Laptop upgrades are not difficult to complete yourself, and there are three key upgrades that you can easily accomplish to make your laptop run faster.  These will also give your laptop a higher resale value when you decide to replace it.

One of the most simple laptop upgrades to complete yourself is to upgrade your operating system. If you are running Windows XP or Windows Media Center, upgrading to Windows Vista is a good idea.  You will be able to take advantage of the many features of Windows Vista, as well as enhance the speed of your system.  An upgrade to Windows Vista for the Home Basic edition is under $100 and is worth it to enhance the efficiency of your system.

Another good upgrade is to increase the size of your hard drive.  Hard drives for laptops come in the size of 2.5″ “mobile” drives.  You can purchase a hard drive upgrade to increase the storage on your laptop for a little over $1.00 per 1 gigabyte.   You can easily find major resellers of mobile hard drives on the Web.  Swapping out your hard drive is fairly simple, and usually only requires that you unplug the existing drive and lift from its tray, and replace it with your new drive.  Remember that when opening your computer and handing components, you should use a grounding bracelet whch your component vendor can provide to avoid damage from static.

Increasing the memory on your laptop is another one of the key laptop upgrades.  Most laptop cases have a specific door you can open on the back for the memory, and generally the existing SDRAM cards can be removed and the new memory modules installed with the flip of a lever.  You will have to buy memory that is compatible with your system, but most online memory vendors have a search function allowing you to enter your laptop model and pull up the correct item number for the memory that matches your system.  You can contact your vendor or your equipment manufacturer directly for assistance finding the right memory module. Increasing the memory in your system is one of the best laptop upgrades you can perform to speed up your system.

The three laptop upgrades described above are the most vital to your system and the easiest to accomplish yourself.  While upgrading the processor, video card or sound card are also possibilities, those upgrades really are more specific to the individual use you make of your laptop, such as if you plan to upgrade for gaming or video editing.  As above, it’s best to check with the manufacturer first before making these type of upgrades.  But upgrading your operating system, memory and hard disk capacity are easy and fast are laptop upgrades that can enhance any laptop system.

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