Speed up my slow labtop

[KevinIsLost]

how should i speed up my dell inspiron 1100 witha cleleron processor?
srry about the vauge details

[nd4spdbh2]

well its probably got a 5400 rpm hd in it right now... a 7200 rpm hd would make quite a bit o diff... pair that with an upgraded cpu and it will give a good performance boost with not much money.

[KevinIsLost]

srry, but its a labtop, not a desktop

[JDXNC]

srry, but its a labtop, not a desktop

You can still change the hard drive, but I would suggest more along the lines of more ram and/or faster cpu. That celeron is probably a Celeron M, which is what I've seen in most 1100's, this would be easily swapped out a Pentium M, that would give you a pretty decent speed boost, and can't be found cheap on ebay. If you have anything less than 512MB of ram, upgrade for sure, heck, I would say go for at least 1GB. Memory is usually very easy to add, most of a cover on the bottom where the ram slots are, simply open it up and add/change stick of ram.

[GTengineer]

What exactly do you mean by slow? do you mean loading Windows and programs? If so the cheapest and easiest solution is to do a clean Windows installation and get rid of all the cluttering. Also remove all the junk from the startup list (type msconfig at Run).

[aaa]

1100 uses the P4 Celeron... meaning Pentium 4 upgrades, not M. Seeing how hot those cpus are there are probably only a few cool enough to work.

Step one is reinstall
Step two is get more ram

That's it IMO. CPU will not make much difference. I guess a 7200 hd might but they cost alot, I'd save the money for my next laptop.

[JDXNC]

1100 uses the P4 Celeron... meaning Pentium 4 upgrades, not M. Seeing how hot those cpus are there are probably only a few cool enough to work.

Step one is reinstall
Step two is get more ram

That's it IMO. CPU will not make much difference. I guess a 7200 hd might but they cost alot, I'd save the money for my next laptop.

Ah yes, I'm thinking of the 1300, my apologies. So ya, not really much gains to be had at upgrading the cpu.

[orion456]

1100 uses the P4 Celeron... meaning Pentium 4 upgrades, not M. Seeing how hot those cpus are there are probably only a few cool enough to work.

Step one is reinstall
Step two is get more ram

That's it IMO. CPU will not make much difference. I guess a 7200 hd might but they cost alot, I'd save the money for my next laptop.

Chkdsk /r, CleanUP, Defrag.

---------$ $ $ -----------

more ram (will help if you have less than 512mb)

7200 HD won't add more than 15% speed boost and only sometimes.

New CPU is going to be too hot and not enough performance for the expense.

------- Alternative -----------

Save your $ for a better laptop and don't sink another penny in the clunker.

[KevinIsLost]

what if i have some programs that i have lost the install disk for, how should i reload windows xp?

[orion456]

what if i have some programs that i have lost the install disk for, how should i reload windows xp?

Windows XP home or pro?

Do you still have the original xp disks?

[aaa]

I can't think of an easy way to keep your old programs when you reinstall...
So I guess since reinstall is out, you should defrag then run msconfig to remove programs you don't need from startup.

BTW, how much ram do you have now?