|
Question:
My mother-in-law recently gave her old
Toshiba
laptop to our 14-year-old daughter. It works fine but is
a tad slow. It has an Intel Celeron M processor, a chip
speed of 1.5 gigahertz, 448 megabytes of RAM and a
55.8-gigabyte hard drive. Is there anything we can do to
speed it up without spending a lot of money? Would
adding more RAM be worthwhile?
Answer:
Yes, more RAM would speed up the system. From your
description, I think you have a Toshiba Tecra A5-S116
(check your PC to make sure.) Laptops of this type can
be upgraded to a total of 2 gigabytes of memory.
Additional
RAM modules plug into two memory "slots" on
your main circuit board, and are available in increments
of 1 gigabyte
($40)
, 512 megabytes
($24)
or 256 megabytes
($14)
.
For
instructions on how to install RAM modules in a laptop,
see the
YouTube
video at tinyurl.com/ya7e5v2.
To find
out more about RAM module prices, see tinyurl.com/ye9pqut
and tinyurl.com/yabjatm. (You can search for RAM using
your laptop's model number.)
———
Q: I
recently purchased a new laptop computer with the 64-bit
version of the Windows 7 operating system. I'm in the
process of purchasing an external hard drive to back up
files. Do I need a special hard drive for 64-bit Windows
7, or if I can use any external hard drive?
A: There
have been reports of some external hard drives failing
to work with the 64-bit version of Windows 7. The
problem was that the 64-bit operating system wouldn't
accept the drives' "software drivers" — the
software that enables the PC and the hard drive to
communicate. Check out
Microsoft's
list of external drives that are compatible with the
64-bit version of Windows 7 at tinyurl.com/y8screc.
———
Q: I
bought the Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 upgrade
to replace the 2003 version installed on my desktop PC.
But I can't get the upgrade to install. It starts, then
quits and displays the message "encountered an
error during setup."
Microsoft's
technicians wouldn't help because I lacked a serial
number that's inside the software that won't load. What
should I do?
A: The
error you describe seems to be the one on the
Microsoft
help page at tinyurl.com/ycageop. The page says the
upgrade program can't uninstall the 2003 version of
Office and suggests you do it manually.
———
ABOUT THE
WRITER
Steve Alexander
covers technology for the
Minneapolis Star Tribune
. Readers may write to him at Tech Q&A,
425 Portland Ave. S.
,
Minneapolis, Minn.
55488-0002; e-mail: steve.j.alexander@gmail.com.
Please include a full name, city and phone number.
|
