HELP-Upgrade an old Dell Latitude CP or Buy new Laptop???

So taking the old one is better? Well, I can't take it how it is now.. it's too slow, low on everything and it's just old! What do you suggest I can do? Like I asked before, if I change the processor, can I change everything else? Where can I buy everything at good prices?

Thanks.

It works and if someone rips me off I won't feel so bad.

You are traveling international so I'm giving you the warning about such. You don't want the rude surprise of ... where is that laptop?

I would not upgrade that either. Just do the usual uninstall of any software you haven't used in 1 year, then run Adaware, Spybot, Cwshredder, Stinger and Housecall to eject all that it finds. Run disk cleanup, turn off System Restore and back on then run the disk defrag.

Usually, that breathes some old speed back into the machine. NO CPU is available so don't bother....

Bob

Should I uninstall the Windows XP Hotfixes or no? I am now uninstalling the old software and then I will download and run the programs you suggested above.

Thanks.

I understand what you're saying but this old laptop is almost useless. While I'm in France, I have to work on a project, be able to connect to the internet wireless and I dont think this laptop will be able to do that. I mean, what you can do in 2 minutes on my desktop can take you 10 to 20 minutes on this laptop.

Putting aside that I'm going abroad, that's why I was asking what would be better... to buy a new one or build my own laptop. Thanks for your help...

My wonder laptop (wonder why I still have it) is some i266mmx with 64M RAM running Windows 2000 and a wifi 802.11b PCMCIA card. It's an Armada and just runs. 4 minutes to boot and another 30 seconds to see the Firefox and google.com You have 2X the RAM and I'd expect better performance than my wonder laptop.

My bet is it needs the old cleanup.

Bob

Hey Proffit, I will try to do the steps you told me and see what happens. A big part of the problem with this Dell Latitude CP is that it only has 6GB of a hard drive... if that! But I will delete some crap and download and run the programs you told me earlier and I will let you know what happens.

Thanks for your help.
YLC

So what do you use it for? I mean, I guess I'm just used to my Compaq Presario PC, it's so fast. But even when I defrag the laptop, nothing happens. And it's always saying it's low on Virtual Memory... what does that mean and will that stop once I do the steps you told me to do?

Thanks!

I have software that I developed and the question always comes up what the bare minimum hardware it runs on. This i266mmx 64M RAM 4GB hard disk machine with Windows 2000 is my answer and demo. The demo is now Wifi based so I can unpack the laptops and be up and running with no AC or visible LAN.

The wonder laptop is also able to double as portable internet access since I take the machine in the trunk everywhere. If it gets ripped off, I might not care too much.

Bob

And it's always saying it's low on Virtual Memory... what does that mean and will that stop once I do the steps you told me to do?

Will I be able to put an Ethernet/Internet Wireless card on it to use it in France?

That depends on the OS, but for most versions I write "let windows manage it." If you are asking how to set the virtual memory size, then I ask you repeat what OS and try the Start, Help items as well as google.

I was able to add the wifi card.

Bob

Hi

I have Dell C510 (128mb,10GB HDD, 1Gz celeron) and it is the bain of my life. I spend every weekend trying to uninstall, defrag, soup up, but the bottom line is it's just rubbish! I work as a research scientist and as a necessary part of my work I need to program in Matlab(512mb min reccomended), Mathematica, Labview, store many captured images and video for processing real time, use XP and run security sofwtware in line with the university's policy, regularly use office and PPT. The kind of programs I need to run take 48 hours whereas on a desktop they take 3 hours. I have to burn my results to CD every few weeks since I am always reaching the capacity of my laptop. Although I have turned off everything I can at start-up it still takes 10-15 mins to boot up, up to 3 mins to open a new folder, is always out of memory, and with all the deadlines I have to meet I think I'm going to have a heart attack!
My point is that some users (especially scientific) do have a high performance requirement and if I could afford to upgrade this relic I would. I think you should work out what programs you need to run.