im ok with upgrading regular pc's, i've built a few, but i have a friend who asked me to take a look at his labtop, its a p3 forgot how fast, but he wants to upgrade the ram, he has 160mb, i guess i gotta find out how much it can hold.. he has about a gig left on the hard drive, not sure im gonna upgrade that, but if i do, i just wanna make sure its not rocket science... sorry i dont have the model number, and its a compaq...

should i be able to do it? yes or no?

You can definetly add more RAM if it isn't maxed out (probably not, 160 is a weird number) and replacing the HD can be done too.

You can check all the hardware limitations from the Compaq website (if you know the model number of course).
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true that thanks, yeah i saw 160 mb of ram, and i was like umm ok...lol anyways once again.. .thanks

Can I piggy back on this thread?

I too have never upgraded a laptop, and I too have built many desktops.

My question is are all laptop hard drives compatable. I mean if I yank the one out of my laptop can I buy just any brand and put it into my laptop? Of course it will be a laptop Hard Drive that I get. I am curious because my current laptop is fine runs like a champ, in fact it is my safty net for when I try crazy stufff with my desktops. But I want a bigger hard drive in it 20 gigs just isn't cutting it anymore. I have taken apart my laptop before just to see whats inside, call me wierd, so I can put it all together, I just want to avoid paying a lot of money for something I can't use.

I think so, I believe all laptops use the same form factor and ide plug....