/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>422691
More RAM always helps, but make sure your CPU usage isn't too high. Perhaps get a new motem and install yourself. You can find parts around, especially in thrift shops. I would also get some cooling fans. Might turn it into a tower, unless you get small ass supplies.

Go to the Dell site and see if you can locate what the configuration options were for the system, compare to your current build, then see if you can replace the respective components to upgrade. If you can then go and hit up ebay.

Unfortunately; laptops in general aren't really upgradeable, and anything which is designed to be "mini" tends to use integrated components that can't reasonably be replaced.

>>422727
>motem
WTF are you even talking about?

There ain't really anything you can do with it. It's all integrated. MAybe upgrade the RAM or wireless card, but that's about as far as it goes for upgrading.

"Turning it into a tower" is just completely impractical and won't accomplish anything as far as performance, but is a good way to fuck it up altogether. The same goes for cooling fans. It won't accomplish jack shit. These things use extremely low power CPU's and integrated graphics chips, usually built into the CPU itself.

Better off going out and spending the couple hundred dollars on a barebones kit on Newegg.

>> turn it into a tower

wat

You can't reasonably upgrade a laptop or turn said laptop into a tower.

>>422691
the CPU is soldered to the borard and shit....

sell it...

this fuckers go for 200$

a decent oldschool gaming PC E6700 + X1600 xt starts at 100$

Save money for this, don't buy pot or crack rocks for a month or two

1GB XFX Radeon HD 7770 129$

Intel Pentium G850, Socket 1155, Dual Core, 2.90GHz. 75$

(Case) Fractal Design Core 1000 50$

LiteOn IHAS124-04 24x DVD±R. 18$

Antec BP500U ATX 12V 500W Power Supply. 54$

MSI H61M-P31 (G3) Motherboard 50$


4gb ram 28$. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002YU83YO

500GB Seagate ST500DM002 Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s, 7200rpm 60$


Windows seven 99-139
I recommend windows seven professional but premium can be used as well. Try to find these parts cheaper if you can, this will get good setting on most games. Here's video proof: Note CPU is more upgraded as well as the PSU ( horror stories of that 10$ in the vid) the CPU in vid is was taken out of production days afte the vid went up, this ones next inline and somewhat more powerful. Hook this striaght up to your TV via hdmi out

>>423683
Forgot video: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh455l3348s

>>422691
if you had money to toss at it, you could try more RAM and a SSD (which does speed some video-display aspects up, believe it or not)

the main issue is the screen resolution.
AFAIK, laptops come with a video card (built-in) that has a maximum screen resolution of whatever screen the laptop came with. They may have a HDMI-out or second monitor-out port, but that doesn't guarantee they can run the external screen at any higher resolution.

Alright OP, I've been turning laptops into towers for a while now since I get (mostly partially broken) laptops cheap from friends looking to upgrade and love to tinker. As I was reading your post I was also watching Brad Pit kick ass in Troy on my dedicated media center laptop-tower.

For starters you should format the whole thing with a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 version. The freed up space can give you a noticeable increase in speed and re-installing drivers ensures you get the latest (usually faster) drivers. As for physical upgrades you can't do much about the GPU save for keeping it cooler and thus faster. I can squeeze around twenty more frames out of my Emulation games with a fan pointed at it. So I suggest you get something to set it on, so that you can point a small fan at the bottom and if you want you can remove some of the bottom panels.

Many don't know this, but Windows Vista/7/8 all have something called ReadyBoost installed, it's a program that can convert USB sticks and SD cards into virtual RAM for your computer. So think about grabing a nice 4-16gb one of those and stick it in; it will prompt you about it. Make sure your stick or card has a decent write speed and your stick is in a USB 3.0 port. I find it helps quite a bit, especially when starting my PC and when running RAM intensive programs like Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Excel. Switching to an SolidStateDrive is always an easy and effective upgrade, relieving the bottle neck of the spinning disk hard drives. Lastly I've hear that you can purchase these computer accessories that fit graphics card pins and converts them to work for USB, basically making them external graphics cards. I've been thinking about investing in one but am still doing research on their effectiveness as a graphics card.

Hope that helps OP.

>>422691
>Turn into a tower like the other /diy/kes suggested.
>Water cool
>upgrade CPU if possible
>upgrade RAM to max amount and speed
>install an SSD
>install and external GPU
>install pcie second CPU
>install Linux (this is fucking obvious)
>Overclock everything
CPU
GPU
FSB
RAM
etc
>profit

>>423683
If you are going to suggest building a new computer suggest AMD for budget systems... or any system for that matter... Intel suck donkey ass.

>>423686
this

the biggest problem with tons of older laptops are the bulky,low capacity,ancient hard drives which is most likely spinning at 5400

get an SSD and watch your computer operate faster than when it was brand new

upgrade to windows 7 if you are able to(might need to buy more RAM for this) otherwise install xp and you'll be peachy.

also,that wireless card is probably a giant sack of shit in there.make sure to spend $20 and buy this baby
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00823RNUC/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

it's very fast and provides incredible range and strength,not to mention if you ever feel the need to place it in a desktop,it will also turn it into a wireless desktop

shit's dope yo

>>424168
That hasn't been true for like 5 years. Right now, Intel makes the best chips bang for buck (if you're using discrete graphics) hands down.

OP, what you want isn't going to happen. There's some old games that will run ok on an atom netbook from 2008, but generally speaking, nothing 3D and nothing new besides maybe a couple indie games.

"
get an SSD and watch your computer operate faster than when it was brand new

upgrade to windows 7 if you are able to(might need to buy more RAM for this) otherwise install xp and you'll be peachy.
"


WAT

do you evern computah

>>422691
Linux, bitch.

>>422745
>There ain't really anything you can do with it. It's all integrated. MAybe upgrade the RAM or wireless card, but that's about as far as it goes for upgrading.
>
>"Turning it into a tower" is just completely impractical and won't accomplish anything as far as performance, but is a good way to fuck it up altogether. The same goes for cooling fans. It won't accomplish jack shit. These things use extremely low power CPU's and integrated graphics chips, usually built into the CPU itself.
>
>Better off going out and spending the couple hundred dollars on a barebones kit on Newegg.
This is the only post you need to read

1. Sell the laptop
2. Build a PC tower from scratch
3. Use TV as monitor until you come into some more money
4. ????
5. PROFIT

>>424251
How much money do you have to spend?
What games are you intending to play?
What country do you live in?

Laptop for gaming never works, unless you can install an ugly ass external GPU which is far from practical.

>buy old model ps3, 250 $
>jailbreak, don't pay for games
problem solved

>>424251
That's what I said!

This thread....

/diy/ needs to stick to making desks and playing with electronics, not giving people computer advice.

This is the most-true post in this thread.
>>422745