Refurbishing Laptop help

[Philzo-93]

Basically, I'm off to Uni in September and am looking to refurbishing my laptop rather than simply purchasing a new one as I am hoping to get an iPad within the next month or so.

Does anyone know anywhere that offers services in refurbishing laptops at all? If possible I want to change it from Vista to Windows 7 too along improvement in memory and RAM and the speed of the laptop.

If there are any computer wizards on here, it's a Dell Inspiron 1520 with an Intel Celeron M built within it.

Thanks in advance!

 

[RexCathedra]

If your uni work requires much in the way of writing papers and essays and such, you will find yourself swearing at the iPad. As cool as it is, if you live in a text-dominated world, it will drive you nuts -- a laptop, with a proper keyboard, is still your best friend under those circumstances.

The memory addition, and hard drive upgrade, etc. are doable by mere mortals. Loads of good video on YouTube.

I haven't seen a laptop CPU, though. that was swappable, in years.

Adding more memory makes a lot of difference. My son's an architecture student, and he's soldiering on with a 5-year old Lenovo Thinkpad, despite running some serious design and rendering software (Rhino), on the strength of added memory and an OS that can run it (Vista couldn't see more than 3 GB...)

 

[Weretheweststand]

If your uni work requires much in the way of writing papers and essays and such, you will find yourself swearing at the iPad. As cool as it is, if you live in a text-dominated world, it will drive you nuts -- a laptop, with a proper keyboard, is still your best friend under those circumstances.

You can get a keyboard for the iPad

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

You can get a keyboard for the iPad

This.

 

[Itman-dan]

How much are you willing to spend on the referb? CPU would be a nightmare in that machine have to remove everything to get to the board. Win 7 upgrade is quite cheap £70 for the upgrade cd and simple to do. How much ram is currently installed? Win 7 needs 2 gig to run smoothly but 3-4 would be much better. Also for ultimate speed get a ssd hard drive, expencive but worth it.
iPads are annoying to work on for long periods of time.

 

[beorhthelm]

forget CPU upgrades, too expensive and hassle. for most everyday purposes CPUs are well overspec'd these days. A RAM upgrade and a reinstall of the OS will make the machine feel like a new faster machine anyway and will be cheap. just remember to backup your data first (and apps).

 

[RexCathedra]

You can get a keyboard for the iPad

It's not a comfortable pairing for long pulls of writing, though.... you wind up having to prop the iPad at a good angle, and in a good spot relative to the keyboard -- and then you've re-invented the laptop.

 

[redneb]

forget CPU upgrades, too expensive and hassle. for most everyday purposes CPUs are well overspec'd these days. A RAM upgrade and a reinstall of the OS will make the machine feel like a new faster machine anyway and will be cheap. just remember to backup your data first (and apps).

As above but if you're installing Windows 7 it might run a bit slow. Celeron chips are cheap and slow. There are loads of Windows Services you can turn off which will make it faster. Obvious ones being:

- Windows firewall
- windows security center
- Server
- Browser
- BITS (background intelligent trasnfer service)
- loads more

Here's a link below. Check you dont need them though.

Google Groups

Also be sure to go to Start -> Control Panel -> Power Option . Change to High Performance.

 

[jackanada]

Don't forget you now get stuff cheaper student

http://www.software4students.co.uk/products/microsoft-windows-7-professional-upgrade

£49.95 instead of £219

 

[Evil Edna]

Vista is a ram hog anyway just get windows 7 and job done!

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

It's not a comfortable pairing for long pulls of writing, though.... you wind up having to prop the iPad at a good angle, and in a good spot relative to the keyboard -- and then you've re-invented the laptop.

No, the iPad sits on the Apple iPad keyboard at a good angle anyway. I don't use mine regularly. When I do, it is just as comfortable and quick as typing on a laptop.