can i upgrade my laptop? URGENT PLEASE

[liquidmonkey]

i have a lenovo 3000 v100 laptop with a INTEL T2400 @ 1.83GHz that i would like to upgrade a little bit. oh yeah, running XP pro SP3.

am i able to stick in...

4 gigs of ram, i'm thinking of getting 2 sticks of 2gig kingston DDR2 ram.
(there are 2 sticks of 512MB at the moment)

a new HDD, want to get a 2.5" 320gig Seagate or Western Digital HDD. they are all a common size right? so it will fit right?
(there is a 2.5" 100Gig used at the moment)


first time upgrading a laptop and its much easier than i thought as its all below behind a cover or two, just not sure of components in a laptop.

thanks for your answers!

 

[divvot]

Hmm. That is a pretty high upgrade. Your maximum upgrade for memory would probably be 2GB for that one (1GB+1GB). As for the hard drive - i'm not sure. I can't see why you couldn't upgrade that. As long as you make sure it is the same connection as your last HDD and the same size. You should be fine.

BTW - Maybe think about an external HDD? They are cheaper and mostly fairly quiet. Just a thought

 

[alekxz29]

4gigs of RAM in a laptop sounds iffy... but if you can find it, more power to you! I don't think there are 2gig sticks made for laptops though...

 

[IAntDemo]

He might be using big applications so yes 4gb is good enough.

2GB is out for laptops at about 25pound.

As to harddrive, sound good, go for it man, it will improve your system, but it all depends on what your actually doing.

Also as for your HDD, has it got a chassis case around it? also if you buy one, remember you might need it unless you take the old one out and replace it.

 

[liquidmonkey]

yeah, i do like to use most adobe products, PS, LR, P, AE, plus do some video editing and of course, like my games but most won't intall

i know they make 2gig sticks for laptops but a few people say my laptop will only handle 2 gigs max, why would that be? i thought XP could handle 4gigs (well, 3.5gig max).

the chipset is a INTEL T2400 @1.83 GHz

 

[rohan23]

Unless you're running 64-bit XP, 4GB won't do anything. You can use upto 3.5GB. But, it's a waste of money since Windows won't ultilize more than 2GB. As for a laptop hard drive. Get an external. It will save you plenty of time and money. Plus, you can use your old one and new one. If space is an issue, that hard drive should be fine. I'd recommend this hard drive.

 

[JogaBonito1502]

Well even if he could put 4GB in there I doubt he would use all of it. Additionally your motherboard might not even support that many. I would go ahead and upgrade to 2GB (sufficient for XP) and upgrade the HDD. Divvot mentions buying an external HDD which wouldn't be a bad idea, however I'd hate to carry that around.

 

[DJ-CHRIS1]

Aaah misinformation.

Yes 32 bit XP can only address a bit more than 3GB of ram usually. And it's very easy to use 4GB of ram if you have it, even moreso while doing intensive tasks this user says he is doing.

Yes, they make 2GB ram modules for laptops. I have 2x2GB in my laptop.

According to Intel, your laptop chipset supports up to 4GB, but I also found places that said it only supports 2GB. I have a feeling your laptop only has the capability having one memory module in order to save weight and size, meaning you could only support half of the maximum memory that Intel says it can handle. My old ultra-portable was the same way, it sucks.

 

[liquidmonkey]

Unless you're running 64-bit XP, 4GB won't do anything. You can use upto 3.5GB. But, it's a waste of money since Windows won't ultilize more than 2GB. As for a laptop hard drive. Get an external. It will save you plenty of time and money. Plus, you can use your old one and new one. If space is an issue, that hard drive should be fine. I'd recommend this hard drive.

i like your suggestion on the external and its true, what am i going to do with the old one??? plus i save some cash!

although i already have 4 externals (all full) i think now i'll be getting myself one of the new 500gig Western Digitals, they are nice and small plus only USB powered which is a HUGE plus over the previous mybooks i have bought.

and yup, will get the 2gig of RAM now as well.



any type of RAM should do right? or does it have to be LENOVO ram? i was going to get 2 sticks of 1gig kingston PC2-5300 DDR SDRAM 200 PIN.



...

Aaah misinformation.

Yes 32 bit XP can only address a bit more than 3GB of ram usually. And it's very easy to use 4GB of ram if you have it, even moreso while doing intensive tasks this user says he is doing.

Yes, they make 2GB ram modules for laptops. I have 2x2GB in my laptop.

According to Intel, your laptop chipset supports up to 4GB, but I also found places that said it only supports 2GB. I have a feeling your laptop only has the capability having one memory module in order to save weight and size, meaning you could only support half of the maximum memory that Intel says it can handle. My old ultra-portable was the same way, it sucks.

my laptop has TWO memory modules but lenovo's specs say that it will only support a max RAM of 2gig, so that would be 1gig in each module = 2gigs.
a shame its limited to 2gig, 4gig would have been sweet.


and on the whole 4gigs for XP thing. my desktop at home has 4gig and there was a significant difference between 2gig and 4gig, especially since i do use graphics programs.

what does VISTA support as far as RAM or even better, windows 7? i'd love to juice it up with 16 gig of RAM if possible

 

[IAntDemo]

well photoshop does use alot of ram and is a very heavy application.