Purchasing upgrades for laptop - advice please?

[AD-15]

hello,

I'm looking at buying some RAM (2GB Corsair Value PC6400), and a new hard drive for my laptop, in addition to a copy of Vista.

However, I've never upgraded a laptop before in my life. I'm familiar with how to actually add/remove components from the system, but it terms of configuring everything, I have no idea. I've done this kind of thing countless times with a 'tower' PC, and it usually entailed changing/optimising settings in the BIOS. However, the BIOS on my laptop is extremely limited, with a only a number of non-hardware related options (such as time, battery calibration etc). How will I be able to set clocks, timings, and voltages for the new RAM?

Is there anything I need to watch out for (other than size and interface) wrt the hardware upgrade?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Forget about Vista and use Windows 7 RC1 as it is optimised to run better on lower end hardware and notebooks than Vista.

It would be useful for you to list the specs and model number of your notebook first though!

[peterb]

Laptops tend to be limited in the upgrades you can apply. Personally I have never had to change the basic settings on a PC (tower or laptop) but then I domn't overclock, or go for anything exotic.

There should be no reason why you should need to change those parameters, but you might be better going to one of the memory mfrs web sites (Kingston www.kingston.com , Crucial http://www.crucial.com/uk/?click=true etc) and use the checker to see what is recommended for your laptop, and buy that. Then if you do have problems, there is no problem returning it.

I have also found a very helpful company in UK www.orcalogic.co.uk who helped me out over a memory problem. I have no connection with them, other than as a customer (actually for printer memory, which also tends to be specialised), so they may be worth a look. They also have a memory finder on their site.

[AD-15]

hello,

Thanks guys.

I have an Asus F3Ja laptop (since early 2007). I actually contact Asus directly for their advice, and they said the memory I had chosen would be fine. What they did say however is that there is a limit on what hard drives I can use. This is what the advisor said:

Regarding hard drives, the maximum specifications of hard drives that can work on your notebook are:

? 2.5" 9.5 mm SATA HDD
? SATA 80GB/100GB/120GB/160G; Support 5400 RPM
? SATA 80GB/100GB; Support 7200 RPM

Any ideas on why there is a limit on size? I was intending to buy at least 250GB.

Thanks again!

[arthurleung]

160GB is probably the largest capacity available back then so there is nothing to worry about. Some 500GB drives are 9.5mm high and will certainly fit in the laptop, if you want to go for maximum capacity

[AD-15]

hello,

Thanks for your reply.

This is wierd. I got this reply from ASUS about the hard drive:

"Dear customer,

The limitation of your system are related to your notebook's age.
It is not possible to make the aforementioned hard drive compatible with your notebook.

Best regards,
Asus TSD"

He seems to be sure I can't use anything more than a 160GB drive. What do you think?

[AD-15]

Got another reply:

"Dear customer,

The limitations are related to your notebook's motherboard. The motherboard cannot recognize hard drives over 160GB.

We are not able to give you a more detailed answer about it though - we do not have that information.

Best regards,
Asus TSD"

Has anyone heard of this happening before?

[peterb]

I would think it is either a BIOS limitation or a limitation of the hard drive controller.