Upgrade old laptop or buy a new low-end one?

[-sandro-]

So I trying to understand what to do here. I have an old laptop from 2010 with Intel Pentium P6100, 4GB DDR3 RAM, awful integrated graphics, 320GB 5400rpm HDD. I use it for studying, web surfing/youtube and working on websites (coding) and light photoshop. No gaming.
It's fine for what I do but I feel it's often sluggish for web browsing and when you use multiple apps at once. The problems are: absolutely utterly slow HDD and CPU. RAM is fine since I've never encountered shortage of memory.
I was thinking of refreshing it by:
- adding an SSD drive to run W7 from (DVD drive swap)
- replacing the CPU with an used i5-520m (same CPU family but about 30-40% faster)

Considering the battery is also dead and the psu is dying the total cost for this refresh would be approx €135. So I was thinking what if I add €70 more and I buy a new laptop all together? Problem is with my budget I really can't find a performance wise reason to do it. All €200-230 laptop I looked up all have either 2GB of RAM (I absolutely need 4) or newer lowend processors that perform worse than the i5 520m I wanna add. And I want to add SSD as well (you can't live without one once you try it ) !

I honestly completely removed AMD from my list. All Kabini systems (E-series mainly) perform worse than the Intel counterpart with no price advantage!
The CPUs I get for this price range are:
- E-series AMD (no way!)
- Ivy Bridge Intel Celeron 1007U, worse http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-520M-vs-Intel-Celeron-1007U)
- Haswell Intel Celeron 2957U, can't find benchmarks but should equal 1007U
- Bay trail Celeron N2810, worse than 1007U
- Ivy Bridge Celeron 1005M, the only one that starts to get close but still slower!

My conclusion is: if I want to buy a new laptop, and surpass the performance of a possible upgrade on the old notebook, I need to raise the budget to at least €300. Or is there a secret processor I'm not aware of?

What would you do?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'd put up with what I have, grumble, gripe, hem and haw, and save money for a few months, and then buy a €400-500 laptop.

New low-end CPUs are deceptively inexpensive. But they're no faster than midrange CPUs from 2009.

 

[-sandro-]

Maybe you're right. What about the 2020M?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

It's be about 50% faster than what you have. Not night-and-day.

Checking the specs on the P6100, I think I underestimated it a bit - it might be oomphy enough with an SSD to satisfy you.

What kind of condition is the laptop in otherwise? (Battery life? Any weird cranky-old-computer behavior like turning itself off? Busted screen hinges?) With an SSD and casual use, another year of happy computing may be a reasonable expectation.

 

[dbcooper1]

An SSD will cure most of the sluggishness with your laptop, especially coming from a 5400 RPM drive. I'm using one older than that (Dell D-series) in much the way you are and I replaced the drive with a 256GB SSD and intend to use it until something quits on it; night and day difference unless you're using it for something CPU intensive or need 3D.

 

[JWade]

I would do the ssd upgrade first, the processor, if you use the laptop plugged in mostly, then I wouldn't worry about the battery, but if the power supply is getting flaky, replace it definitely.

but definitely upgrade to an ssd. if you down the road get a new laptop you can always re-use the ssd in it, so a ssd upgrade is one that can get moved to another machine down the road. same with the ram if you go from 4gb to 8gb or even 16gb, though you said you haven't run out of memory.

 

[-sandro-]

Battery doesn't even work, it's dead, non-existent. I can only use it with the PSU. Yes the hinges are not great but whatever. Maybe I should just put an SSD and see what happens. It's not a wasted purchase like a CPU would be.

Edit: you basically said the same thing while I use typing lol. The only thing is it has a SATA2 controller, I bet it would be a night and day difference anyway.

 

[xgsound]

What is the laptop brand and model?
The I5-520m I saw said it was a 1288 pin socket. Your P6100 (passmark 1334) is listed as a 988 socket.

Fortunately a I5-3210m (passmark 3804) IS a socket 988 CPU and sells around $80 on ebay. It is also 22 nm and has HD 4000 graphics!

I would go for $80 for an almost 3 times faster CPU as long as you're sure you have a socket in the laptop. Since the SSD can go in the next laptop, you have to get that regardless.

Don't forget that power supplies are around $20 on Amazon and ebay.

 

[-sandro-]

It's an ASUS X52F, I checked now CPU-z and it's 988...I checked this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_G1. I'm confused!
Anyway how do I know if my DVD drive is 9.5 or 12.7mm thick to put a DVD caddy in there?

 

[xgsound]

When I added an SSD to my laptop, I used a $10 "laptop DVD 2nd HHD caddy". It replaces the SATA DVD in a laptop with a 2,5" drive port. I used free Aomei Partition Manager to move the system to the SSD, then changed places with the drives and had choice of extra storage or backup drives besides the speed of the SSD.

Jim

 

[-sandro-]

OK I found out I need the 12.7mm one. Where did you read I5-520m is not 988 socket CPU?

 

[xgsound]

**** ATTN ****

I5-520m IS available in 988 pin It can be in either pin layout. Sorry to mislead!!

According to this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/563714-asus-x52f-x2-can-upgraded.html the CPU is very accessable on the Asus. Please post results.

Jim

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Battery doesn't even work, it's dead, non-existent. I can only use it with the PSU. Yes the hinges are not great but whatever. Maybe I should just put an SSD and see what happens. It's not a wasted purchase like a CPU would be.

Edit: you basically said the same thing while I use typing lol. The only thing is it has a SATA2 controller, I bet it would be a night and day difference anyway.

Hmm...

I wouldn't put any money into the old laptop then. I'd just put a swear jar on the desk next to it.

Let the old laptop pay for the new laptop.

 

[dbcooper1]

Replacing a CPU in a laptop can turn into an adventure; make sure it's supported before you go any further and update to whatever BIOS is necessary before making the swap. Space is also limited, so heat could be an issue. If you do proceed with the upgrade of the drive, make it the boot drive and look for one with a low idle power requirement since that's what it will be doing most of the time. That's IF you intend to run it off a battery in the future, of course.

 

[s44]

Buy a Chromebook. If you need photo editing, run GIMP on Crouton.

Any pre-Haswell chip is utterly dated on the battery side, and for browsing and internet stuff the ultra-light ChromeOS flies compared to any similarly specced or priced Windows system.

 

[chubbyfatazn]

**** ATTN ****

I5-520m IS available in 988 pin It can be in either pin layout. Sorry to mislead!!

According to this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/563714-asus-x52f-x2-can-upgraded.html the CPU is very accessable on the Asus. Please post results.

Jim

The chip comes in both BGA1288 and PGA988 packages (ball grid array and pin grid array, respectively). However, you only want the PGA988 chip.

It's not feasible for the vast majority of people to replace a BGA (aka soldered) chip.

 

[xgsound]

My second mistake. The I5-3210m is not compatible with your socket! Yours is listed as 988a.

I've found that there is a 988 a and b socket. They are also called G1 and G2 or 988 and 989. The two sockets have two empty pins in different positions and very few, if any, CPUs work in both.

That's two strikes for me ... good thing we're not playing baseball.

If it was me I would have already ordered the I5-3210m CPU. I was checking for used Asus X52fs to upgrade when I found out about the sockets. I like them because the CPU in particular is so easily upgradable; and they have 3 USB, HDMI, VGA, and DDR3.

When you upgrade, please let us know how the HDMI output works with video or showing pictures.

Jim

 

[-sandro-]

First thing is upgrading to an SSD.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

First thing is upgrading to an SSD.

Ditto and +1 to that.

I just don't know what to say here, though. Once again -- for about the tenth time -- I can mention and tout my lappie-upgrade project, and people will sneer. It's old. It's a C2D Centrino 2.4 Ghz. The storage subsystem is SATA-II/AHCI.

An SSD boosted the bench score for sequential read to above 250. With 8GB of RAM, I can use 3 as a RAM-cache for the SSD, and the score shoots up to about 2,130. The 4K read score goes from around 50 to 250 with the caching.

Good enough for my "mobile computing needs." I can reallocate the SSD to a desktop when I want to junk the laptop. Probably not anytime soon.

I'll want to see if I can go two or three years on this old laptop before I actually buy a new one. Or a "Surface." OR some "hybrid" tablet-plus-keypad. I once heard of a guy who had a million miles on an old Volkswagon, which cost him less than a penny a mile. Who knows?

 

[-sandro-]

I'm curious, is RAM-caching something you can control?

 

[dbcooper1]

I'm curious, is RAM-caching something you can control?

There are third party programs for this, but most of the current generation Samsungs come with their version of caching.

 

[corkyg]

As for the SSD, remember that it can be used in a new laptop as well.

 

[holden j caufield]

just buy a used Lenovo Thinkpad T420 that is under warranty and call it a day. I've distributed so many of these not only to my family's business but to companies I've consulted with. From the sales guys, field guys, and everyone in between. They are literally tanks, and with the 9 cell battery the sales and field guys can go the entire day without needing to find an outlet. Don't confuse with t410, that runs hotter and the fan dies on those models.

Lenovo/IBM management tools, driver support, hardware support are so good compared to anything except maybe HP server support (I've got failed hard drives, memory hand delivered to me in 2 hours after the call).

 

[ringtail]

So you'd actually buy trash? (what about self - respect?)

Does that suggest you're a low self-esteem person? If true, then FIX THAT!!!!!!

BUY obsolescence?
Nawww. Save up and buy for yourself the excellent computer YOU DESERVE!

If you insist on buying for "cheap," then look into the Chromebooks. But as a friend, nawwww don't put your time there.

As for me, we do need to buy a new good strong laptop with full MS Windows and MS Office capabilities for use by a university student intern, so although not yet decided what specs we'll pull the trigger to buy, in general I intend to see comparative shopping done at http://www.powernotebooks.com/ (where I've already bought several laptops - those guys are GREAT!!!!)

Aside from the Clevo-based gaming machines which offer fantastic video, except video is traded off for diminished battery life, the main viable alternative to PowerNotebooks seems to be Lenovo.

Unfortunately, Lenovo machines seem generally to be under-speced for their price. We don't shop DELL any more because our past experience has been that DELL machines are shit, vastly less capable for the dollar than nearly all the other brands (Clevo, MSI, ASUS, etc). Maybe Dell has changed lately from utter bottom-barrel shit into a more acceptable QUALITY, but Dell has lost us forever, we're done with Dell. Dell wanted to charge us high fees for repairs that belonged within warranty. FU DELL, goodbye forever, you're not qualified to be one of our high quality suppliers. Maybe it's their good 'ol boy shit for brains Texas attitude or something! To HELL with DELL - NEVER AGAIN in this company!!!

Also, Apple has machines that, PRESENTLY, look "pretty" are over-pricedfor the specs (I've paid for several Apple machines). To HELL with APPLE!!!

If you want CHEAP then explore = Chromenbook.
If you want EXCELLENT (yet pricey) then http://www.powernotebooks.com/
If you just GOTTA have an Apple product then this is THEE superior place to get 100% HONEST fair deals:
http://micksmacs.com/

------------------------------------
Written from on the beach at Humqaq
(Point Conception), - "the Western Gate," the place revered by Indians all over the whole US and Canada as the door into eternity, the jumping-off place of human souls to the afterlife with the (what we now call) Chumash people of Goleta and Santa Barbara as its sacred custodians, since 13,500 years ago. link

Rincon in the foreground and the Santa Barbara coast

 

[-sandro-]

it this spam?