Cel. 766 to 1.1g? Soup'n up my laptop to learn

[SyCoRex]

Ambitious old fart wants to tackle strange new world. I have a Compaq Presario 12xl500 (1200) It has a 766mhz celeron, 5g hdd, windows xp home version (originaly came with me) , 184mb memory, a floppy and a cd rom.
My wife is back in college, and needs power point and other stuff. The hard drive is about full, logicaly i should pack it in and spend 5c on an ebay lap top, but i started drag racing a 68 Merc Cougar and repaired the seqential tail lights and vac can head lights by myself, then moved on to a 86 5ltr Mustang. I figure its time i get aquainted with the computer revolution.
What i want is more memory(320 max), at least a 40 gig hdd(at 5400rpm?) a cdrw-dvd( so she can write her power point presentations) and possibly to upgrade the 766 celeron to what ever the most i can put in there. This is as much to learn about hot rodding a lap top as it is to get the performance.
If you think all this is STILL gona leave her with a machine that we'll have to replace in 3 years, let me know. Ill start with a better machine, but id love to upgrade this machine so she would appreciate what i did.
Thanks for you time and your helping out a "newbe".

 

[Rik]

Laptops are not designed for upgrading. All you can do is add memory and a bigger drive. The processor is permanently fixed to the mother board and replacing the whole lot is the only way to upgrade. You would therefore be much better off getting a new one.

 

[SyCoRex]

766-1.1g

Thanks for the reply. Hmmm... bummer man.
Has anyone replaced the hard drive in one of these laptops? Is it simpler or more complex then other brands? I imagine that the memory is a cake walk. What about switching out the cd rom to a cd writer, pretty straight forward?

 

[SyCoRex]

766-1.1g

Ooops probibly wrong forum! I ll take a look

 

[Rik]

The problem with laptops is cost. All of what you asked is possible, but it will be very expensive to do. Laptop hard drives are about the easiest type of drive to replace as there are no settings on them, all you need to do is make sure the bios is ok with it.

 

[Justin]

The processor is permanently fixed to the mother board and replacing the whole lot is the only way to upgrade. You would therefore be much better off getting a new one.

No, this is not true. There are models out there with CPUs permanently affixed to the PCB. However, there are many more out there in which you can replace the processor or even build your own laptop from the ground up.

 

[SyCoRex]

Really? Was it just really cheap laptops that had the chip soldered in? Why would they do it to some laptops and not others and can i tell if mine is like that without tearing it apart?

2001 Compaq Presario 1200 (12XL500) 766mhz celeron, 5g hdd, windows me, floppy.

 

[Rik]

Im not sure about the Presario, i expext its a soldered one. You could try searching for info on it as i very much doubt compaq will help you to change anything. As i said before, laptop parts arent cheap so it will cost you.

 

[SyCoRex]

rik, are you out to sell me a computer? haha just kidding. A new laptop is like what... 1G min? So what really is expensive?

 

[Rik]

I just dont want see you to spend lots of money on upgrades that may not even fit, thats all. And, yes, youd be better off with a pc but im not selling any. There are some cheaper laptops about these days that are a lot less than 1k but its up to you. Its just that ive had friends spend loads of cash on hard drives and dvds for laptops then find that the cpu cant be upgraded and so theyve wasted all that money.

 

[Justin]

SyCoRex, you can get a fairly decent laptop for just over $700. In fact, the company I work for (local only) is selling AMD Sempron 2800+ machines for under $650. You don't have to spend over $1000 to get a laptop. You can even get an Athlon64 Laptop for under $1000, depending on when you buy.


The only way to tell is to actually open up your laptop. I would suggest getting a new cheaper one, then using the existing one to tinker with. There is also a company called COBOC which specializes in laptops you pick parts for:

http://www.coboc.com/diy/Config.asp?Section=10001

(no I do not work for them)