gmtoday_small.gif

 


Speeding up an old computer on a budget

January 16, 2010 


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.

 


McClatchy-Tribune Information Services