Make it better?

[Tenebrioun]

Hey, I've got a Acer Aspire 7740 5691. It is a fantastic laptop and I managed to get it brand new for only $500 dollars. Definately can't complain there. But as I don't have the money to build myself a gaming desktop yet..........yet. I'm trying to figure out how to get this computer to perform better. Any ideas?

 

[Tenebrioun]

sorry, shoulda added, when I say better, I'm talking specifically about gaming-wise

 

[buwish]

It's pretty hard to upgrade a laptop and really not worth the time or money, as the performance increase you'll see is marginal. However, you can upgrade the hard drive to a 7200rpm model if it has a 5400 rpm model in it now. You could even do a SSD. You could also upgrade the amount of RAM depending on how much it'll take/already has.

 

[Tenebrioun]

Thanks, is there any sort of software that'll keep it at peak performance?

 

[Bacterius]

Thanks, is there any sort of software that'll keep it at peak performance?

There is no substitute for good habits. Anti-virus software, don't visit some kind of websites (you know what I mean), regularly defragment your hard drive, try and reboot it at least once every two days, use various software to assess the state of your components (like use the windows memory checker to check for memory errors, use HDTune or whatever to see if your hard drive isn't failing, etc...), etc... Basic maintenance really, and your laptop will last for years.

I second Buwish, adding an SSD will dramatically improve your laptop's performance. Specifically, it will decrease boot time by orders of magnitude and will reduce loading times (like in games, or even when opening applications and saving files). But an SSD is very, very expensive - 80GB is about $300 right now for laptops and the cost is linear in storage size.

More RAM will likely make no difference if you already have 3-4GB in it. If not, I would personally add more memory to reach 4 gigabytes, I mean memory is so cheap these days and your motherboard most likely supports up to 4GB, it would be stupid not to.

But what I would personally do is save the money for a desktop build, and then include the SSD in that computer - as a result your laptop will remain the same, but you'll get one beast of a gaming rig. But it depends on how you use your laptop, this is just a suggestion.

 

[Tenebrioun]

I was gonna go ssd for primary files and then a disk drive for everything else but decided on a higher quality disk drive for the same cost as the other two combined. I'll be upgrading later but I'm weary of the cost versus length of life on the ssd. Btw, the one I'm going with is 10000 rpm.

I've gotta be honest, I'm not overly familiar with some of those porgrams. I have Avast and I defrag once a week whether I need it or not(as a hint, I normally don't) what's hdtune and are there any other programs I should become familiar with?

 

[Bacterius]

Defragging once a week is not strictly recommended but if you're used to it all the better. HDTune is a program you should use once a month, it gives you benchmarks on your hard drive and (more importantly) gives you feedback on the wear of your HDD and if it has encountered any errors/is about to fail. The trial is time-limited though so you might want to find another free software that does the same thing. It's always useful to check.

 

[Tenebrioun]

Thanks, I'll look into that.

Does your comment on defragmenting mean that it could possible make things worse? I just have it set to do it every Wed at 3am automatically.(I don't leave my computer on constantly, just on Weds)

 

[Bacterius]

No no it won't make it worse, it's just your system doesn't have the time to actually fragment the hard drive to make a difference. And once a week isn't quite enough to increase wear on the hard drive. So I would say just keep it like that it's fine.

Remember by the way that solid state drives (the expensive ones) do not need defragmenting since access time is virtually instantaneous anyway.

 

[Tenebrioun]

Thanks, you've been very helpful and I really appreciate it.