Revitalizing an Older Laptop

Menzenski · June 28, 2016

I'm trying to figure out how to best approach "refreshing" a Dell 15R from 2011. It has a Sandy Bridge i3, 500GB hard drive, and Windows 7 home. This thing is very slow, especially on startup, and makes it very hard to use. I'd love to install an SSD in there but I don't feel comfortable doing it, as reaching the existing hard drive requires taking out the motherboard, screen and everything. What's the best way to go about this? Would a clean install of Windows be enough to make a significant difference?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Gaged · June 28, 2016

If you want to get a faster startup, you'll have to go SSD. Reinstalling Windows wouldn't make much of a difference.

Menzenski · June 29, 2016

5 hours ago, Gaged said:

If you want to get a faster startup, you'll have to go SSD. Reinstalling Windows wouldn't make much of a difference.

I'd love to install an ssd in this machine but that's not going to happen because of Dell.

To me it seems like the only thing I really can do is throw a clean install on there, unfortunately. Removing the bloatware and garbage software should at least help a bit, no?