Up, up or No way?

Stoo · 24 Aug 2011

I`m back again.

Having had my laptop for the best part of 18 months now and it suffering from
an overheating Turion X2 Ultra so that I can`t run much of anything with even a
1280*720 medium gfx setting without grinding to a frazzled halt I`m thiinking maybe
a new faster/cooler cpu and memory/video card might help.

At the mo I`ve an:
AMD Turion x2 Ultra 64bit in a S1(638) socket, and
2Gb DDR2 @ 333 MHz (Two of)

Also an:
ATI Mobility Radeon HD4570 with 512MB Dedicated RAM
with 1600 * 900 32 bit screen.

My questions are:

1) Can I install faster RAM and will it make much difference?

2) Can I upgrade the video card and how much diff would that make?

3) Is there a faster/cooler cpu I can install and (Have you guessed yet?)
will that make much difference?

I`ve done as much as I can with Win7. My passmark rating is at around 800. Way
above all the other 7535g scores and raised from the freshly installed score or 680.

I`d like to play a few games with the settings over medium as I hoped I could,
but mostly I just want to be able to have the system run with a heavy load without it all but melting the table.

Hoping for good news but have my doctor on hand just in case,

Stoo.

GEWB · 25 Aug 2011

Hello Stoo -

You are talking about different issues in this post. On one hand you say "...suffering from
an overheating Turion X2 Ultra so that I can`t run much of anything..." but then you ask about different CPU/RAM/video on a laptop.

Sounds like your first issue is the overheating - that needs to be resolved. On a laptop you need to clean out the cooling ducts/fins. Used a CAN of compressed air and blow out the ducts - you'll see the areas from the sides, back and bottom of the case.

NOTE: do NOT use an air compressor as it has too much pressure/air flow (use the canned air for safety). When using the canned air, do NOT turn the can sideways/upside down - ALWAYS keep it upright during use.

As to RAM, 4GB is nice to use, even on Win7 32bit.

Your Radeon HD4570 isn't too bad of a vid. If you get 4GB of RAM, set your BIOS to assign 1024MB to the video (up from 512MB) and Win7 will use the rest.

Regards,
GEWB