Upgrade older laptop, yay or nay?

[McLovinHawaii]

Found myself in need of a laptop again but I can't decide whether or not to upgrade the old one I've got or buy a new one. The laptop I've got is a Toshiba Satellite Pro L870-18G. The thing is it needs a new fan and harddrive, I just can't be bothered with a 5400 rpm HDD when I've gotten used to using SSD I would only install a smaller SSD like 120 GB etc.. I can change all parts myself.



Laptop specs:
Intel® Core™ i5-3230M-processor Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0
16 GB DDR3 RAM 1600 MHz
AMD Radeon HD 7670M - 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM
Motherboard... who knows can't find the info


If I were to buy a new laptop it wouldn't have to be an i5 and I would just go with onboard graphics as I just need it for office purposes. I just don't like to throw working eletronics out!

 

[birne]

it depends on what you would want to do with it.
If all you are gonna du is browsing the web, office, light gaming etc. then i would say save a few bucks and go down the upgrading path.
the hardware is totally fine for that when you add an ssd.
If you however want to play modern titles or video/photo editing then i would recommend getting a new one.

 

[R_1]

if main use is office use, no reason not to upgrade, there still speed in there yet.
I would yank out the optical drive and move the HDD to a 2nd drive tray (A) and put the SSD where the HDD was. this way you get to keep large storage and still have a fast boot drive.
I would put the optical into an enclosure (B) and keep it as an external
Examples only shop around, not an endorsement
(A) https/www.amazon.com/HIGHROCK-Universal-Enclosure-DVD-ROM-Optical/dp/B0177AF7OO?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0177AF7OO
(B) https/www.amazon.com/Firstcom-External-Enclosure-Slimline-Optical/dp/B0168V7B7E/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1502872615&sr=8-9&keywords=laptop+cd+drive+enclosure

if you do this make sure you get the right height 2nd drive tray and enclosure. 7mm 9mm or 12.5mm

 

[McLovinHawaii]

Thanks for your answers I'll go with the upgrade as it'll be office work only. Never seen those drive trays for HDD's before, pretty cool!

 

[das_stig]

Upgrade, machine should make a respectable office work horse.

 

[McLovinHawaii]

Good to know! I'll just buy a 32/64 GB SSD then and swap the optic drive with a drive tray and place the 750 GB HDD there

 

[robert600]

Good to know! I'll just buy a 32/64 GB SSD then and swap the optic drive with a drive tray and place the 750 GB HDD there

32/64 GB SSD??? - That's really low - you're asking for future problems with that - I suggest you stick to your original idea of 120 GB - even that is on the low side - you really don't want to load an SSD past 80% capacity.

Considering you have to strip that laptop down to replace the fan - it would seem an ideal time to replace the thermal paste on that processor and do a thorough cleaning job on the whole cooling assembly. Also, if the cmos battery is in a hard to reach spot - maybe replace it.

Should be a great machine after that - 16GB of ram is nice to have!