Do I need a new laptop? Advice please.

[njee20]

get a quality SSD as I suggested earlier

I have 'Kingspec' SSDs in two different machines (including an Acer Aspire laptop), they're obscenely cheap from AliExpress and perform as well as the expensive Samsung ones I've got. YMMV.

[The Q]

I've upgraded 2 aspire laptops memory, it was just a case of:

find the exact model off the back of the machine.
Type that number into a memory suppliers page, ( I use Mr Memory).

Up popped the options available.
Order the max it can have.
Watch video on YouTube for that models memory upgrade, though most are very similar.
Unscrew the panel covering the memory.
Unclip the two old memory boards.
Clip in the two new boards,
Put the cover back on.
 Job done.

I've also upgraded a old Toshiba from 4Gb, to 12Gb, same procedure as above and a small HDD, to a 1Tb SSD. It really improved the performance and happily runs win 10 and MS Office.

Note, many PCs and laptops won't run win 11 as they require TMP V2 built in. Which the older stuff doesn't have. There is a work round for that, but you're heading for nerd territory, and it's not always successful ( from what I've read).

Time to go use that old Toshiba to do the MRC accounts.

[davidinyork]

Stay far away from upgrading this laptop to Windoze 11. Updating any version of Windoze to the next one is tricky at the best of times, and is an absolute living nightmare if it ever goes wrong - and upgrades go wrong so, so often.

Not really the case these days - In the case of 10 to 11 in-place upgrades, it normally either works or refuses to install at all (most usually because the computer doesn't meet the hardware requirements but can be other reasons). If it's offered through the updates list in the settings app then it is supported (won't offer it otherwise). If it appears there then it's fairly safe to upgrade it.

Yes there are workarounds to the hardware requirements (there's also a lower ceiling which is harder to circumvent) - but these all need a wipe and reinstall and are best avoided for general home users. The annual feature updates also won't install on an unsupported system, so another wipe and reinstall will be necessary - and there's no guarantee that an update in between won't break them. I'd never install W11 on production work machines which didn't meet the hardware requirements - too risky. Done it in testing to see what does and doesn't work, but that's as far as it goes.

I've pushed out the 10 to 11 upgrade to over a hundred machines using Microsoft's remote management platform (Intune), and probably at least 90% of them have installed it with no problems. Of those which haven't, it's normally needed a bit of prodding on the machine itself. A handful have needed a wipe and reinstall, but in no cases did trying to update break them - they just stayed on Windows 10 if they were refusing to install 11.

[Papyrus]

Blimey! My brain hurts... 

I very much appreciate everybody's input but I'll stick with my original intention to take it to the local laptop garage. I've never taken a laptop apart except to fit a new battery, and I don't intend to start now! I will report back.

Cheers,

Chris

[njee20]

Replacing a battery is almost certainly harder than replacing a HDD/SSD, but nothing wrong with outsourcing it.

[Papyrus]

Update

I finally got around to doing something about this after a car repair wasn't as expensive as I feared. My laptop came back today and the difference is amazing. It booted up in a couple of minutes while my tea was brewing so for just over £100 I have a machine which is working as well as it did when new. If I get another 2 or 3 years use out of it I will be well pleased.

Onward and upward,

Cheers,

Chris

[Bealman]

  

[Malc]

It's worth checking which startup files are running. You can get lots of bloatware that insists on installing startup files that slow your PC down.

[Platy767]

I've just added life to 2 old PCs by installing Linux.

A Compaq V5000 from 2006 got MX Linux 23 (32bit). It only has 2G of RAM and a 256G SSD. Was running XP and was strugggling.

A Lenovo E530 from 2012 got Linux Mint Debian Edition 6. It has 8G and a 1TB SSD. I was trying these to see how they went - and can now be connected to the internet with much more confidence.

My daily drive is a Windows 10 machine, but I was wondering what to do with it when Win 10 goes end of support October 2025. Another family member has a machine that did upgrade from Win10 to Win11, but now she has "glitches" with MS Word (2013), and I still run MS Word 2010, so there's no hope for mine.

The Lenovo with LMDE6 does everything the Win10 machine does with the exception of double sided printing (still need to figure that out), but it scans and just today I got a Gerbera Media server going to serve music files to my Music Cast Yamaha amp.

I like both my old machines because they each have a CD/DVD drive, whereas the Win10 machine from 2020 doesn't.

Mark

[Pollyyy]

Your laptop's slow performance and lengthy update times might be due to several factors, such as outdated drivers, excessive background processes, or a need for system cleanup.

[njee20]

Please don't resurrect every thread in this forum with the same post that you use a MacBook Air, it doesn't even seem overly relevant to either thread you've currently posted on.

They're decent machines, but at £1000+ they're certainly at the 'premium' end of the pricing spectrum.

[zwilnik]

Please don't resurrect every thread in this forum with the same post that you use a MacBook Air, it doesn't even seem overly relevant to either thread you've currently posted on.

They're decent machines, but at £1000+ they're certainly at the 'premium' end of the pricing spectrum.

Looking at their other posts, I'd say 99% certainly a bot.

[njee20]

Ooo, interesting though, hadn't spotted that!

[zwilnik]

Ooo, interesting though, hadn't spotted that!

One of their other posts is a pretty obvious spam link plant. I've reported it to mods.

Also the Pollyyy user is a definite bot. Same post styles and somehow has the same NGS and 2mm society numbers higher than their membership has probably got to yet

[njee20]

Yep, totally agree, just hadn't looked at the posting history, just spotted the two matching responses in these threads