Upgrading components for an old laptop?

[ithehappy]

Hey fellas my brother has an old laptop, see attached screenshot. He has never formatted that and obviously it has become very sluggish to a point where its unusable any more. So he wanna upgrade RAM and stuffs, I advised him to purchase an SSD.

The question is, will that laptop take an SSD? If yes which category? SATA3? Also how much would it benefit if he upgrades the RAM too? He just wants a snappy performing unit that's all. Would SSD alone suffice or otherwise? Kindly advise on the same. There's no provision to purchase a new model for the time being.

Thanks in advance.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, looking up the CPU, tells me this:

https://ark.intel.com/products/47663/Intel-Core-i3-330M-Processor-3M-Cache-2-13-GHz-

2C/4T, early i3 CPU, 2.16Ghz
Max 8GB RAM, DDR3 800/1066

Currently contains 4GB. Depending on how many slots that you have for RAM, and what's in them, and/or soldered on, you may have some options to go to 8GB (best case), or 6GB (possibly).

Depending on what you want to use the laptop PC for, you may be fine with 4GB and a re-format and an SSD. I don't know how well Windows 10 will run on such an older CPU though, especially the iGPU.

Edit: This is strictly a guess, without knowing the exact model number of the laptop and looking it up, but the CPU was released in 2010, and I think that by then, the SATA transition from IDE was complete for new products, so you should have a 2.5" SATA drive bay somewhere in that laptop, that could / should easily be upgradable to an SSD.

I recommend a Crucial MX500 500GB SSD, around $72 I think last time I checked.

Edit: ARK also says that CPU is 64-bit capable, so 64-bit Windows 10 should be your goal. Or maybe Linux Mint 19 64-bit, if Windows 10 doesn't have decent iGPU drivers for that older CPU.

 

[eikelbijter]

It will benefit GREATLY from an SSD and if you can up the RAM to 8GB you'll have a GREAT fast machine, I promise you. According to Crucial it takes a 2.5" Sata SSD and can support up to 8GB in 2 4GB DIMMS.

R

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Sony/vaio-vpccw21fx

 

[ithehappy]

Thanks both. On the SSD, will that replace the existing hard drive on the laptop, or is there additional space to install the SSD separately? That would make him decide what size to get.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Chances are, it would replace the existing HDD.

If the laptop is 15.6" or larger, it probably has a CD/DVD bay drive, which often, can get "caddies" for HDDs to stick in there instead of the optical drive.
Then you could put the SATA 2.5" SSD into the primary drive bay inside, and a larger HDD into the caddie in the optical bay.

That's only if he's willing to forego the optical drive entirely, and he needs more storage than you can get in an SSD.

But you can buy up to, I think, 4TB now for consumer SATA SSDs, with "Enterprise" 2.5" SSDs even larger capacities, but they'll cost you $$$.

 

[JWade]

I would go for an ssd, do a fresh reload of windows, hook up his old drive via external usb and transfer his files. laptop came with 2x2gb ram. it can take a max of 2x4gb ram ddr3. processor is also upgradeable. you can get an i5 560m off ebay for $9 ish shipped.

if I had to pick one single upgrade go for the SSD and fresh install. back up his files to a usb thumb drive before switching drives

 

[corkyg]

All are good suggestions, but to go beyond 4GB of RAM, the OS must be 64 bit. If it currently has 32 bit, that might be a hurdle at the outset. To replace the HDD with a SSD, that would not be an issue.

 

[ithehappy]

Thanks all, again. Asked him to purchase an SSD and install Windows 7/10 fresh, that should do it.

 

[xgsound]

By all means try the SSD first. The difference over a 5500 RPM HDD will be surprising. See how much of the current HDD is being used to decide what size. Try a minimum of 500GB. You can use a Caddy in place of the DVD (usually 1 screw holds it in) to clone the HDD to the SSD if you want, or to transfer old data, backup, or for mass storage such as a 1TB drive or larger.

More memory never hurts, but be certain to have a 64 bit system if you add it.

 

[fire400]

Samsung Evo 120gb on Windows 8.1 x64 will give it snappy performance.

Apply 3rd party shell interface (start menu force-overlay) if desired.

Windows 10 will crunch too much data, and Windows 7 on older systems like i3-gen1 may have a difficult time processing data quickly on certain beefier-websites. (realistically, depends on native OS-hardware engineering, can vary from motherboard manufacturers, this is just a general statement)

The 8gb RAM may help, but not always necessary for snappy performance if minimal applications will be installed/running. (after fresh OS install and very minimal app usage)