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Forum: General Discussion

Topic: Suprisingly cheap upgrade makes huge difference w/ old laptop

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For a while now I have been frustrated by long boot times and slow song searches. I use a 3TB external hard drive to store my music on. when I bought the drive I thought ahead and bough one that was USB 3.0 compatible. The problem was that my old laptop only has USB 2.0 ports. No eSATA either.

I just decided being slow was the trade-off I had to deal with for having a large collection and a 3 year old laptop.

Hah! Not so fast :)

Believe me when I found this adapter I felt dumb for living with my frustrations for so long.

Her it is:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815186002

It plugs into a PCMCIA slot that almost every laptop has and draws extra power from an open USB 2.0 port and gives you two USB 3.0 ports.

All for $35

My connection speed went form 30mb/s to 98mb/s so more than 3x faster. This has effected everything from boot up speed to song load to search speed - absolutely awesome for the investment.

Just wanted to share my experience in case anyone out there has a laptop with old USB and a newer external hard drive looking to kick up their performance without getting a new computer.
 
Inviato Fri 23 Sep 11 @ 1:44 pm
Nice find bro!! I gotta question cause you seem to find all the good deals, lol! I'm looking for a cheap netbook for my 10 year son. He likes you look up videos on YouTube and play all those little flash games at addicting games.com. Doesn't have to be fancy but needs to have usb port for a mouse. Think you could help me out??

Huey
 
haha :) being a semi tech weenie and broke has a way of forcing you to find good deals :) will see what I can do
 
Lol, tech weenie! Thanks bro! His birthday is coming up and I think he'll like that if i can find one.

Huey
 
Here is what I found

Aspire One AO522-BZ465 Netbook -- $235
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0360559

Dual core 1ghz processor is a little slower than some competitors but the graphics card is way better and the screen is 1280x720 most netbooks at this price point have 1024x600

Here is a link to a review with side by side video comparison - I would not worry too much about the power consumption they are talking about because power doesn't matter if it can't play the video anyway now does it ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXXOLnPnS7o

The one on the left is the same chip in the netbook I am recommending - the one that does not stutter.

Pop for an extra $20 and up the ram from from 1gb -> 4gb the OS is only 32bit so it will only see like 3.2gb but don't worry about that

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0366952

and it should be able to handle anything online with the latest version of Flash that utilizes the graphics card for playback
 
oops! Looks like that is an in-store price only. What part of the country are you in - they might have a store near you.
 
I'm in Sioux City, Iowa
 
Alienware 11x? used on ebay? and some good bidding strategy? could score on for @ $350.that lappy rocks!
 
Id just like to mention when working with older laptops also make sure you do a regular clean out inside the laptop. Open it up and clean the vents, fan, check the heatsink. If you make sure you get rid of all the dust you will find that the laptop will also run at a better performance.
 
Are we talking about my Alienware m9700 "tank"? (sorry,did'nt want to derail this topic) funny...bought this on Ebay after I contacted the seller and she sayd "Hubbie" dusted off the fans and and added cooling gel around the proccesor and Gpu's.....thats when i figured they new what to do...and bought it!
 
jbart19 wrote :
For a while now I have been frustrated by long boot times and slow song searches. I use a 3TB external hard drive to store my music on. when I bought the drive I thought ahead and bough one that was USB 3.0 compatible. The problem was that my old laptop only has USB 2.0 ports. No eSATA either.

I just decided being slow was the trade-off I had to deal with for having a large collection and a 3 year old laptop.

Hah! Not so fast :)

Believe me when I found this adapter I felt dumb for living with my frustrations for so long.

Her it is:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815186002

It plugs into a PCMCIA slot that almost every laptop has and draws extra power from an open USB 2.0 port and gives you two USB 3.0 ports.

All for $35

My connection speed went form 30mb/s to 98mb/s so more than 3x faster. This has effected everything from boot up speed to song load to search speed - absolutely awesome for the investment.

Just wanted to share my experience in case anyone out there has a laptop with old USB and a newer external hard drive looking to kick up their performance without getting a new computer.



Well I just did exactly the same thing last week.....and it's a Big improvement over the two ext. drives, though they are fast ,1=G-Tech & 1=Glyph.....worth doing it if you are doing alot of videos and karaoke

Joey...
 
nice find actually...
 


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