Planning to upgrade an old sony vaio notebook

[ferrandiz.bendezu.fj96]

I Have a six years old Sony Vaio laptop (model SVE14A15FLH). I replaced one of the 2gb ram sticks with one of 4gb from another laptop leaving me with a total of 6gb ram. I wonder if buying an 8gb ram (2x4) and a 128gb ssd will improve my performance. The main use for this laptop will be for basic cad (Autocad, Revit) and office software since i have a main desktop for more intensive tasks.

CPU: Intel Core i5 2450m
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7600M Series

PD: I'm sorry for my bad grammar, english is not my first language.

 

[robert600]

Yes ... putting in a SSD will make a huge difference ... everything will load up much quicker - you will be very pleased by doing this. Are you sure though that 128 gb is big enough - you don't want to fill them past about 80% so you have to figure you will have about 100 gb to use. I would suggest you get one around 250 gb if at all possible.

The extra ram would be helpful too but the difference would not be as dramatic as that SSD will make. If I couldn't afford both ... I would definitely pick the SSD (preferably 250 gb) over the ram.

 

[ferrandiz.bendezu.fj96]

First, thanks for your answer. Do you think that un upgrade of the cpu will be possible? I saw in a local store an intel core i7 3630 for about 60 dollars. My socket is a rPGA-988B and chipset HM76.

 

[robert600]

That's a very good price for a i7 3630qm. It is a much better (quad core) cpu and it would fit in your socket. There are 2 issues though that I can see.

1. your current processor has 'sandy bridge' microarchitecture whereas the i7 has 'ivy bridge'. They are very similar however so my 'best guess' is that the bios would be ok with this upgrade.

2. Your current processor is 35 watts - the i7 is 45 watts. More watts means more heat. Many people would say that since your system has been designed to cool a 35 watt processor ... putting a 45 watt in it would be a mistake ... it would run too hot. However, I've replaced many 35 watt cpus with 45 watt ones and never encountered a problem. If you were to try it, you would definitely want to carefully and completely clean the entire cooling system when you replace the cpu.

Overall, I would think that this upgrade would work but ... there is no way to 100% guaranty this. On the plus side - you're getting the i7 for a very good price - the bios will either recognize it or not - and if it does - it will either run too hot or not - neither will hurt anything as long as you don't repeatedly overheat it. A good temperature monitoring program will allow you to keep an eye on the cpu temps. If things don't work out ... you can put the original processor back in and sell the i7. If it does work ... you would have a vastly improved laptop.