I have an eight year old Sony Vaio FW270J. It has served me well for eight years. I replaced the hard drive a few years ago with something similar to the original. The specs are:
Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 [2.26 GHz]
4 GB Memory 320 GB HDD 5400rpm
Intel GMA 4500MHD
1600 x 900
BD-ROM
It can play bluray, and has HDMI to connect to my TV so it can function as a "relatively" full service bluray player. It came with Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit, but I have upgraded to WIndows 8.1, and it seems to run pretty well.
I've been getting problems on reboot, saying it needs to repair the C:drive. I ran a program I found online for checking a hard drive, said I had no errors. But I still reformatted the drive, reinstalled the operating system, and it ran good for a few weeks, but I had another issue with it saying it needed to repair the C drive, and it took a few hours to sort that out.
Since this seems to be a hard drive problem, I thought about replacing the internal hard drive, and upgrading to an SSD while I'm at it [250-500gb]. And then I saw some of those sites that tell you want upgrades are compatible with your laptop say that I can upgrade the ram to 8gb [though the official specs say its 4gb max, not sure which to trust]. This may be $250 or more in upgrades. Would that be a waste, like remodeling a house that's about to burn down?
I guess my main question is, does this computer have a fundamental bottleneck somewhere, that cannot be upgraded, and that makes it obsolete or nearly so, such that these sorts of upgrades are a bad idea, or I can just get better for the same money I'd spend upgrading this?
Thanks!
Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 [2.26 GHz]
4 GB Memory 320 GB HDD 5400rpm
Intel GMA 4500MHD
1600 x 900
BD-ROM
It can play bluray, and has HDMI to connect to my TV so it can function as a "relatively" full service bluray player. It came with Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit, but I have upgraded to WIndows 8.1, and it seems to run pretty well.
I've been getting problems on reboot, saying it needs to repair the C:drive. I ran a program I found online for checking a hard drive, said I had no errors. But I still reformatted the drive, reinstalled the operating system, and it ran good for a few weeks, but I had another issue with it saying it needed to repair the C drive, and it took a few hours to sort that out.
Since this seems to be a hard drive problem, I thought about replacing the internal hard drive, and upgrading to an SSD while I'm at it [250-500gb]. And then I saw some of those sites that tell you want upgrades are compatible with your laptop say that I can upgrade the ram to 8gb [though the official specs say its 4gb max, not sure which to trust]. This may be $250 or more in upgrades. Would that be a waste, like remodeling a house that's about to burn down?
I guess my main question is, does this computer have a fundamental bottleneck somewhere, that cannot be upgraded, and that makes it obsolete or nearly so, such that these sorts of upgrades are a bad idea, or I can just get better for the same money I'd spend upgrading this?
Thanks!
snowctrl :
This laptop only has the original SATA, not SATA II, so I would not bother putting an SSD in it, unless you have one spare to try, since it will not give you much of a speed increase - the SATA port will limit severly the SSD.
Upgrading to 8GB RAM may give you a small speed boost in more demanding tasks, but I would say better to put your money towards a new system.
8 years is a long life for a PC.... I'd say this laptop has served you well!!!
Upgrading to 8GB RAM may give you a small speed boost in more demanding tasks, but I would say better to put your money towards a new system.
8 years is a long life for a PC.... I'd say this laptop has served you well!!!
An SSD even on a first gen SATA port will still be a lot faster than a spindle hard drive. The original drive is a 5400 rpm one and it already had issues which makes it run slower than a new one, just those facts would make an SSD faster even if the interface was limiting the speed to a 5400 rpm drive, which is won't.
If there are no space issues, $50 on a last year model 128 gig SSD will make the system run pretty good. For general use the RAM amount is fine. As long as the system is in good shape with no heat or screen issues, SSD is a cheap upgrade.
snowctrl :
This laptop only has the original SATA, not SATA II, so I would not bother putting an SSD in it, unless you have one spare to try, since it will not give you much of a speed increase - the SATA port will limit severly the SSD.
Upgrading to 8GB RAM may give you a small speed boost in more demanding tasks, but I would say better to put your money towards a new system.
8 years is a long life for a PC.... I'd say this laptop has served you well!!!
Upgrading to 8GB RAM may give you a small speed boost in more demanding tasks, but I would say better to put your money towards a new system.
8 years is a long life for a PC.... I'd say this laptop has served you well!!!
An SSD even on a first gen SATA port will still be a lot faster than a spindle hard drive. The original drive is a 5400 rpm one and it already had issues which makes it run slower than a new one, just those facts would make an SSD faster even if the interface was limiting the speed to a 5400 rpm drive, which is won't.
If there are no space issues, $50 on a last year model 128 gig SSD will make the system run pretty good. For general use the RAM amount is fine. As long as the system is in good shape with no heat or screen issues, SSD is a cheap upgrade.