Laptop upgrade theory help

[pixelhungry]

hello

I have a semi-old computer that's still in good condition. the only problem im having is the battery won't hold a charge and it's having trouble playing any sort of game/booting it up. The problem with not being able to run any games might be from the dead battery (I have it plugged into the wall whenever I use it because it only lasts 5 min.) .though I was wondering about upgrading it just for fun.

its a Samsung R580 with an i5 core NVidia gpu (not sure which) and then 4 gb of ram.

What I want to do is
1. buy a replacement battery
2. replace the hard drive
3. put a brand new os (probably windows 8) on the new hdd
4. maybe upgrade cpu or gpu if possible ( im not to sure but if there was a apu that could fit this pc spec that would be really cool)

 

[Skippy27]

1. You can get a new battery - FYI this has nothing to do with running your games.
2. You can replace the drive.
3. You can even install a New OS.
4. This one will be quite tricky and I would say if this is what you want to do, just go by a new computer.

By the time you did all 4 above you could probably already have a better machine with the latest OS than you can do yourself, if you could even do #4.

 

[RetiredChief]

GPU:
Very rare that you can change an intergrated GPU:
quote: The Nvidia GeForce 310M is an entry level laptop graphics card "
Your GPU is isted as a Class 4 GPU NOT to good.
Full review and what games you can play (games are at the bottom on left side:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-310M.22439.0.html
IF gaming is your Bag (outside of game that relys on CPU and NOT GPU) only option is NEW laptop - sorry.

Battery:
Link to replaceent battry for your R580:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbo=d&sclient=psy-ab&q=samsung+r580+battery&oq=Samsung+R58&gs_l=serp.1.1.0l4.4383.6973.0.9531.3.2.1.0.0.0.156.281.0j2.2.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.-RkuTqesvpI&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=2a406c7ad5f091d9&biw=1215&bih=764
Windows 8 will not improve your Gaming performance which is limited by your GPU.

 

[pixelhungry]

yea I know my computer is outdated, but I was just going to do it for fun. I built my own gaming rig a few months ago and I was looking for something else to mess with. My computer is probably loaded down with a bunch of crap and other things, but games I was able to play 2 years ago lag for me now. And in reply to retired chief: you don't think there's an APU that would be interchangeable with my cpu socket and that I could use instead of the gpu do you?

 

[pixelhungry]

1. You can get a new battery - FYI this has nothing to do with running your games.
2. You can replace the drive.
3. You can even install a New OS.
4. This one will be quite tricky and I would say if this is what you want to do, just go by a new computer.

By the time you did all 4 above you could probably already have a better machine with the latest OS than you can do yourself, if you could even do #4.

I was wondering about battery and gaming like that it wasn't able to pull enough power to keep a game running.

 

[RetiredChief]

For laptops the GPU is normally a solder in chip. The CPU is probable 75% chance it's solder-in and 25% chance it is socked.
What you can do is google repair of your Specific laptop and see if it has a screen shot of the MB.
Skippy is correct in that the battery will not effect gaming untill it gets down to around 10% battery time left which means rest of computer will als be effected shortly.

 

[jaguarskx]

I would probably stick with Win 7 instead of Win 8. Some people have complained about games not being compatible with Win 8. For example, Fallout 3 does not run with Win 8 even in any of the compatibility modes.

If you wanna play some older games you should Google around to see if anyone has tried those games with Win 8.