Graz

Got an old Dell laptop that I'm thinking of doing something with so the wife and kids can get some use out of it. I've recently got a nice new ASUS jobby with an i7 and full HD screen so I'm okay

The laptop in question is an Inspiron 17" of a 2008 vintage. The screen on it is pretty good (Dell Truelife 1920x1200). It has a Core 2 Duo T7250 clocked at 2GHz, 2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM, and a 250GB HDD. Unfortunately it's running the woeful Windows Vista and is slowly grinding to a halt

I have two trains of thought:

1. Make it an Ubuntu Linux native machine and do nothing with the hardware. Should make it run much quicker, would do most if not all of what the wife / kids might want from it (i.e. web, documents, etc.) but it will confuse the missus as the user interface will be unfamiliar initially.

2. It has space for 2 x 2.5" HDD so whack a 120GB SSD in it (£70), maybe double the memory to 4GB (£50) and install Windows 7 on the new SSD (£70 OEM Home Premium). Total cost £190.

Is it worth spending the money on it or would I be better of putting it towards a new machine? Could still do the Ubuntu route regardless. I'm sure it would be significantly quicker with the SSD and Win7 but it doesn't get away from the fact that the hardware is quite old.

Thoughts?

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

I'd be surprised if it wasn't fast enough for web and Office with a nice clean install of Windows 7 - ditch Vista. The latest BIOS and drivers should help too.

From there, I'd upgrade the RAM to as much as it can take and then only an SSD should you find it not fast enough. The SSD will of course be a big boost, but might not be necessary for what's expected of it.

Tidgy

as above my first responce would be sack pista, its a crock of **** and try a clean win 7 install, maybe a ram upgrade (4gb will be cheap as chips assuming you can get it) and should do you for a few years yet of surfing and general office/homework

i wouldn't bother with an ssd myself, by the time you have ram, ssd and windows your heading towards the price of a new laptop so not worth salvaging the old one

£400 - http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-17-3721/pd

and a darn sight higher spec

billyray911

iTrader: (4)

My Dell 1721 laptop kept on crashing recently-I only use it for photos and iTunes,so didn't want to spend £400+ on a new one as it's in great nick still.
Upgraded the ram with 2x2gb from MrMemory for £25.36 each and it's working perfectly now.Ill be ditching Vista asap though.
http://www.mrmemory.co.uk/

riiidaa

iTrader: (2)

vista = bin

Try Linux Mint

Beef

HDD wise, depending on how much capacity you need to give it, you might find one of these interesting:


500GB hybrid SSHD; combines 8GB of SSD with a 500GB platter. Regularly accessed data/applications still benefit from SSD-level speeds, but you don't sacrifice storage, plus the drive is cheaper.

Graz

Thanks for the help so far. I'm under no illusion that Vista is a large part of the problem so getting shot of that for either Win7 or a flavour of Linux is essential.

Anyone know how to get Win7 any cheaper than ~£70 for an OEM licence (aside from a pirate copy)? Think this may be worth trying first. A new HDD (i.e. the SSD) would simplify the install but is probably overkill so may just stick with the current drive.

I'm sure more RAM will help too, unfortunately as the machine is quite old the cost of memory for it isn't quite as cheap as expected. Looking at around £50 to upgrade to 4GB, the two slots currently have a 1Gb module in each so would have to ditch them for 2Gb modules

Graz

Seems like you can get an OEM copy on eBay for around £40. Supposedly from some Dell hardware that was never actually sold?!? Sounds dodgy but if it has a sticker with a product key and M$ let you activate then it suits me. It's going on a Dell machine too Feedback looks positive?

Can get some second hand RAM from there for less than new.

andy97

iTrader: (1)

I just cloned my old hdd to a ssd drive on my hp laptop. The performance increase was spectacular. I am running xp pro windows full office 2003 and all my own particular programs. I also cloned the drive again for back up. Get rid of vista install a dual boot linux windows 7 setup. Install linux first windows will then create dual boot setup for you. Definitely use ssd it has made my 6 year old laptop as fast as my wife's i7 laptop

Graz

After trawling eBay for a while today the Scan outlet had some manufacturer refurbished OCZ Vertex 2 SSDs - £43.50 for 120Gb & a 6 month guarantee so jumped on one of those. Then got 4GB of RAM for £32 and a hopefully legitimate copy of Win7 Home Premium for £33.

Just a shade under £110 to revitalise the old Dell. I'll let you know how I get on

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Two main things that will cause vista to be slow:

HD and RAM

SSD and more RAM will be of benefit regardless of OS you choose.

Also if its the original OS supplied from the Dell factory, no doubt it will have a load of crapware installed on it which will make Vista run terrible. FWIW Vista will run alot better and faster without crapware, but without install disks to do a virgin install you are screwed to using the restore disks, which won't fix it

FWIW I'm still using vista...via SSD The office computers are Vista too with e6500 CPUs but with strict rules in what crapware and toolbars are installed (none ) and non-intrusive/resource friendly antivirus (nod32), performance is acceptable, but they only have 2GB of RAM and standard HDs.

ScoobyWon't

Amazon normally has dirt cheap Crucial RAM for Dell laptops. I'd be surprised if it cost much more than £30 to upgrade the RAM.

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Seconded

Have used LINUX MINT as it's based on UBUNTU has a windows 7 look to it which Ubuntu has a different desktop (unity desktop) experience which I could not get used to. Plus with Mint you can update and install packages the same as Ubuntu.
I have used LINUX MINT 14 MATTE edition.

Graz

Got a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit now with an activation key.

Have to have a look at Mint though, will try it in a virtual machine.

Partially dismantled the Dell last night as the new memory had arrived, realised that utilise the second hard drive bay some sort of caddy is required (Dell specific) but after a few minutes searching on eBay got one ordered for less than £6. Memory upgrade works fine though

Graz

Finally got round to fitting the hard drives and installing Windows 7 and week or so back.

The difference in performance is amazing, nearly as fast to boot as my new i7 based laptop. Should enable us to get a few more years use out of it.

First time using a SSD and I must say in terms of performance it's possibly one of the best upgrades you could ever do.

What's also cool is that I have both hard drives in the machine and by hitting the boot options key (F2?) as it starts I can choose to boot from the old hard drive so I can clean it all up, and move any useful data of it before I eventually reformat it to be used as a data drive. I know I can obviously access it from the Win 7 install as well but for some stuff it's easier to be in the original OS.

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

Staggering, isn't it? Really breathes new life into old hardware