[venusopal]

Hi, to everyone. I am a bit lost here, and am not even sure if this is the right place.
Anyway, since I am here ,could anyone please answer my question or refere me to someone who can, Thanks.

I have an Acer Travelmate 2304LCI, Intel M350,(1.3 GHz,400MHz,FSB,1MB L2 cache), 40 GB hdd, 256 MB DDR..
Al that doesnt mean the world to me, and is probably ancient History to most of you by now. I really love that CP, it works very well and I never had any problems with it, but it seems to get slower over time, So , how can I upgrade it to be quicker and, what do I need to do it, can I get in on ebay, andhow much should I pay for it. And as well can I install it myself - I used to repair Radios and so on, therefore I am familiar with this kind of work - just never worked on Computers. Thanks for the help, if any, Mike

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Hi venusopal! Welcome to the forums. It's highly possible that a simple format and fresh install of your OS (most probably XP) will get things running nicely again. I find that XP gets "clogged up" over time, so I backup all my data and fresh install XP every six months or so...

Also, you may want to try a Google search for XP speed tweaks.

If everything is running as best as possible and you still want more, you can visit http://www.crucial.com/ and run their online scanner, I believe upgrading your RAM would be about the best thing you can do, XP runs pretty average with only 256MB. An upgrade to 512MB or 1GB would clear things up nicely. The scan will show what options are available and recommend some compatible RAM modules - Crucial are an excellent brand, but you don't have to buy. You can just write down the specs and purchase from elsewhere. It may also be possible to upgrade the processor, but I wouldn't want to spend much money on it as it's old technology now. We don't recommend purchasing parts off eBay, it's easy to get stung with high postage fees and/or faulty components.

Also note that upgrading the RAM doesn't necessarily make your computer "faster", but I feel in this case the upgrade should provide significant headroom to multi-task, so you should notice a difference.

If you feel up to it, and are technically-inclined (radio repairs sounds good), then you can most probably give it a go. You'll just need to find where the RAM is located on your particular model. Some laptops it's hiding under the keyboard, others it's elsewhere underneath.

Hope this is of help to you

[Troy]

Hi venusopal! Welcome to the forums. It's highly possible that a simple format and fresh install of your OS (most probably XP) will get things running nicely again. I find that XP gets "clogged up" over time, so I backup all my data and fresh install XP every six months or so...

Also, you may want to try a Google search for XP speed tweaks.

If everything is running as best as possible and you still want more, you can visit http://www.crucial.com/ and run their online scanner, I believe upgrading your RAM would be about the best thing you can do, XP runs pretty average with only 256MB. An upgrade to 512MB or 1GB would clear things up nicely. The scan will show what options are available and recommend some compatible RAM modules - Crucial are an excellent brand, but you don't have to buy. You can just write down the specs and purchase from elsewhere. It may also be possible to upgrade the processor, but I wouldn't want to spend much money on it as it's old technology now. We don't recommend purchasing parts off eBay, it's easy to get stung with high postage fees and/or faulty components.

Also note that upgrading the RAM doesn't necessarily make your computer "faster", but I feel in this case the upgrade should provide significant headroom to multi-task, so you should notice a difference.

If you feel up to it, and are technically-inclined (radio repairs sounds good), then you can most probably give it a go. You'll just need to find where the RAM is located on your particular model. Some laptops it's hiding under the keyboard, others it's elsewhere underneath.

Hope this is of help to you

[venusopal]

Hi Troy
Thanks for the info, but I have even more questions now/
What is speed tweaks ?
an other thing is - How exasctly do I backup everything and how do I uninstall XP and reinstall it, or is that just to hard for someone who doesnt know that much about Computers , like me.
I have done a scan as you recommended and they think I should upgrade my Ram, just like you said. And they gave me an idea about compatible modules.
Another question would be - what does a ram look like ?

[kamille316]

Thanks for the info, but I have even more questions now/
What is speed tweaks ?

I believe speed tweaks are just ways you can improve the performance of your computer.

Another question would be - what does a ram look like ?

As per the specifications of your laptop that I found online, it says that you need a DDR SDRAM. It is usually a bit smaller for laptops.

an other thing is - How exasctly do I backup everything and how do I uninstall XP and reinstall it, or is that just to hard for someone who doesnt know that much about Computers , like me.

Backing-up is usually saving your important data in an external hard drive, a CD/DVD or a USB stick (copy and paste it to the drive). This is done because once you uninstall/reinstall XP (reformat your computer), you will loose all the data/file you currently have in your laptop. For a tutorial on how to reinstall XP check this guide Reformat and Install of Windows.


Kamille