Toshiba u500 st-5302 upgrade options

wilhemina

Distinguished
Nov 3, 2009
5
0
18,510
Hi. I need some suggestions for possible hardware/software upgrade options for the 13.3" toshiba satellite U500 ST-5302. I presently have it running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and it is equipped with 4 Gb of RAM and the ATI radeon 4570 graphics card. I just built a nice gaming desktop so this laptop has begun to really feel laggy (although it's only been a year..lol!), and I was wondering what possible upgrades I could use to make this a little(no..make that a whole lot) snappier. I was in a bit of a quandary about whether to upgrade or just trade it in for the ASUS Netbook...yeah I know it'll be comparatively slower but I figured if I had to sacrifice specs for weight I'd as well get this to be really fast, or get a lightweight ASUS netbook with some flava (the asus eee pc 1201n comes to mind). If there were any complaints I had against this notebook, i'd say it was that the battery life was too short (so that would present a possible battery upgrade), it was too heavy (no helping that, but that would make the battery upgrade less desirable), and I guess the Windows 7 home premium had become real old and laggy. Then there are SSD possibilities and all that (instead of HDD). Anyway, the basic issue is, is there anyone out there who has upgraded a toshiba u500 and gotten a bit more of a bang from it, and using what operating system? Linux? Windows XP? Ubuntu Netbook Edition? Please if possible I'd like to keep answers as centred around the toshiba u500 as possible (any sub-model is fine).

Thanx!!
 
Solution
It's basically impossible to upgrade a laptop like you would a desktop. In most cases the GPU is embedded onto the motherboard, i.e. soldered, so removing that and then finding something else to fit is more trouble than it's worth. RAM wise, most laptops are limited to 4GB max, but if you look up the specs, you may find that it can handle more and perhaps something a bit faster. Your best bet would be to go with a SSD, as I think you'll see the most results from it.
It's basically impossible to upgrade a laptop like you would a desktop. In most cases the GPU is embedded onto the motherboard, i.e. soldered, so removing that and then finding something else to fit is more trouble than it's worth. RAM wise, most laptops are limited to 4GB max, but if you look up the specs, you may find that it can handle more and perhaps something a bit faster. Your best bet would be to go with a SSD, as I think you'll see the most results from it.
 
Solution