Upgrade or New purchase

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theterminator

Wise Old Owl
My current laptop configuration is:
Model- Dell Inspiron 15 5558
Purchase Date: Febuary, 2016
Processor- Intel Core i5-5250 1.60 GHz
RAM- 4 GB
HDD- 1TB 5400 rpm
OS: Windows 10 Home 64-bit
GPU: NVIDIA 920M 2GB DDR3

As you can see its quite an outdated configuration. I use it mainly for office use where there is good to heavy usage of MS Excel, Word, Powerpoint (majority of excel), web surfing, occasional gaming. I want it to be lag free and work fast like whenever I open the laptop, it should boot fast or load programs faster. But this laptop has made my life worse, the boot time takes around 5 minutes to fully load the operating system & lots of time to open an app for first time use. Thats why I use Sleep function often but the negative to this it consumes battery life. It usually gives backup of 2 hrs upon full charge and its the same 2016 battery running.
So I want to know whether upgrading it to an SSD and 8 or 12 GB RAM would make life easier or should I go for a new laptop?

PS: I have already spent 18k for repairing the motherboard in the year 2018 for this laptop.
 
W

whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
My laptop is one generation behind yours but with 8gb ram & a ssd I still don't feel any lag in usage. However you should never have spend 18k(also don't take it otherwise but I am pretty sure you got scammed) for its repairing. I say try to sell this laptop on olx for ~8-10k & then add ~20k to buy a much better laptop in Oct sale this year.
 
OP
T

theterminator

Wise Old Owl
whitestar_999 said:
My laptop is one generation behind yours but with 8gb ram & a ssd I still don't feel any lag in usage. However you should never have spend 18k(also don't take it otherwise but I am pretty sure you got scammed) for its repairing. I say try to sell this laptop on olx for ~8-10k & then add ~20k to buy a much better laptop in Oct sale this year.
Click to expand...

It was not scam , i purchased warranty from Dell directly. They have this thing about recertification if your warranty has expired. Mine was expired and system did crashed. I got my 15.6” touchscreen display, motherboard replaced.

This is my second laptop, the first one was also a Dell (Vostro 1400, purchased in 2008). That one also had a similar GPU failure after expiration of warranty and again I spent the same 18k in 2010(motherboard, lcd, dvd writer replaced).
I have a love hate relationship with Dell. I haven’t used other companies because in 2008 the thing I liked about Dell was door to door repair. I didn’t have to go to any service centre. And also that I could customise my own configuration online before purchase. I know things are different today but if I buy a new laptop, it will be a Dell despite my cravings for a mac, thinkpad or ms surface.


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cute.bandar

cute.bandar

Cyborg Agent
You need a SSD anyways. I say get one now. See if performance improves . If not, sell laptop , buy another use ssd in that.

btw you should use hibernate and not 'sleep' . No battery is used during hibernate. Also 5 minutes is tooo much. Check startup applications, services.. uninstall useless apps
 
OP
T

theterminator

Wise Old Owl
cute.bandar said:
You need a SSD anyways. I say get one now. See if performance improves . If not, sell laptop , buy another use ssd in that.

btw you should use hibernate and not 'sleep' . No battery is used during hibernate. Also 5 minutes is tooo much. Check startup applications, services.. uninstall useless apps
Click to expand...

Does win10 have hibernate option also? When i click shutdown I only get Shut down, Reboot, Sleep options in the start menu.
I have tried formatting the OS but still the boot time cranks me up. The same was the case with my brother’s Inspiron (forgot the model but it was of year 2014). That system was also way slow.

Do I need to buy a 2.5” SSD ? and whether is there any concept of internal or external SSD like we have in spinning drives? Will I be able to use the ssd in any other laptop also?


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W

whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
Authorized repair is always overpriced,I can assure you similar repair in some big pc market place would have cost at max 4-5k for mobo & though not sure about touchscreen but it too would not have costed more than 5-6k either.

Sleep means all your work is saved in ram which needs a small amount of power to remain active(ram cannot save data once its power is cut off) while hibernation means all your current data from ram is saved onto hard disk after which system completely shut off.
How to add Hibernate option to the Start Menu in Windows 10

2.5" ssd is same size as laptop hdd & similarly connects to sata connector(hence also known as 2.5" sata ssd). There is another connector called M2 & for that there are 2 types of ssd: M2 sata ssd & M2 NVMe ssd(these ssd look like ram). M2 sata ssd can be considered as 2.5" sata ssd without its external covering so same performance as 2.5" sata ssd while M2 NVMe ssd is completely different tech & faster than 2.5" sata/M2 sata ssd. There are external ssd like samsung T5 or seagate FAST but you can just put any 2.5" ssd(2.5" hdd also works) in a case like *www.amazon.in/External-Portable-USB3-0-2139U3-CR-Transparent/dp/B01N07NBLA/ & it will work fine.
 
OP
T

theterminator

Wise Old Owl
whitestar_999 said:
Authorized repair is always overpriced,I can assure you similar repair in some big pc market place would have cost at max 4-5k for mobo & though not sure about touchscreen but it too would not have costed more than 5-6k either.

Sleep means all your work is saved in ram which needs a small amount of power to remain active(ram cannot save data once its power is cut off) while hibernation means all your current data from ram is saved onto hard disk after which system completely shut off.
How to add Hibernate option to the Start Menu in Windows 10

2.5" ssd is same size as laptop hdd & similarly connects to sata connector(hence also known as 2.5" sata ssd). There is another connector called M2 & for that there are 2 types of ssd: M2 sata ssd & M2 NVMe ssd(these ssd look like ram). M2 sata ssd can be considered as 2.5" sata ssd without its external covering so same performance as 2.5" sata ssd while M2 NVMe ssd is completely different tech & faster than 2.5" sata/M2 sata ssd. There are external ssd like samsung T5 or seagate FAST but you can just put any 2.5" ssd(2.5" hdd also works) in a case like *www.amazon.in/External-Portable-USB3-0-2139U3-CR-Transparent/dp/B01N07NBLA/ & it will work fine.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the article. I knew what hibernate means , I used it extensively in Win vista and 7 but it was turned off by default in Win10 and I wasn’t having much issue with sleep until recently when my usage increased.
Coming to the repair part,before purchasing warranty for my first dell, I gave it in some market in noida where the guy repaired and gave 1 month warranty & took 4k rupees. Exactly 1 month after, it crashed and I again gave it to the same guy and this time he took 1k rupees with another 1 month warranty. It again crashed after one month, no surprises there . This experience forced me to purchase the warranty. Although I agree its overpriced.
Once I gave my redmi note 5 pro for repair of screen in nehru place, delhi. They took 2k rupees whereas xiaomi was offering for 4.5k. But just a fell from 3-4 ft crashed the screen. I haven’t had good experiences with local repair shops.


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OP
T

theterminator

Wise Old Owl
cute.bandar said:
You need a SSD anyways. I say get one now. See if performance improves . If not, sell laptop , buy another use ssd in that.

btw you should use hibernate and not 'sleep' . No battery is used during hibernate. Also 5 minutes is tooo much. Check startup applications, services.. uninstall useless apps
Click to expand...

I have one problem with replacing my hdd , all my downloads of steam and other stuff will be gone


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W

whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
theterminator said:
I haven’t had good experiences with local repair shops.
Click to expand...
Then I guess your luck is bad when it comes to local repair shops so nothing can be done about it.

theterminator said:
I have one problem with replacing my hdd , all my downloads of steam and other stuff will be gone


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Click to expand...
Not necessarily,you can clone/transfer hdd to ssd & everything will be same.
 
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T

theterminator

Wise Old Owl
whitestar_999 said:
Not necessarily,you can clone/transfer hdd to ssd & everything will be same.
Click to expand...

The existing hdd is of 1TB & I am looking to purchase 240GB ssd costing 2.5k at fk

WD Green SATA 2.5/7mm disque 240 GB Laptop, All in One PC's, Desktop Internal Solid State Drive (WDS240G2G0A) - WD : Flipkart.com

does cloning require both drives to be of same size?
I also saw a video on youtube where a guy installs ssd in the original drive location and a hdd in the optical disc drive portion of his laptop using something called caddie. Can this be done here also considering I rarely use the dvd drive?


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W

whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
theterminator said:
The existing hdd is of 1TB & I am looking to purchase 240GB ssd costing 2.5k at fk

WD Green SATA 2.5/7mm disque 240 GB Laptop, All in One PC's, Desktop Internal Solid State Drive (WDS240G2G0A) - WD : Flipkart.com

does cloning require both drives to be of same size?
I also saw a video on youtube where a guy installs ssd in the original drive location and a hdd in the optical disc drive portion of his laptop using something called caddie. Can this be done here also considering I rarely use the dvd drive?


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Click to expand...
Cloning entire drive requires same or bigger size ssd but cloning/transferring only windows requires ssd larger than current C drive.

Yes caddy is in fact preferred method for using ssd unless optical drive port is sata 1 but seeing even my 4th gen i3 laptop has sata 3 optical drive port,your laptop should most likely also has it. I also use caddy for ssd because I don't use dvd drive plus in my opinion hdd is better secure in its original position/slot as that slot was designed keeping hdd in mind.
 
SaiyanGoku

SaiyanGoku

kamehameha!!
theterminator said:
As you can see its quite an outdated configuration. I use it mainly for office use where there is good to heavy usage of MS Excel, Word, Powerpoint (majority of excel), web surfing, occasional gaming. I want it to be lag free and work fast like whenever I open the laptop, it should boot fast or load programs faster. But this laptop has made my life worse, the boot time takes around 5 minutes to fully load the operating system & lots of time to open an app for first time use.
So I want to know whether upgrading it to an SSD and 8 or 12 GB RAM would make life easier or should I go for a new laptop?

PS: I have already spent 18k for repairing the motherboard in the year 2018 for this laptop.
Click to expand...

Get a new laptop. You'd be wasting a new SSD in case your laptop dies again and you end up upgrading anyhow.

theterminator said:
Thats why I use Sleep function often but the negative to this it consumes battery life. It usually gives backup of 2 hrs upon full charge and its the same 2016 battery running.
Click to expand...
Enable hibernation. Don't know why MS disabled/hid it in first place. Putting it to sleep is a wastage of energy.
theterminator said:
I know things are different today but if I buy a new laptop, it will be a Dell *emoji.tapatalk-cdn.com/emoji851.png despite my cravings for a mac, thinkpad or ms surface.
Click to expand...
Get one from Asus or Lenovo instead. Much reliable and have better value for money. Dell is just not worth it these days.
 
OP
T

theterminator

Wise Old Owl
SaiyanGoku said:
Get a new laptop. You'd be wasting a new SSD in case your laptop dies again and you end up upgrading anyhow.
Click to expand...


I just ordered the 240GB one link posted above. If at all my laptop dies, i can still use the ssd in my desktop right?


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OP
T

theterminator

Wise Old Owl
So I've used the SSD for about a year now... though it is fast but the short battery life really outweighs any benefits. I am looking to exchange this laptop in the upcoming Amazon sale through exchange. Any recommendations around the 40k budget for a thin and light ultrabook, with at least 10hr battery life?
Although my dream machine is Macbook Air M1 coz I'm already in the ecosystem but its entry level price is too steep.
 
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