Opinions on Upgrading Old Laptops

[wojoxx98]

A family friend has two laptops that haven't been used very much because of how slow they run. One is a Dell Inspiron 15 from 2017 and the other is a Toshiba Satellite running Windows 8.1 from 2014. Both of them have some kind of Celeron processors, so I know neither of them will be powerhouses, but I'd like to at least make them not painfully slow.

 

I'm already planning on putting a SSD in both, and installing Windows 10 on the Toshiba, but I've found that they both have single 4GB sticks of DDR3 1333 MHz ram. I've found a 2x8GB 1600 MHz kit on Amazon for $42. Would buying that and putting a 8GB stick in each system be worth it, or should the SSDs be enough?

 

I'm trying to do this as cheap as possible for them, and I don't want to almost double to cost by adding more RAM if it's not going to help, which I feel like it won't because the low power processors and the single channel RAM. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

[Bombastinator]

This strikes me as a project with a fairly low success chance.  Laptops tend to have proprietary and/or soldered down everything. Ram may help a little, especially if there’s not enough of it and you can arrange for more.  an SSD would make boot faster.  They won’t increase overall speed all that much though.

 

Most laptops have soldered CPUs. Do these? If not what other CPUs are considered compatible by the manufacturer.  There could be bios or heat issues with dropping in just anything that fits the socket.

[Eigenvektor]

I assume both CPUs are 64 bit and support more than 4 GB of RAM, right?

 

You should have a look at the handbook for either machine, to see how much and what kind of RAM they support and how many slots there are. Generally I think a RAM upgrade is worth is (allows Windows to cache more stuff), but make sure the machines support this type of speed.

 

On some machines the second slot can also be hard to access and/or not user upgradeable (e.g. it may be located below the keyboard instead of the other side), which requires a fair bit of disassembly. I've done it with an old notebook of mine, but it was more work then anticipated and the keyboard didn't work at first, because I hadn't replaced the ribbon cable properly. And yeah, in some machines it can actually be soldered.

 

I've also had laptops where an SSD upgrade was of questionably success, simply because the machine was so slow, it couldn't make full use of the faster speed.

[wojoxx98]

Sorry for the late replies, but I had to go to work. But I've done some more research thanks to you two.

 

@Bombastinator, Both of these computers do have soldered CPUs. On the Toshiba, its a Celeron N2820, and the Dell is a Celeron N3060. So unfortunately a CPU upgrade is out of the question. 

 

@Eigenvektor, I have confirmed that both CPUs are 64 bit and can support up to 8 GB of RAM. I've already been inside both machines. The Toshiba was easy, just a single screw and a panel pops off the bottom to give you access to the RAM and storage. On the Dell, it was exactly how you described. Almost 10 screws on the bottom, take out the DVD drive, pop out the keyboard, take out 5 more screws, and then you're in. 

 

But the RAM in both computers are single, 4 GB SODIMM stick. 4 GB is all both computers say they have in the About tab in the settings. There is only a single slot for RAM, and there doesn't appear to be any soldered RAM. 

 

I'll keep thinking about the RAM upgrade, but I think I'll go through with the SSD upgrade. I know how fast they've made my own personal gaming rig and my mom's PC. Honestly, I'm not expecting a $32 SSD to preform any miracles (Kingston A400 240 GB), but if it can cut boot times from literal minutes to under one minute, I'll call it a success.

 

Thank you very much for your input!

 

[Eigenvektor]

You didn't post the exact models, but based on the CPUs, I assume the Toshiba is the Satellite C55-A5140. The detailed specifications confirm it has a single memory slot and you can upgrade to a maximum of 8 GB 1600 MHz memory. Same for the DELL: Reference guide, one SO-DIMM slot with a max of 8 GB 1600 MHz memory.

 

Apparently both have SATA 3 (6 Gbps), so an SSD should run quite fine.

 

Just for a rough price check, Crucial offers compatible RAM for the Toshiba for about $41: Dynabook-Toshiba Satellite C55-A5140 compatible upgrades (SSDs too, for that matter)

 

~edit: Oh yeah, one thing to watch out for, 2.5" SSDs can come with different heights (7 or 9.5 mm). Some notebooks won't accept more than 7 mm (doesn't seem to be the case here, though).

[NeuesTestament]

I mean considering that the CPUs are complete pieces of shit, I would not invest more than like 50€ under any circumstances.