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Tweaking old dell laptop


adrian2055

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I purchased a Dell Inspiron 5150 at a resale shop yesterday and I wanted to get some advice on how to get the most out of it.

Here are the settings:

Intel Pentium 4 3.06 GHz Processor

30GB Hard Drive (Upgrading to at least a 80GB drive soon)

512MB Ram (Can go up to 2GB and will upgrade it asap)

nVidia Geforce FX Go5200 Graphics Card

NEC DVD+RW Drive

1TB Western Digita External Hard Drive

What OS should I use to get the most out of this laptop without overheating it? Could Vista of Windows 7 possibly work on this pc?

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What OS should I use to get the most out of this laptop without overheating it? Could Vista of Windows 7 possibly work on this pc?

Not with 512 Mb.

In any case XP should result "snappier" on that laptop.

Forget about Vista. :ph34r:

Windows 7 will run (with 2 Gb).

jaclaz

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Home Premium or Pro.

It doesn0t make adifference, AFAIK, it depends on the features you want/need.

Cool. :thumbup

I know ultimate would be a disaster.

Why? :unsure:

jaclaz

I think ultimate would require a higher powered pc than this one. It probably wouldn't run very fast on this pc.

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I think ultimate would require a higher powered pc than this one. It probably wouldn't run very fast on this pc.

No.

Windows 7 is, well ... Windows 7 ;), the overall speed is NOT dependent on the version, features may.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows...em-requirements

If you don't use bitlocker or multilanguage, or XP compatibility mode or VHD booting, there aren't that much more different features, additionally.

The difference among versions is IMHO mostly "marketing".

jaclaz

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If you don't use bitlocker or multilanguage, or XP compatibility mode or VHD booting, there aren't that much more different features, additionally.
For XP compatibility mode you need VT enabled on CPU and BIOS, forget that on that CPU ;).

512MB will do when you run Office and Internet apps, nothing more.

Just put Windows 7 Premium 32bit on it and it will run fine, put in an extra DIMM of 1GB to get the 1.5GB, I would not pull out the 512MB you have there as memories are twice the price these days as they were 6 months ago. I presume it has 1 bank with 512, if it has 2x 256MB still get the 1GB and work with 1.25GB, bottle neck is that harddrive of 30GB which are slow as (fill in what you want, anything that doesn't move much)... :P

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@spacesurfer

Yep, but the point is if there are drivers for Windows 7 with good performance. :unsure:

If the laptop is this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Inspiron#Inspiron_5150

it is not in the list of "Compatible with Windows 7 (Use Windows 7 Drivers)" on Dell's site, which means that it may take some extra effort to find "good" drivers for it (if possible) and there is a concrete possibility that 7 will default to "generic" drivers or not work "rightly".

@puntoMX

Would

As slow as a wet weekend

do?

jaclaz

Edited by jaclaz
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Depends on what is wet. :ph34r:

Any thing that sticks to the wall and comes down slowly I would think of ;).

it is not in the list of "Compatible with Windows 7 (Use Windows 7 Drivers)" on Dell's site, which means that it may take some extra effort to find "good" drivers for it (if possible) and there is a concrete possibility that 7 will default to "generic" drivers or not work "rightly".
It will use the standard build in "generic" Intel driver for the chipset I would say, but I don't know about the nVidia FX5200, that one indeed could be a pain.

But yes, to spend a license on a "build for XP" machine that is 8 years old could be a bit of overkill... I can get 45USD Windows 7 Starter here, that would work "okay" (but see my point on the nVidia driver).

EDIT: The nVidia 5200 does work under Windows 7.

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Windows 7 should run just fine on it, even with 512 GB of ram and 30 GB hdd and since you say you will be increasing both it will run even better

You might even be able to get aero with your gfx card

Edited by ricktendo64
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