[Oberon75]

The cd/dvd drive in my Dell Inspiron 5100 is no longer recognizing CDs. Also the laptop has been running slower and slower over the last couple of years. Are all slim cd drives the same dimensions and interface? Dell's website gives me one option for a refurb cd drive @ $50. I can get a new one from newegg if they're the same interface and dimension, but can't figure out how to find that out.
On the lack of speed issue, I'm running XPsp3, with 768mb of RAM. I can't find any info about how much RAM it'll hold max. What can I do to speed this poor thing up? I only use my laptop for web-surfing and occasionally listening to audio cds.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

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Hi Oberon75
No all drives are not the same for various reasons apart from physical size, SATA, IDE interface for example, the best I can suggest would be to remove the drive and measure it and let us know any details that may be written on the drive, as it is older it may be the ATA 100 IDE type.
A less expensive refurbished replacement http://www.discounte...ct_detail&p=487 and a less expensive new replacement http://www.amazon.co...t/dp/B002IJO3P4
From your laptop specs;
The two DDR 200-pin SODIMM memory slots hold two 512MB memory modules, for a maximum of 1GB.
Adding 2 new sticks of the same Ram will improve performance but you will not be blown away by it unfortunately, use the Crucial system scanner tool to find the recommended Ram for your computer http://www.crucial.c...:20100901184937 there is no need to purchase from there just write down the recommendations and then shop around for the best deal.
Your laptop is listed as being shipped with either a 30 or 40GB HDD, what size HDD is yours and how much available free storage space is available at present, let us know this and we can look at both tidying and freeing up space on the HDD which will increase efficiency.

[phillpower2]

Hi Oberon75
No all drives are not the same for various reasons apart from physical size, SATA, IDE interface for example, the best I can suggest would be to remove the drive and measure it and let us know any details that may be written on the drive, as it is older it may be the ATA 100 IDE type.
A less expensive refurbished replacement http://www.discounte...ct_detail&p=487 and a less expensive new replacement http://www.amazon.co...t/dp/B002IJO3P4
From your laptop specs;
The two DDR 200-pin SODIMM memory slots hold two 512MB memory modules, for a maximum of 1GB.
Adding 2 new sticks of the same Ram will improve performance but you will not be blown away by it unfortunately, use the Crucial system scanner tool to find the recommended Ram for your computer http://www.crucial.c...:20100901184937 there is no need to purchase from there just write down the recommendations and then shop around for the best deal.
Your laptop is listed as being shipped with either a 30 or 40GB HDD, what size HDD is yours and how much available free storage space is available at present, let us know this and we can look at both tidying and freeing up space on the HDD which will increase efficiency.

[Oberon75]

I've finally gotten the relevant information out of Dell about this poor extinct laptop. It's going to cost me more to get it running at a barely acceptable speed than it will to just scrap it and buy a new one. I guess it's going to the big computer scrapyard in the sky!

Thanks for the info

[phillpower2]

Thanks for the update Oberon75, I am sorry it was not better news.