HP ZD7000 CPU/Hard drive switch?

[fire400]

The ZD7000 has a P4 3.2 GHz w/HT, 512mb DDR and a 4200 RPM HD.

I was thinking about taking out the 478 3.2ghz processor and replacing it with a northwood P4 2.4ghz nonHT. I'm guessing that this will generate much less heat and will for sure offer even better battery life. I seriously doubt there will be a noticable performance decrease in switching both processors around.

Also, I'm thinking of going for a 7200 RPM drive. I've seen them function on laptops, and I was just impressed that a 7.2k RPM drive will give offer desktop-like performance on a laptop. I don't have to worry about heat issues if I'm going to be taking out the 478 3.2ghz chip, I'm guess it's a Prescott... but I'm not too sure, and the laptop just gets too dang hot anyway, power consumption is terrible.

Any thoughts? I don't plan on upgrading the RAM since there are not going to be anything too intensive in operations with the laptop applications. Running Windows XP Professional.

Suggestions greatly appreciated...

 

[fbrdphreak]

I'll tell you if this is really worth the effort, but I need more specifics.

Download CPU-Z and run it on your laptop, report back with the CPU core and model # if it lists it (i.e. Pentium 4 518 or something).

In regards to RAM, UPGRADE IT. 512MB-->1GB can make a sizeable difference in XP. Depending how many slots you are using; $50 for 512MB and ~$110-120 for a 1GB.

 

[fire400]

I discussed with my friend that a 1 gig upgrade would be a good thing to look into, but he wants seek times to increase significantly, so I suppose the hard drive upgrade would be a first move before deciding whether is gig will be sufficient enough to run office applications?

 

[fbrdphreak]

You mean decrease significantly? A 7200RPM drive will help speed up things in general, and is one of the best upgrades you can perform on a laptop; it is also one of the most expensive. Also office applications show the least performance benefits from spindle speed.

Look here at the Office productivity score:
http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/detail.php?id=92&part=full&page=6

 

[fire400]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
You mean decrease significantly? A 7200RPM drive will help speed up things in general, and is one of the best upgrades you can perform on a laptop; it is also one of the most expensive. Also office applications show the least performance benefits from spindle speed.

Look here at the Office productivity score:
http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/detail.php?id=92&part=full&page=6

hot stuff thx

I have heard accounts of laptops starting up faster with a 7.2k rpm drive?

 

[modedepe]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
In regards to RAM, UPGRADE IT. 512MB-->1GB can make a sizeable difference in XP.

I definitely do not agree with this. If you're just using basic office apps you generally don't ever use up 512MB of RAM. If there is any question on this, have him open up the task manager and see if he's using more than that.

I'd go with the HD upgrade first for sure, he should see a much bigger difference with that.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Of course you won't use more than 512MB, it goes to the swap file. Watch the swap file grow as the physical mem usage increases too.

Fact of the matter is that your overall Windows experience is a fair bit smoother with 1GB than 512MB. Yes, I think a 7200RPM drive will make a more noticeable difference @ 512MB than going to 1GB with a 4200RPM. But when you consider a 7200RPM drive is minimum $150 and a 512MB DDR SODIMM is $50.....

I say do both, but money don't grow on trees 😉

 

[modedepe]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Of course you won't use more than 512MB, it goes to the swap file. Watch the swap file grow as the physical mem usage increases too.

Fact of the matter is that your overall Windows experience is a fair bit smoother with 1GB than 512MB. Yes, I think a 7200RPM drive will make a more noticeable difference @ 512MB than going to 1GB with a 4200RPM. But when you consider a 7200RPM drive is minimum $150 and a 512MB DDR SODIMM is $50.....

I say do both, but money don't grow on trees 😉

Well of course it will go to the swap file. However, I am saying that in most cases, running just basic office apps, you won't even use that much, physical or virtual. Right now I have 5 browser windows open, Word, Excel, Mathcad, AIM, and I'm only using 325 MB RAM. I agree it is a cheap upgrade, but I don't think it'll make very little impact. If you're on a budget you might be better just keeping the money.