Upgrading your laptop can be a cost-effective way to get better performance and extend the life of your device. However, not all laptops are created equal when it comes to upgrade options. It’s important to know what’s possible and supported before investing in any new hardware. In this post, we’ll walk you through some common laptop upgrades and what to consider before taking the plunge.
First off, it’s important to note that different models of laptops have different upgrade options. Some may only allow you to upgrade the disk, while others may allow you to upgrade the RAM and graphics. It all depends on the particular laptop that you have. Before buying any new hardware, check the manufacturer’s website to see what’s possible and supported.
If you know what you’re doing, by all means, go ahead and open up your laptop and take a look around. However, keep in mind that some laptop components are soldered onto the board and cannot be upgraded, such as the CPU. If you’re considering a CPU upgrade, check what other CPUs are supported by the motherboard, as it may not have been designed to support a wide range.
Upgrading the graphics card is usually more likely than a CPU upgrade, but still fairly uncommon. Again, it depends completely on your particular model of laptop. If this is something that you’d want to consider, we suggest looking for a laptop that has a graphics upgrade kit as an option so that you have the ability to do this in the future.
In general, upgrading the RAM is a pretty common upgrade path for a laptop. Some models may have the RAM soldered to the board too, but for most that we’ve seen, you can take it out and replace it with larger modules as long as the board supports them. Upgrading the RAM is a relatively simple process, and you can easily check how many RAM slots are in use through task manager in Windows.
Another common upgrade path is upgrading the drive. You can either swap out whatever disk is currently in the laptop with one of a larger size, or if you have spare drive bays or slots available, you can simply add an additional drive in. If you’re swapping out the primary disk running your operating system, you’ll either need to first copy the data over to the new disk or install a fresh operating system.
As we’ve seen, it all depends on your specific laptop with regards to which components can be upgraded. If you’re unsure, check with your manufacturer or consult the manual. In general, upgrading your laptop can be a cost-effective way to get better performance and more life out of a two-year-old laptop. So, upgradability is definitely worth considering if you’re looking to buy a new laptop.
Have you upgraded your laptop before? Let us know in the comments what upgrades you’ve done and how they’ve improved your device’s performance.