reasonable solution to me because I don't see a point in wasting money on a hardware which will be replaced by a new generation in a few months time.

 

Deks, what's the CPU load when you play this clip in 720p full screen, let's say after 2:10?
How smooth is it?
Is your FSB overclocked?

Thing is, you won't be able to buy a 15" Sandy Bridge laptop for $400 in a few months time. So if you're going to wait for Sandy Bridge you'll either have to wait a lot longer or pay more.

 

Lol ... whoever mentioned paying $400 for Sandy bridge?
Can you get an i5 or an i7 laptop for $400 now?
No you can't.

So I fail to see what your point is.
As for testing the cpu load on the Inspiron ... I'll do it later today.
Right now I have pressing matters like cleaning up the house and buying groceries.

 

The point is: comparing the costs of upgrading hard drive, memory, CPU with the purchase of a new base line laptop.

The example I gave earlier was a Dell with T4500 2.3GHz dual core, 3GB memory, 320GB hard drive and Windows 7 for $449.

Financially it might be a better decision to sell his current laptop and buy the new one than investing in upgrades for a laptop that will soon be obsolete. That was my point.

Ps. The Dell I mentioned is probably not the best example. I expect you can get better deals for less money.

 

Ah ... see but the trick is the OP can upgrade his HDD and RAM (never mentioned replacing the cpu) for around $100.

A 160GB HDD ATA-6 interface (that's the one the inspiron 6000 has) costs $60
Newegg.com - Computer Hardware,Hard Drives,Laptop Hard Drives,ATA-6

And RAM upgrade (2GB), he can get for $48
Memory 1 GB Dell Inspiron 6000 - Computers - Compare Prices, Reviews and Buy at NexTag - Price - Review

So, all rounded up, the OP can upgrade his laptop to something much more reasonable for mere $108.

If the OP also cleans up the laptops air vents of dust and all, and re-installs the OS, the system will feel quite different.

And then, come Sandy Bridge, the OP can get it or something else.


Regarding the HD video you asked me to check, there is some chopiness present, but otherwise it's relatively fine.

And I repeat, we don't know if the OP uses youtube as part of his/her browsing routine, least of all if HD videos are on the list.

 

I am aware of that. Those $108 would probably extend the life time of the laptop for 1 year.

If the OP can sell his laptop for (give or take) $200, he could probably get a new one for $400. So he'd have to pay $200.

Then he'd be getting a much faster dual core CPU, more memory, bigger and faster hard drive and a new OS. That new laptop should suffice for three years.

I tend to think the latter is a better decision. Even if he makes less money selling his laptop, the replacement seems like the better decision idea to me because he'd also be getting the performance of a brand new system.

But hey if he believes spending >$100 on an old laptop is a better idea, I won't stop him.

 

totally agree with.. i have a 1.6Ghz Pentium M and it easily literally stops for a few secs as IE or Firefox load... but OP, if ur going to spend $100 on such an old laptop, its not worth it.. especially if u can get a $400 one easily now which would be much better.. maybe its time u upgraded.