How much will I spend for these upgrades to my laptop computer?
I have a Gateway Solo 5300 laptop computer. I want to replace the fan inside (It’s way too noisy), increase the RAM from 128 to 256, swap out the CD ROM for a DVD Rom, and replace the 10 gig. hard drive with something basic…maybe just 20 gig. I intend to take this to one of those local homegrown computer businesses. I’d also like them to transfer all of my programs from the old hard drive to the new….not from the disks, but just a direct transfer hd to hd. How much do you think I’ll have to spend for this?
It will be hard to find the parts for it. Ebay the parts. Some of the parts will mostly can’t be found like the fan. Even if you find the parts, it will be costly and I think will not be worth it (around 150-300 for estimates). Save the money and buy a newer laptop.
First of all, if your going to upgrade, it’s hard to get a 128mb stick of laptop RAM. The smallest cheap sticks are 512. Smaller is more expensive and bigger is more expensive. And also, there’s no place that sells a 20 gig hard drive. The smallest retail hard drives are 60 gig on average.
The CD to DVD swap will kill you too. I think this could cost about $300 plus dollars if you do it yourself. It’s easily $400 plus dollars if you buy the supplies and give it to someone else to upgrade.
In fact it would probably cheaper to get a new laptop. There are $400 laptops with 512 mb of RAM, 2.16 gigahertz processor, and 80 gig hard drive.
I would say the same thing it’s not worth it and I would give it a price to upgrade to be at least in the $200.00 plus range and even in you were able to upgrade the ram from 128 to 256 you would still be up the creek as a good upgrade because 256 ram would not help at all. With the software of today and even 8 years ago you need at lease 512mb of Ram and even that is way low so just upgrading the Ram would be a big waste of money.
I hope this helps