I thought you said you had a Dell Latitude CP M233ST? In fact, I know you
did, because that's what the post I replied to said.
As far as memory goes, go to
www.crucial.com, locate whatever machine you
have, and it will tell you what kind of memory you need. Not all 200-pin
SODIMM memory will work. For example, you can get 200-pin DDR2 SODIMM
memory.
What do you do with your laptop (what programs, games, whatever)? How many
applications do you typically have open? Your machine will require a mobile
processor, so if this
(
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1649469)
is the processor you were looking at, you're SOL, because that's a desktop
processor, designed to fit in a desktop motherboard.
My gut feel: upgrading the processor is a waste of time and money. You
won't notice much of a performance difference, IMHO. Upgrading the memory
MAY be worthwhile, depending on what software you run, and if your system is
constantly swapping because you don't have enough physical memory.
At this point, I don't know what you're looking at swapping into what, or
what machines you actually have to play with. You'ved talked about trying
to replace a P2 400MHz processor with a Centrium(whatever that is) 1200MHz,
or (I think) a P3 500MHz. Then you posted about having a Latitude CP
M233ST, which had a Pentium (not 2 or 3) 233MHz processor. And now you're
talking about an Inspiron 2200, and popping in a 3.2GHz Celeron. My advise,
start over from scratch, identify what you've got, and what you want to
accomplish. Realize that there's a big difference between laptops and
desktops, especially when talking about processors, RAM, and hard drives.
Oh yeah, and video cards, motherboards, network cards, and pretty much
everything else.
But start fresh. You're all over the place, and you're
not going to get much useful advice until you can give useful information.
Given your current situation, you might be better off picking up a new
Inspiron E1505 or something similar. $700 right now will get you a dual
core 1.66GHz processor (don't let the speed fool you, that will blow the
doors off your current system), 1GB RAM, 60GB 5400 rpm drive. Then sell the
old system for whatever you can get. By the time you combine that with
whatever you would have spent for a new processor and RAM (and you not
getting a laptop processor for $30, I'm pretty sure), you'd probably come
out ahead on the deal. Wait for the right sale, and you'll almost
definately come out ahead.
If you're interested in the Dell's, check out the alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
newsgroup as well. They'll be much more aware of current US pricing for
different models than I am (I'm up in Canada, and haven't been following the
lower end laptops much).
Good luck!
Clint
