Upgrading A Laptop.

Many faster options are now available

A few columns ago, some of the factors involved in making a laptop purchase were discussed. If you already have a laptop that's a few years old, and you are thinking of replacing it, there is an alternative.

While laptops generally don't have the simple upgrade path that many desktop personal computers (PCs) offer, there are usually a number of areas where you can upgrade them, and in doing so, extend the usefulness of your laptop for another year or more.

Let's get the "can't dos" out of the way first, because if these are some of the areas in which your laptop is seriously deficient, you're probably best off replacing it. The first big "can't do" is the laptop's display screen. Even if you could afford to purchase a new LCD panel, and somehow managed to install it, it probably wouldn't work with the video controller circuitry. You can, however, plug a standard CRT monitor into the VGA output connector on your laptop, though that's not much comfort when trying to work at 30,000 feet in the air.

Forget about trying to change the keyboard, as well. There is simply no upgrade available for this area of the laptop.

Back to the source

Strangely enough, there may be a number of upgrades available that you wouldn't ordinarily consider, especially if your laptop is only a few years old, and/or a model, such as Compaq's Armada or Dell's Latitude lines, which was designed to be able to share peripherals throughout the entire model lineup.

The original vendor is the best source of these upgrades, and all it takes is a visit to the vendor's Web site, or a call to their sales line, to find out your options.

If your laptop uses modular design, you may find that there are upgrades to the floppy disk, the optical drive, and even the hard disk drive, and even the hard disk drive. Some of these upgrades will simply require that you slide a switch and remove and replace the old drive. Others, such as replacing a hard disk or adding a RAM memory module, usually require that you remove an access panel.

Do it yourself

There are three areas where performing the upgrade yourself can be relatively easy -- upgrading the operating system, upgrading the RAM, and upgrading the laptop's hard disk drive. As long as there is sufficient memory, both in terms of RAM and hard disk space, upgrading to a newer version of Windows is simple.

Before you start, however, make sure that the laptop will support the upgrade. The latest versions of the Windows operating system include Windows Me and Windows 2000. Windows Me, Millennium Edition, is the newest operating system in the Windows 95 and Windows 98 line. It makes installing peripherals easier, and has a nice utility, similar to Adaptec's GoBack, that lets you simply roll back the laptop's condition to an earlier time.

That's great for when things get really fouled up due to a virus, a bungled software installation, or any other process that screws up the way your laptop operates. Windows Me also has decent networking capabilities.

For those laptops used on large networks, or that already have Windows NT installed, consider upgrading to Windows 2000. Windows 2000 is built on the Windows NT code base, but looks and operates, at least at the user level, very much like Windows Me. Still, the advanced security and networking functions are available to a sophisticated user or network administrator.

Upgrading your laptop's RAM is either very easy, or nearly impossible, depending upon the design your laptop vendor used. In recent years, the trend has been to attach RAM to the motherboard with sockets that are accessible through a removable cover, usually on the bottom.

Laptop RAM modules come in different sizes, though the easiest ones to find are called SORAM, or small outline RAM. There are a number of popular vendors of laptop RAM, and their Web sites are good places to start your search. PNY (www.pny.com) is a brand that's very popular at retail. Kingston Technologies (www.kingston.com) sells RAM for laptops and desktop under both its own logo, and the slightly less expensive ValueRAM trademark.

Kingston Technology's Web site is also a good place to start when considering a hard disk upgrade for your laptop. Many laptops simply use a plug-in hard drive. It's much smaller physically than a desktop hard disk, so it's far more difficult to find. Still, there are lots of vendors where you can find a raw drive that will fit in your laptop.

The problem with this approach is that once you've installed the drive, you will then have to format it and install an operating system onto it. It will then be useable, but you will have no way to access the information on the old drive that you've removed unless you've backed it up to a different kind of media.

The easiest way to perform a hard disk upgrade on a laptop is to purchase a product specifically designed for that purpose, like Kingston Technology's StrataDrive Plus. This is a kit that includes a laptop form factor hard drive (available in sizes from 4GB to 30GB), a PC Card and cable, and several diskettes of software.

To perform the upgrade, simply plug the PC Card into one of the slots on your laptop, and run the appropriate software diskette for your operating system. The software formats the new drive and transfers all of the operating system, applications, and data files to the new drive. You then open up your laptop, unplug the old drive, disconnect the new drive from the PC Card and cable, and plug it into the laptop. Close everything up, and when you reboot, you will have all of your applications and data on a new, larger hard drive. The entire process takes well less than an hour to complete.

Universal replacements

Finally, if some part of your laptop is on its last legs, and the vendor no longer supports it with replacement parts, you may be able to get the part you need from a third party.

For example, let's suppose your laptop's power supply is a bit flaky -- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Fire up your Internet browser and surf over to www.targus.com. This vendor, which is best known for its laptop carrying cases, also has a nice selection of replacement laptop power supplies. They even have power supplies you can use in your car, or on some airlines.

Has your laptop battery lost its ability to hold a charge? That's actually a pretty common occurrence. If your laptop manufacturer can no longer help, contact popular UPS supplier APCC at its site (www.apcc.com.) This complete power conditioning vendor has also recently added an extensive line of laptop replacement batteries.

A slow or dying optical drive on your laptop is an easy replacement, though you'll have to move to an external drive, in most cases, to accomplish the task. There are lots of vendors that provide external optical drives for laptops.

As long as you're adding an external drive, go for one that can write CD-R and CD-RW discs, as well as read standard CD-ROMs. That will give you the ability to easily backup your laptop, as well as provide 650MB of offline storage when you need it. Micro Solutions, Inc. (www.microsolutions.com) is one of the leading vendors in this area, and its backpack bantam models are small and light enough to easily fit into your laptop's carry case, and can be shared with desktop and other laptop PCs in your office as well.

Not every upgrade makes financial sense. That's a function of how well your older laptop still serves. Before you decide to put your trusty portable companion out to pasture, though, consider whether some judiciously applied upgrade dollars might just do the trick.

Ted Needleman is the former associate publisher and editor-in-chief of Accounting Technology magazine. He is now a technology consultant and writer based in Stony Point, N.Y.