AMD laptops...

[proxops-pete]

I have a Compaq R3000z (z for AMD) with XP 2800+M (1.6 GHz). It's a great lappy for the deal I got from Office Depot back in March ($580 AR). I upgraded the HDD to 60 GB 5400 rpm, and upped the memory to 1 GB and it's been an awesome multimedia/internet computer for myself and my wife.

[SaturnBeat]

I have a Compaq R3000z (z for AMD) with XP 2800+M (1.6 GHz). It's a great lappy for the deal I got from Office Depot back in March ($580 AR). I upgraded the HDD to 60 GB 5400 rpm, and upped the memory to 1 GB and it's been an awesome multimedia/internet computer for myself and my wife.

Tell me, how easy is it to upgrade parts on laptops? Did you do it yourself or someone who knows about these things, like a company or something?

[Johnmcl7]

Depends on the laptop really, in most cases it's easy to upgrade the ram, hard drive and mini-pci card - these are designed to be user upgradeable and in some cases easier than in a desktop. When I upgraded the ram in my laptop, it was just a case of unscrewing a single screw to remove a cover, pop the ram in and the put the cover back on. Optical drivers can be replaced as well but manufacturers tend to use custom bezels making it a little more awkward, I want to change my dvd/cd-rw to a dvd burner, I can buy a standard slimline DVD-RW drive but I need to swap the bezels and screw on a small attachment to the replacement drive.

Doing any more than that is dependent on the laptop, generally the bigger the laptop the more upgradeable it is, the ultralight laptops usually have the least upgradeable and the top desktop replacements are the more upgradeable. You can often replace the processor (although not user supported) but not much else, both Nvidia and ATi both announced modular graphics formats but so far graphics card upgrading remains very limited, at best you can normally only upgrade to another graphics card made for that design of machine.

John

[SaturnBeat]

Right. Well thanks for the info John! Now I know...

Better get a stable laptop, one that will last for a long time. I got two years ahead of me before I finish school, and then it's time to choose the laptop for college. Wonder how much things will change until then. I'm hoping AMD might come out with something to chalenge Intel's M.

[proxops-pete]

Tell me, how easy is it to upgrade parts on laptops? Did you do it yourself or someone who knows about these things, like a company or something?

Upgrading HDD was a synch. Unscrew the HDD cage/top off, take it out and replace and pop and screw it back in again. Memory, however, was a bit more of pain as their first of two memory slots is under the keyboard. But there is a diagram that allows you to go thru step by step to access it. In short, I did it. And if I can do it, so can you.

[SaturnBeat]

Upgrading HDD was a synch. Unscrew the HDD cage/top off, take it out and replace and pop and screw it back in again. Memory, however, was a bit more of pain as their first of two memory slots is under the keyboard. But there is a diagram that allows you to go thru step by step to access it. In short, I did it. And if I can do it, so can you.

Aha... and so it is different for every laptop. How do the parts look like? Is there a site which sells laptop parts, something like NewEgg with pictures in it. I'm really interested in seeing how all the parts look like compared to a desktop PC. They're much smaller, that I'm sure of but I've just never seen any on a pic or in real life.

[proxops-pete]

Aha... and so it is different for every laptop. How do the parts look like? Is there a site which sells laptop parts, something like NewEgg with pictures in it. I'm really interested in seeing how all the parts look like compared to a desktop PC. They're much smaller, that I'm sure of but I've just never seen any on a pic or in real life.

Newegg sells lappy memory and smaller lappy 2.5" HDDs as well... Lappy memory chips aer narrower and is commonly referred to as SODIMMs. Do a search and you will see... With lappy HDDs, there's an addition(?) of another spinning speed... 4200 rpm. However, to counter that low rate a bit, the lappy HDDs usually have larger caches... my 40 GB 4200 rpm had 8 MB cache and so does my 60 GB 5400 rpm drive.

[Johnmcl7]

Aha... and so it is different for every laptop. How do the parts look like? Is there a site which sells laptop parts, something like NewEgg with pictures in it. I'm really interested in seeing how all the parts look like compared to a desktop PC. They're much smaller, that I'm sure of but I've just never seen any on a pic or in real life.

As Pete has said, they usually look much the same as desktop parts, but smaller. Quite a few sites dismantle review laptops and show the parts inside, here is a THW article on the Dell XPS:

http://www6.tomshardware.com/mobile/20050224/index.html

AT are good for showing the parts, here is the Pentium-m based 8600 in pieces:

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=1899&p=4

John

[Johnmcl7]

Right. Well thanks for the info John! Now I know...

Better get a stable laptop, one that will last for a long time. I got two years ahead of me before I finish school, and then it's time to choose the laptop for college. Wonder how much things will change until then. I'm hoping AMD might come out with something to chalenge Intel's M.

They already have, it's called Turion although it's a rebranded mobile A64 it's a solid processor, especially for the price.

John

[SaturnBeat]

Sweet... thank you guys for the info and the links! Hehe, it looks a bit different though. I'm impressed how well they can make them and fit in.

Much appreciated! I'm having a good look through all kinds of different parts...

[Johnmcl7]

Yeah, I'm also impressed how they can pack it all int...my XPS 2 is a fraction of the size of my desktop, yet has pretty much the same power...

John

[SaturnBeat]

Yeah, I'm also impressed how they can pack it all int...my XPS 2 is a fraction of the size of my desktop, yet has pretty much the same power...

John

But don't forget.. pretty much twice the price as well. How much exactly did you get the XPS 2 for? Oh and how many inches is your screen? I wanna do a small comparison. Because my dad (I'm using his laptop sometimes) has WXGA, and I see you have WUXGA (I'm not sure what's the difference actually), and mine is 15.4" but the resolution is a total disaster on it. Anything above 800x600 and the text bleeds, colour isn't rendered properly... it's aweful. And I've heard that Dell do a great job on WXGA screens, so that's why I was just wondering.

[SkyDog]

...my dad (I'm using his laptop sometimes) has WXGA, and I see you have WUXGA (I'm not sure what's the difference actually)...

The difference is the LCD's native resolution.

WXGA = 1366 x 768
WUXGA = 1920 x 1200

If you look closely at an LCD display, you can see each individual pixel. A WXGA screen has 1366 of those in each horizontal row and 768 in each vertical column.

...and mine is 15.4" but the resolution is a total disaster on it. Anything above 800x600 and the text bleeds, colour isn't rendered properly... it's aweful.

Because of the way they work, anything other than an LCD's native resolution tends to look bad. If you use a resolution other than the native one, the computer has to interpolate the image so that it fits on the screen. If you try to display 1366 x 768 on a WUXGA screen, the computer has to stretch the image to fit. For each horizontal row, it stretches 1366 pixels into 1920. And each 768-pixel column needs to be stretched to 1200 pixels. In order to do that, the computer has to space out the pixels and guess at the colors to fill in between them. Because of this, edges of items will become fuzzy and colors may shift.

[SaturnBeat]

O_o That's a bit complicated but I think I get it. So in my case the problem is the verticle lines. Or no wait... I have an option for 1024 x 768. But it still looks butt-ugly. How come it is that way. It's suppose to stretch 1366 into 1024, which should theoretically be enough for a good image. And 768 into 768 - fits perfect. I'm lost here...

Thanks for the info though SkyDog!

[Johnmcl7]

But don't forget.. pretty much twice the price as well. How much exactly did you get the XPS 2 for? Oh and how many inches is your screen? I wanna do a small comparison. Because my dad (I'm using his laptop sometimes) has WXGA, and I see you have WUXGA (I'm not sure what's the difference actually), and mine is 15.4" but the resolution is a total disaster on it. Anything above 800x600 and the text bleeds, colour isn't rendered properly... it's aweful. And I've heard that Dell do a great job on WXGA screens, so that's why I was just wondering.

Not twice the price, the XPS 2 is fairly reasonable as this version cost me 1100 pounds although I've added ram and plan on upgrading a couple of other parts. The desktop wasn't that far off the price, in fact the price of a 2005fpw and 6800 Ultra alone aren't far off the cost of the XPS 2.

The screen is a 17 inch WUXGA panel which runs at 1920x1200, the difference basically is that everything is a lot smaller so you have a lot more screenspace to work with.

If your panel is a widescreen on, you need to find its native resolution and run it at that, the typical resolution for a WXGA panel is 1280x768.

John