Upgrade Guide

Chances are your old notebook has plenty of life left. So instead of spending a grand or more on a new one, you could upgrade the old one for a few hundred dollars and have yourself a faster and more useful notebook.

Two popular desktop PC upgrades--memory and hard drive--are (usually) easy to perform on a notebook. You can add RAM to almost any notebook and boost its performance significantly. While notebook manufacturers generally make the modules only for their current models, third-party vendors like Kingston Technology and Simple Technology supply a wider range of upgrade parts.

Slide-in drives simplify adding larger-capacity hard drives to the newest notebooks. Upgrading older models may require more work, but if you're comfortable with the projects we cover in this column, you shouldn't have any problems.

Though RAM and hard drive upgrades for notebooks cost much more than upgrades for standard-issue desktops, they can still be a wise investment. For example, upgrading a Toshiba Satellite Pro notebook from its original 8MB of RAM and 750MB hard drive to a hefty 40MB of RAM (the maximum) and a 6.4GB hard drive cost us $512 from Kingston and $504 from Simple.

Of course, as illustrated above, external peripherals--simple to install and light in weight--offer another upgrade route.

Two caveats: First, the lack of standardization among portables means you must take time with manufacturers and vendors to tailor your upgrade to your specific notebook and to do some comparison shopping. Vendors' Web sites can help you find the correct parts, even though you may choose not to buy through them. In some cases, you may conclude that the process simply isn't worth the time and effort. Second, consider the following procedures a guide to typical upgrade steps. The actual steps (especially for installing the hard drive) will vary depending on your notebook and on the particular upgrade solution you choose.