old laptop upgrading

[Shannon]

My aunt has a hand me down laptop from a friend. When she first got it I reformatted the thing and reinstalled Windows (98SE) for her, and she's enjoyed having it for little things like solitaire. It's pretty old, though. She has no internet on it because there is no ethernet, either wired or wireless. That's one thing I'd like to change.

The model is Sony VAIO PCG-9241. I'm having trouble finding the specs on it, though. So I'm not sure how much upgrading is possible. Also, I've never upgraded a laptop before, so this will be a new challenge for me.

I'd like to upgrade the hard drive since I'm pretty sure the one in there is like 6 or 12gb or something. It would be nice to upgrade the RAM if possible, and she mentioned wanting an RW drive. It's got a DVD-ROM. Can you get notebook optical drives? if so, where?

Her birthday is next month, so I would like to be able to offer my services if my grandparents will pitch in some fundage (which I'm sure they will, since she's the unmarried aunt.) She'd probably just be using it for pretty basic browsing, photo viewing, etc. It'd be nice to get it to a point where it could run XP comfortably.

Any tips or suggestions?

 

[Brtnboarder495]

I'm pretty sure that 90% of the time you can only upgrade the memory. Typically the CPU and the GPU are "glued" to the motherboard, so they aren't upgradeable. The HD could be upgraded but it isn't easy and may not be borth it.

 

[Shannon]

Hmm. that's a bit dissapointing. I'm a little distressed that I can't seem to even find good specs on the machine though.

 

[Dark_Sniper*]

well if you want to get her a new compuer say a labtop. I really hate and i mean hate and others too but if she rally is only going to play some games from teh OS and check e-mail get her a "Dell" there cheap and its something.

 

[Shannon]

okay, well I haven't been able to find specs on it and the properties were suspiciously unhelpful on the machine. But I did notice something odd. It said the model number PCG-9241 but on the inside front it said PCG-F540 I can't find the CPU speed but it's got a Pentium III sticker on it. Think it's worth salvaging?

 

[Dark_Sniper*]

yea gut it people look for parts all the time they have no problem selling it on ebay .

 

[Shannon]

You know, I think you were making a joke, but I hadn't thought of that before, and it might actually be a decent idea. If she could sell it on ebay and then combine that money with whatever the grandparents pitch in for her gift, we could probably get a cheap sempron laptop or something.

I don't know if the others would like the idea, though, and you know this is really about making my aunt happy/feel like she's being frugal, while making my grandparents happy that I'm doing something for her. If that made sense.

 

[microsoftne]

actually, upgrading the hdd, memory and drives are not that difficult as all... if you want genuine replacement parts (upgrades as well) check out www.impactcomputers.com they deal in laptop parts...

 

[Shannon]

oh, thanks for the link.

 

[Trotter]

If you are looking for a used lappy, check out RetroBox:
http://www.retrobox.com/rbwww/home/...ice=&order_by=cpu_speed_value_index_rank+desc
The systems come w/o an OS, though.

You can also check these for open box and refurbished lappys:
http://onthegopc.com/
http://www.techforless.com/cgi-bin/tech4less/preleftnav?id=xdZkCN5N&mv_arg=AL&mv_pc=22
http://refurbdepot.com/category.cfm?PageID=205