I have upgraded many laptops on socket P, which also includes the Dell Inspiron 1545. Yes your CPU and RAM can be upgraded, you simply need to open the largest cover on the base of your laptop, and from there both your CPU and RAM can be changed. Your CPU is under the heatsink, so you'll need to remove that first to get to it. Your CPU is inserted into a pink socket with a screw; twist the screw and the CPU will easily come out. To reinsert the CPU, simply slot the CPU back into the socket and twist the screw in the opposite direction.
Your current laptop is indeed old, and regardless of the upgrades you commit, it still won't have the same performance level as a new laptop. However that does not say your laptop will indefinitely be slow, quite the contrary, with upgrades you can have it perform daily tasks with ease. The last laptop I upgraded on socket P actually performs faster than my current desktop on daily tasks.
Firstly I recommend you upgrade your CPU. I'd upgrade it to an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz (T9600) to notice a difference, and yes that is faster than the alleged P8800. I've found the
cheapest T9600 in UK here from eBay, I recommend you purchase that.
Upgrading RAM isn't absolutely necessary, however I would advise you do, perhaps another time. Your laptop supports 8GB and only has two slots, therefore each memory module has to be 4GB: 2 x 4GB = 8GB RAM. I'm advising another time since upgrading to 4GB (2x2GB) is cheap, however 8GB (2x4GB) is not. It'll cost you around £90 for 8GB RAM, which I think is somewhat ridiculous for DDR2. Your 3GB at the moment will suffice, but if you ever feel like you're running out of RAM, you could always upgrade in the future.
Next your hard drive. I would advise you install a SSD (Solid State Drive) instead. The last socket P laptop I upgraded benefited more from the SSD upgrade than another other component, even the CPU or RAM doesn't justify the responsiveness a SSD provides. SSD's unfortunately are not cheap, even more so in the UK. When I upgraded the last socket P laptop, I had the SSD imported from the United States (took two weeks to arrive with import charges). I would have suggested a SSD from the US too since it still works out cheaper, however there is currently one going on HotUKDeals. The
Crucial MX100 is the cheapest SSD I have found which is of 256GB capacity; after all you don't want to downgrade storage space. I would buy that SSD too.
Since your laptop can only have one storage device, I would recommend the Crucial MX100 with 256GB. You don't want anything less on a laptop, not only because it's your only storage device, but if your SSD becomes half full of data (i.e. use up ~120GB or more), you may notice a degrade in responsiveness/performance from the SSD.
To conclude, I would recommend you purchase the
Intel Core 2 Duo (T9600) and the
Crucial MX100 SSD. Once you have them installed in your laptop, you'll need to reinstall Windows since your SSD has no data on it; so ensure you have the correct discs, Dell usually provide the OS disc with your laptop.
The processor and SSD upgrade will cost you £104.98 in total, however especially with the SSD, the performance/responsiveness of your laptop will increase drastically. It should perform faster than most modern computers which don't have a SSD, it'll even outperform i3, i5 and i7's which don't have SSD's in normal tasks and loading applications. You can also upgrade your RAM in the future if you desire, for the record, your laptop takes DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM. Also whilst you open your laptop, I would advise you remove the dust (if any) so your computer can cool your system better (i.e. exhaust hot air); with that said do not use a vacuum, they create too much static and should fry your components.
Now with all that said, I hope you've understood the above and if you need anything clarifying, please let me know.
All the best.
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