Is it possible to upgrade a laptop? Laptop upgrade. How to update an old computer? Changing the hard drive and memory

One of these laptops is 8 years old, but it doesn't look old at all

Fear that new laptop from the previous manufacturer will be less convenient than the old one, it’s not worth it - in all models, except for the acrobatic “transformers”, the design and basic controls have not changed for a good ten years. And technical progress in laptops has slowed down, especially over the past 4 years, when manufacturers mobile processors kindly abandoned mutual competition, after which the increase in power in computers began to arrive “by the teaspoon” once every year or two. Progress as such cannot be denied - a lot of water has passed under the bridge since 2011, and an outdated model will not be able to compete with a comparable-priced new product on an equal footing. Therefore, replacing a three or four year old computer with a current one with a similar design will most often give the owner the same feeling of quality that has disappeared over time from the previous laptop.

It is also possible that the devastation is not in the “body”, but in the “head” of the device - before starting to open its mobile computer, we advise you to make sure that the reason for the slowness does not lie in the software.

Risk group: laptops that are not suitable for upgrading

Almost every laptop has a so-called “Service Manual” - repair instructions in which the manufacturer explains how to disassemble the model (in English, however). Before you “dive headlong into the pool” and try to disassemble your pet yourself, it would be useful to evaluate the experience of other users and the manufacturer’s advice: there may be much more “messages” in the design of a laptop than it seems at first glance.

Little by little, whole classes of devices are being formed that are unsuitable or extremely troublesome for upgrading at home. First of all, these are “laptop-tablets” with a detachable keyboard, hybrid “flip-flop” laptops with a display that can rotate 360 degrees, and simply extremely thin and light Ultrabook class computers: in the latter case, the RAM is almost always soldered on the motherboard, graphics integrated into the processor, and the drive is a capacious SSD, which is extremely difficult to access.

One day I came across an old broken laptop. The screen of the device was broken, and the seven-year-old electronic components were not enough even for comfortable work on the Internet. It was a pity to throw away the laptop, and the idea came to breathe a second life into the device with minimal costs.

And most of my friends have repeatedly contacted me with a request to speed up their work or home computers, but with a small financial investment. So how do you update? old computer or upgrade your laptop with the least amount of time and money?

How to speed up an old computer?

Let's look at ways to speed up a computer using the example of a broken laptop. Our old laptop did not support the new fast data connectors, but it had an HDMI video port, and we decided to use the laptop to connect to a TV and watch movies. Since the speed of the old hard drive left much to be desired and there was no question of comfortable work - the decision was made to replace the slow hard drive with a fast modern SSD.

First of all, we purchased a brand new 120 GB SSD drive, thermal paste, and a special adapter that allows you to connect HDD computer instead of a DVD drive.

In most modern laptops, manufacturers provide a special PCI connector for special compact SSD drives in M.2 and mSATA formats.

But the hero of this article has only one hard drive and categorically refuses to have any additional connectors other than a slot for a second RAM stick.

That is why special slides were needed to place the old hard drive in place of the obsolete DVD drive.

Disassembly and upgrade

The laptop was disassembled. Broken screen was disconnected as unnecessary. The laptop has been cleaned of dirt and dust. The thermal paste on the processor was also completely replaced. In place of the old one HDD drive a fast and budget solid-state was installed on 320 gigabytes SSD drive for 120 GB. The DVD drive was removed from the device and an adapter with an old HDD was placed in its place.

Unfortunately, the laptop battery lost capacity and stopped working, and it was decided to abandon it.

After cleaning and installing new components, the next step was to install a light and fast operating system. There are many popular operating systems of the Linux family in the world for weak devices. But the laptop previously had the Windows 7 operating system pre-installed by the manufacturer, which was upgraded to Windows 10 for free. The new system worked quickly and more stable than the previous one, and it was decided to stay with the licensed system.

Monitor connection problems

And then the first one appeared underwater rock. The laptop did not have its own display, and its monitor was a TV connected via an HDMI cable. In this configuration, the image on the monitor appeared only after the operating system loaded. There was no way to configure the BIOS and reinstall the operating system blindly, and the broken monitor was unable to display images on the screen. Fortunately, for some reason the old analog VGA video connector was left in this laptop model. When connecting the device via VGA to an old monitor with analog inputs, everything worked and the BIOS appeared.

System setup and installation

In the laptop BIOS, first of all, it was necessary to change the boot priority hard drives, and change the operating mode from IDE to AHCI, if this mode is supported by the device. Next, using the installation flash drive, it was installed latest version operating room Windows systems 10 onto an SSD drive, and the old HDD is completely formatted and combined into one partition.

The laptop is connected to a power adapter, Internet and HDMI cable and also an adapter wireless keyboard with touchpad. Without a display or battery, the device is thinner and lighter, and this half of the laptop easily fits behind a TV hanging on the wall.

Finished device

Surprisingly, the combination of an SSD drive and Windows 10 produced impressive results. The old HDD drive remained as file storage, and four gigabytes of RAM was enough for all tasks - watching movies and TV series on TV, as well as Internet surfing.

Since it was not planned to assign large tasks to the organization of retirement age, unnecessary services were disabled. This measure allowed to reduce the load on the operating system and reduce the noise and heating of the device. Also, in order not to create additional background load on the system, Windows updates were disabled.

Finally

Even an obsolete gadget can be used and a second life can be breathed into it. An old laptop with a broken screen found a second wind with new SSD disk, fresh thermal paste, and internals clean from dust. After all, most computers and laptops work poorly and slow down due to the following factors:

slow system hard disk;
overheating due to old thermal paste or dust;
small amount of RAM;
errors in the system.

Replacing an HDD with an SSD drive, cleaning and replacing thermal paste, reinstalling old system on Windows 10, installing additional RAM if necessary can significantly speed up the system.

If your home or office computer works slowly, and there is no money to buy a new system unit, then this method will significantly increase the service life of the device.

Considering the cost of a new computer, the question often arises of how to speed up an existing device at minimal cost. Sometimes changing the system disk, reinstalling the system and cleaning it significantly speeds up working on the computer.

The capabilities of laptops are limited by their electrical parameters. Powerful iron consumes a lot of energy and produces a lot of heat. Relatively modest batteries and compact cases do not allow installation powerful battery and an efficient cooling system. As a result, the performance of laptops becomes insufficient faster than that of PCs. If a desktop of the current generation is able to cope with new heavy games and programs for several years, then a laptop a year after purchase may not be able to handle new applications with a sufficient level of comfort from use.

In such a situation, the natural question becomes how to improve the performance of a laptop. In a simple way solving the problem is a software method. Disabling unnecessary applications from startup, cleaning the system, deleting unused programs - you can increase the speed of the device. But they only reveal the potential of the hardware. It is not possible to significantly increase the performance of a laptop using this method.

The way out of this situation is to upgrade your laptop. Replacing components with more efficient ones allows you to increase the speed of the device, opening up new possibilities for it. Unfortunately, the design of mobile computers has its limitations that do not allow changing all internal components, but an upgrade is possible.

Is it possible to improve the processor on a laptop?

The central processor is the main part of the computer, on which the overall level of performance depends. If the old CPU is not capable enough, it needs to be replaced. In a PC, this operation is not difficult: you need to remove the cooling, remove the old chip, install a faster model in its place, lubricate it with thermal paste and return the cooler to its place. There are a number of nuances in laptops.

To save internal space, reduce the thickness of the device, simplify production and reduce prices, engineers resort to installing the processor using the BGA (ball grid array) method. In this case, the chip is soldered onto the board using small tin balls and its dismantling (without sophisticated equipment) is impossible. If the laptop has Intel processor Atom - most likely it cannot be replaced.

The processor with BGA contacts is soldered on the board and cannot be replaced

It’s another matter if the CPU is installed in a socket - a special multi-pin connector. In this case, removing the old processor and installing a new one is no more difficult than in a PC. At Lenovo, you don’t even need to disassemble the laptop to do this: just remove the bottom cover and unscrew the cooling system.

When replacing a processor, it is worth considering the socket type and CPU generation. You need to choose a replacement so that both the connector and the architecture of the old and new chips match. Even if the purchased CPU has an identical socket, the motherboard may not recognize it if such a processor model did not yet exist at the time the laptop was created. To clarify the compatibility of the laptop and the selected “new thing,” you should contact the technical support of the computer manufacturer, consult with specialists in the service center or on a thematic forum.

Processor socket on laptop board

Finding a new CPU may be difficult: laptop processors are less common on the market than desktop processors.

Is it possible to improve the video card on a laptop?

Replacing the video processor in a laptop may be of interest not only to those who are interested in computer games. Programs that use multi-threaded computing and GPGPU functions load not only the CPU, but also the GPU. Improve performance by replacing the video card with a more powerful one. As with the processor, this feature is not supported by all laptop models. Atom-based devices cannot be upgraded. The graphics accelerator update is also not available for models with a built-in video card that do not have an expansion slot on the board.

A laptop video card soldered on a board cannot be improved

In budget laptops, the graphics chip is often installed separately from the CPU, but also using the BGA method. It is theoretically possible to change it, but you will have to spend money on the services of a specialist with professional soldering equipment.

If the graphics processor is removable, you can also change it to a more powerful one yourself. You just need to find a newer, connector-compatible video card on sale. Laptops use the MXM connector, which is much smaller than full-size PCI-E, but belongs to the same data transfer standard. There are two generations of this interface, each of which comes in several standard sizes. contact groups. They are only partially compatible with each other. You can install modules within one generation smaller size into a larger slot, but not vice versa. Different generations are not compatible with each other.

Removable laptop video card can be replaced

The luckiest ones are the owners of budget versions of laptops belonging to the middle category. In such laptops, manufacturers use the same versions of the motherboard, but to reduce the cost they install inexpensive processors with built-in video and leave the discrete graphics slot empty.

How to improve laptop performance in other ways

In addition to replacing the central and GPUs, there are other methods to improve the performance of your laptop. They are often easier and cheaper than replacing the CPU and GPU.

Adding RAM

With the advent of larger memory chips on sale and the transition to 64-bit operating systems, software developers began to pay less attention to RAM consumption. Even simple Opera or Chrome, with a large number of open tabs, can consume more than 2 GB. 3 or 4 GB of RAM installed in a laptop becomes insufficient even for simple tasks.

Fortunately, SO-DIMM memory boards used in laptops can be freely purchased at electronics stores. Replacing old sticks with more spacious ones allows you to speed up your laptop PC.

You can increase the amount of RAM in your laptop

Such an upgrade is not possible in some inexpensive netbooks, where the chips are directly soldered to the motherboard. But there are relatively few such models on the market, so this problem is insignificant for 95% of users.

Replacing the hard drive

Another way to improve laptop performance is to replace the drive. Laptop hard drives are subject to mechanical stress when moved and used on trips. They negatively affect the condition of mechanical structural elements, lead to the appearance of bad sectors, slowing down the speed of the hard drive. A motion sensor built into the drive is triggered by small vibrations and triggers the head parking mechanism. This also helps reduce the speed of the computer (when driving in public transport or while using a laptop placed on your knees).

Replacing the hard drive with an SSD will speed up your laptop

To avoid this, you can replace your hard drive with a solid state drive (read about it). Owners of laptops with an installed CD/DVD drive (which is most likely rarely used or not needed) can save money by installing an SSD as the main drive and putting a capacious hard drive in place DVD drive(there are special adapters for this).

A special adapter allows you to install an HDD or SSD in place of a DVD drive

Conclusion

You can improve your laptop by replacing the processor, video card, hard drive and RAM. This option is not available to owners of budget devices where components are installed using BGA soldering and owners of old laptops. In the first case, nothing can be done in practice, in the second, you will have to look for on hand (new or used) parts that have long been discontinued.

When upgrading, you should carefully study the characteristics of the laptop, become familiar with the types of connectors that the motherboard is equipped with, and the list of supported processors. When planning a budget for improving a laptop, you need to take into account that components will cost more than their counterparts for desktop PCs.

One of these laptops is 8 years old, but it doesn't look old at all

There is no need to fear that a new laptop from a previous manufacturer will be less convenient than the old one - in all models, except for acrobatic “transformers”, the design and basic controls have not changed for a good ten years. And technical progress in laptops has slowed down, especially over the past 4 years, when manufacturers of mobile processors kindly abandoned mutual competition, after which the increase in power in computers began to come “by the teaspoon” once every year or two. Progress as such cannot be denied - a lot of water has passed under the bridge since 2011, and an outdated model will not be able to compete with a comparable-priced new product on an equal footing. Therefore, replacing a three or four year old computer with a current one with a similar design will most often give the owner the same feeling of quality that has disappeared over time from the previous laptop.

It is also possible that the devastation is not in the “body”, but in the “head” of the device - before you start opening your mobile computer, we advise you to make sure that the reason for the slowness does not lie in the software.

Risk group: laptops that are not suitable for upgrading

The Kvatron service center receives many requests from customers on the topic: upgrading a laptop or netbook. Therefore, we decided to write a separate article in which we will reveal the main secrets and answer frequently asked questions regarding laptops from ASUS, HP, Acer, Toshiba and others.

First, let's look at the question of what a laptop update or upgrade is, why it is needed and in what case it is pointless.

Here are the main reasons why people want to upgrade their laptop (much is also true for desktop computers):

The laptop takes a long time to boot and works slowly;
laptop freezes;
there is not enough free space: files, games, movies, photos do not fit;
there is not enough RAM: games do not play on the laptop, programs run slowly, especially multimedia and graphics ones;
operating system update.

Upgrading your laptop will not be necessary for all of the above cases.

The fact that a laptop takes a long time to boot can be caused either by the installation of a modern OS (for example, Windows 7) on a low-power laptop (netbook), or by the presence of a large number of programs in startup, the registry being loaded with garbage during operation, and the presence of some viruses.

Laptop freezing may be due to system errors, viruses or failures in some programs, as well as problems in the hardware, “hardware” (for example, violation of the magnetic layer in the “hard” storage medium) part of the device.

Lack of free space can be solved by increasing the size of the hard drive, clearing the existing unnecessary programs or viruses. The issue with RAM, very often a significant part of it is consumed by unnecessary software processes and viruses.

But if games slow down or don’t play on your laptop, then the problems are most likely related to performance, and it’s unlikely to be solved with software.

An operating system upgrade is relevant in two cases: problems with the existing OS or a transition to a more advanced one. new system, for example with an unsuccessful Windows Vista on Windows 7. Most experts recommend changing the operating system once or twice a year (depending on use) and at the same time performing preventative maintenance (cleaning) of the cooling system. This will definitely help to increase the service life of the laptop (netbook) and increase the reliability of its operation. Prevention issues are covered in more detail in our article on laptop cleaning.

Upgrading a laptop (netbook) gives it a second wind, leaves the owner happy and saves the budget for purchasing a new device. Moreover, the computer industry is developing at a crazy pace, programs require more and more resources, and model series laptops are updated several times a year. A reasonable person simply will not buy a new laptop every year, or even several times a year.

But even a minor laptop upgrade, such as increasing the amount of RAM and hard drive, can significantly improve the performance of a laptop computer.

What to upgrade?

Updating a laptop and upgrading a computer are completely different things. The key difference is that the design of the laptop is unique, the components are developed specifically for it and are very rarely interchangeable. Usually all peripherals (video card, audio, modules network cards etc.) of a laptop is soldered directly to the motherboard, unlike desktop computers, where the components are in the vast majority of cases interchangeable. It’s rare that the same video chip can be changed to another (but sometimes it’s still possible). And if this is not possible, then you can use another board designed for the same series of laptops.

Some unscrupulous service centers write that changing the motherboard is unreasonably expensive and ineffective, but this is not always the case. Installation of more productive motherboard very relevant when the old one is out of order and the price difference is small, or when there is a used high-performance motherboard (it is important that the board is designed for the same series of devices). Sometimes it’s even profitable to buy a new one and sell the old one as used (for example, to the same service center where you upgraded your laptop).

Installing a more powerful processor is quite feasible within certain limits, which can also be expanded by installing a new one system board. If possible, the board can be selected with a reinforced video card in order to modern games launched without problems.

Installing a faster and larger hard drive, as well as increasing the size of the laptop’s RAM are the simplest and most common types of upgrades carried out by our Kvatron Service Center.

Upgrade by points

Upgrading a laptop is possible in two types: software (software) and hardware (hardware). Below we go into each option in more detail.

Updating Laptop Software

Sometimes, to eliminate the reasons that made the user think about upgrading, it will be enough to simply update or change the software. For example, if laptop takes a long time to load and/or works slowly, you can simply install another operating system: if the hardware allows it, you can change the slow Vista to the more sophisticated Windows 7, but if not, then you can install the good old Windows XP and enjoy stable and fast operation.

The most important thing is that you must understand for what purposes your laptop exists. There are people who pay money to install Windows Vista on their laptop with 1 GB of RAM, while only intending to type in Word and look at photos. Unprofessional craftsmen take money and do it, and then the user turns to them with the question: “Why does my laptop take so long to load and runs so slowly?”

It is also important to understand that reinstalling the system is closely related to installing drivers, which sometimes simply do not exist for individual component models. You may not immediately notice that you do not have all the drivers installed. But you are guaranteed to experience software crashes and freezes in the future.

Lastly, we’ll also touch on upgrading the laptop’s BIOS. Theoretically, if you are an experienced user, you can do this yourself. New versions of BIOS firmware are usually posted on the website of the laptop or motherboard manufacturer. But be extremely careful BIOS recovery laptop after unsuccessful firmware will have to be done exclusively in the service center.

Replacing and increasing laptop RAM

One of the simplest and effective ways Upgrading a laptop or netbook, as well as a desktop computer, is to increase RAM. This will not change the processor frequency, but the performance increase will be noticeable, especially when working with resource-intensive programs or several programs at the same time. You will instantly notice the difference even in an Internet browser, opening twice as many windows as usual.

Increasing laptop memory is usually limited by two things: the number of free slots and the maximum amount of memory supported by these slots. It often happens that there are only two connectors on the board and both are occupied by 1 GB of memory (2 GB in total). Then, in order to install 4 GB, you need to remove the old RAM of the laptop (netbook) and instead of 2 1 GB, install a new 2 2 GB. It is important that the memory modules match your device by type (ex.: DIMM, SO-DIMM) and type (ex.: DDR 2, DDR3). There are many memory manufacturers, some high-quality and branded, some noname and low-quality. We usually recommend Kingston memory and Transcend.

Replacing a hard drive in a laptop

Upgrading a hard drive is in second place in popularity after upgrading the RAM for two reasons: users often want to save more information, the number of photos, music, and films is growing. And the second reason: the desire for reliability and stability.

According to statistics, a laptop hard drive works without failures for no more than three years. A period of three years is usually fixed by the warranty obligations of hard drive manufacturers. Even Seagate recently canceled the 5-year warranty on its products, now it is the same as everyone else’s: 3 years. Here we are not talking about the fact that out of 100%, the normative defect is 1-2%, i.e. out of 100 hard drives, 1-2 will break before 3 years. Hard drive failure depends on specific operating conditions:

often on the road;
shaking and vibration;
shocks and falls when carrying;
work in an inclined position;
temperature changes;
overheat.

If the reliability of your laptop is your top priority, we recommend updating your hard drive once every three years; the old one can be used as a portable or archival one. In some laptops, instead of an optical drive, you can install a special module into which you can insert a second hard drive. Very comfortably.

They say that upgrading a laptop's hard drive will not have a direct impact on performance, but this is not always the case: choose a faster drive and the data transfer speed will increase. And if previously you did not have enough space for temporary files, which constantly distracted you from your work and slowed it down, with the new “hard” you will forget about such problems. If you calculate the result per month, that’s a lot of time saved!

Hard drives differ in disk/spindle rotation speed: from 4200 rpm for older models to 7200 rpm for top-end ones. The faster the better! The average and most common speed is 5400 rpm.

When purchasing a hard drive for a laptop, be sure to check the laptop’s passport or on the manufacturer’s website:

what is the maximum disk capacity that can be installed;
interface (IDE and ATA are outdated, SATA is modern);
laptop disk size. Standard size: 2.5” and height 9.5 mm.

Also keep in mind that now for storing significant amounts of information there are external portable (based on 2.5-inch HDD) and stationary (based on 3.5-inch HDD) hard disks, connected via USB or eSATA interface. On such drives it is very convenient to store photos, movies and music - something that is not required daily for work.

Replacing a laptop's optical drive

Replacing a laptop drive: DVD to Blue-Ray or a regular CD/DVD to a DVD writer is a fairly common upgrade. Firstly: drives have a service life (usually no more than a year), after which they can be cleaned (preventative maintenance), but if you use the drive constantly, failures will begin after 2-3 years. It is not profitable to replace an old drive with an equally obsolete one, especially since finding a model from 2-3 years ago will be more difficult than buying a similar modern DVD or Blue-Ray drive.

It is known that different manufacturers laptops have certain modifications to standard optical drives to suit their specific models: Various front panels and holders located at the “tail” of the drive, designed to secure the DVD to the case. Sometimes in a service center you have to slightly modify these parts to install new drives, but this procedure is standard and inexpensive.

For netbooks that do not have built-in drives, there are external optical drives connected via USB and other interfaces.

Replacing a laptop battery

Replacing the battery is the simplest thing you can think of, unless of course you have an ultra-modern Apple MacBook Air, in which the batteries are located inside the case and occupy up to 70% of the total volume.

Any battery has a limited number of charge-discharge cycles, the average battery life is 1-2 years, after which you will notice how long battery life laptop started to fall. You have few options - buying a new battery (price about $100) or searching for a service center that repairs laptop batteries and replaces batteries in them, which may turn out to be cheaper.

This also happens, especially on powerful gaming laptops what's standard battery, even new, lasts for about an hour of battery life at full load. In this case, we recommend that you pay attention to Docking Stations with additional batteries, which will increase the operating time at least twice.

Replacing a laptop display

Replacing a laptop display isn't exactly an upgrade. Working displays are usually not touched, but broken, cracked, or wet displays are repaired by replacing the matrix and/or protective glass.

During the work of the Kvatron SC, only a couple of times it was necessary to upgrade the laptop screen, when clients made very high demands on the brightness and color of the matrices, which fade over time.

We frankly do not recommend repairing a laptop display at home to non-professionals. First, you will have to buy the matrix itself, and this is not so easy: matrices can differ from each other even within the same laptop model, and you need to look for a replacement clearly using the PART # on the back of the matrix.

When replacing a laptop matrix, it is important to properly disassemble and reassemble the laptop without damaging the cable of the matrix itself or anything else, such as Wi-Fi.

Overclocking or replacing a laptop processor

Upgrading a laptop processor is also popular, although less popular than all previous types of upgrades. There are two ways to increase the performance of a laptop (netbook) in this direction:

Replacing a laptop processor with a better one powerful addition same connector (socket);
overclocking laptop processor.

But we must remember the requirements for power, cooling and BIOS. The laptop power system must meet the processor's power consumption level, internal system The cooling system must effectively dissipate heat, and the BIOS must detect the new processor.

Upgrading a laptop processor together with increasing RAM will give the greatest increase in laptop performance.

Results

So, we examined almost all the main options for laptop (netbook) upgrades and came to the conclusion that some upgrades or updates must be done regularly (software changes and maintenance), while other upgrades should be done as needed and depending on the requirements for specific device. If reliability and autonomy are important to you: we recommend monitoring operating system, hard drive and battery, if increased productivity- behind RAM and processor.

Another important factor when upgrading a laptop is economic feasibility. Those. the effect of investing in modernization should be higher than from purchasing a new device. In each specific case, regardless of your plans to update the laptop yourself or by asking a computer geek friend, we recommend seeking advice from professionals. In all service centers for laptop repair and maintenance, for example, in Kvatrona, such consultations are free.