Upgrade Your Netbook! 4 Lab-Tested Ways to Boost Performance
Upgrade Your Netbook! 4 Lab-Tested Ways to Boost Performance
Posted 09/15/2009 at 8:00am
| by Nathan Edwards
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Your Upgrade Path to Netbook Self-Realization
There’s no denying that netbooks possess many positive attributes, as evidenced by their meteoric rise in popularity. But all the attention garnered by their portability and low cost can’t mask the deep and troubling performance that netbooks suffer.
The fact is, there are undeniable trade-offs inherent to a sub-$400 computer. You’re just not going to get the same performance from a netbook as from something that costs three times as much. Slow single-core Atom processors; middling hard drives; pokey, undersized SSDs; and only 1GB of RAM rob the netbook of its potential.
But there is hope. Whether you have an old Eee PC with a 12GB SSD or a new netbook with an Atom N280 chip and a 160GB hard drive, you can make substantial improvements without forking over too much dough. We’ll show you first-hand how netbooks can overcome their humble beginnings. We’ll upgrade a typical older netbook—an Eee PC 901 with a 4GB SSD soldered on the mobo and an 8GB PCI-E SSD—as well as a brand-new Toshiba NB205, to show how every netbook, from bottom-of-the-barrel to top-of-the-line, can benefit from upgrades.
Consider this your guide on the journey to netbook empowerment.
Uplift Your Memory
Pep up your load times and app performance with more RAM
Adding more RAM is nearly always the cheapest and easiest way to upgrade your netbook. In order to get netbook pricing for Windows, manufacturers limit them to 1GB of RAM. Fortunately, most netbooks have easily accessible RAM slots and use standard 200-pin DDR2 SODIMMs.
We used a 2GB DDR2/667 SODIMM from Corsair for our upgrades. It costs less than the Twilight Blu-ray release.
For less than $25 online, you can buy a 2GB DDR2 SODIMM to replace the 1GB in your netbook—most have a single SODIMM slot, so you can’t just add another 1GB, and the Atom platform is limited to 2GB of RAM. We bought a 2GB Corsair ValueSelect DDR2/667 (PC2-5300) module—the Atom N280 platform in new netbooks has a 667MHz front-side bus; older netbooks with the N270 chip have a 533MHz FSB and will underclock the RAM.
In nearly all netbooks, replacing the RAM will take less than five minutes. First, power down your netbook and remove the battery. On the bottom of the chassis will be one or more panels that can be removed to reveal the RAM and/or hard drive, usually fastened with Philips-head screws. Open the panel and find the SODIMM. Release the clasps that hold it in, and the module should pop up slightly. Remove it and line up the 2GB SODIMM and slide it into place, then close the panel, replace the battery, and boot your netbook. Press F2 during setup to go into the BIOS and make sure the RAM registers, then boot your computer normally.
On the Toshiba NB205, the RAM slot is easily accessible from the bottom of the netbook's chassis.
We upgraded the RAM in an older Asus Eee 901 and a brand-new Toshiba NB205 netbook and immediately saw the difference. The improvement was particularly noteworthy on the 901, which, thanks to its anemic low-cost solid state drives, has been the slowest netbook we’ve tested to date. Before the RAM upgrade, it took the 901 1,441 seconds to run through our Photoshop benchmark, compared with the 673 seconds it took the Toshiba NB205. But with 2GB of RAM, the 901 plowed through in a (comparatively) zippy 1,163 seconds—that’s nearly a 24 percent improvement. The NB205, on the other hand, dropped just 13 seconds with its RAM upgrade, due to its faster standard hard drive.
| BENCHMARKS | Eee 901 w/1GB RAM | Eee 901 w/2GB RAM | Toshiba NB205 w/1GB RAM | Toshiba NB205 w/2GB RAM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Photoshop CS3 (sec) | 1,441 | 1,163 | 673 | 660 |
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ander
September 18, 2010 at 11:06pm
> Unless you want to spend an arm and a leg on a high-capacity SSD, though, you’ll probably
> have to sacrifice storage space for speed.But how much storage do you really need on a netbook?
You can get a 64GB SSD now for about a hundred bucks. Allowing 20GB for Windows—or much less for Linux, which is a much better choice for a netbook anyway—that leaves 40GB, certainly enough for my browsing, chatting, writing, and Skype-ing needs. And you know it's storage that's as fast and as low-power as possible, both big netbook plusses.
(Of course this wouldn't be a practical approach for people who download 10GB of porn per day—but I can't speak for them.)
ander
September 13, 2010 at 1:06am
Sorry—upgrade a $300 netbook by adding a $250 hard drive? Surely you jest.
Scott2010
February 03, 2010 at 9:17pm
Article says "But with 2GB of RAM, the 901 plowed through in a (comparatively) zippy 1,163 seconds—that’s nearly a 24 percent improvement." But the math is wrong, improvement is 278 divided by original number 1441 (not the new lower number 1163). So improvement is about 19%.
jason_mcallister
May 28, 2010 at 3:41pm
The ram upgrade recommendation is dubious at best, and an outright false claim at worst. It makes no difference in benchmarks across the board. Nobody in their right mind installs photoshop on a netbook. I upgraded from 1gb to 2gb and did benchmarks with regular apps ie everything that a normal power user is going to run on a netbook, and the before and after results made absolutely no difference.
I'd be happy to back it up with evidence, not sure if I can post links here in the forum, I'll come back later and see if anyone requests it.
qcom
November 28, 2009 at 9:11am
This article is great, as I have a NB205 and this is pretty much exactly what I wanted to do with my new netbook. Would someone be able to give me a direct link to the RAM used on the first page?
jeramiah461
September 24, 2009 at 5:06am
having an asus 1005ha i know for a fact that its battery is removable
kgoosie
September 18, 2009 at 5:08pm
Has anyone tested out a 4gb stick of ram in a netbook? I have the Toshiba NB205-312/BL.
jlkeizer
September 18, 2009 at 1:17pm
I have two Acer Aspire One netbooks. One runs Windows 7 with no problem whatsoever, the other runs Windows XP only because of the AT&T 3G network software. Both run very well on the Intel Atom processors and handle things well with only 1GB of memory. Netbooks with Windows Vista are the ones that are bound to have problems, simply because of Vista. It's amazing what these two netbooks can accomplish, and that is why I agree that netbooks are NOT crap.
MuppetMower
September 15, 2009 at 12:18pm
Newegg has a deal on ram atm:
http://bit.ly/4w3jTu
www.game-central.org
phi
September 15, 2009 at 9:55am
Netbooks were designed to be a more portable and affordable alternative to regular sized laptops, but that portability and affordability comes at a heavy cost in terms of performance. Anyone who doesn't want to sacrifice performance is welcome to buy an ultraportable, which are more powerful than netbooks without putting on much more weight, but are pretty pricey, or suffer the weight of lugging around a regular sized laptop.
But for those looking for something light, offering better performance, yet without breaking the bank, these tips may provide very useful advice on how to improve their current netbook's performance without breaking the bank. Ultraportables cost over a grand. The recommended improvements would bring the price of a netbook to around 500 or 600 bucks. That would be around the price of a regular sized laptop, if you don't mind lugging around 5 or 6 pounds around with you on a constant basis.
Netbooks serve a particular purpose and have found appeal to a huge market. Just because you think that netbooks are crappy doesn't mean you are right.
Modred189
September 15, 2009 at 5:18am
I can vouch for WIndows 7. It made a huge difference on my Acer Aspire One (1.6 atom, 160gb hdd, 1.5gb ram). Not only is is faster, but using the media streaming features of WMP saves a TON of HDD space.
spacedogg
September 14, 2009 at 8:05pm
Nice article. Do you think there could be an article on how to get Ubuntu Netbook Remix on my Netbook? BTW, Thanks for the battle.net account info! I'm gonna play some Starcraft after it gets done downloading.
Modred189
September 15, 2009 at 5:19am
Which netbook do you have? It was a nightmare to get working on mine...
Dethelick
November 04, 2009 at 10:44pm
I have an Acer Aspire One series netbook, it says Model ZG5...
N270 cpu, 1 GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 8 inch screen. This must be one of the "evil" netbooks Nathan talked about in the article, because it has one small removeable panel on the bottom that accesses....nothing!
There are 3 screws along the front edge of the bottom and another three under the removeable battery. I was able to carefully pry up the front edge of the keyboard panel to about halfway back, where it seemed to be fastened with another, hidden screw on each side! Am I missing some easy pop-out tab here? Or is this truely an evil Wal-mart purchase that is only intended to be replaced and not upgraded?
I would like to upgrade the RAM and possibly the HDD to an SSD. And if anybody knows, is that one removeable panel intended for some upgrade? It looks about the size of one of those PCI-e SSDs also mentioned in Nathan's article.
comptech08
September 14, 2009 at 6:26pm
It looked good, i skimmed through the article. I have already done pretty much everything on this list to my Dell mini 9. It is a nice running machine for what it does.
computerguy.bry
January 01, 2010 at 7:06pm
You could have listed the netbooks that allowed easy access to the
harddrive. That is a major factor. The hard drive MUST be accessible without taking the thing apart. You pointed out that the
toshiba had easy access but was screwed down with T6 torx screws. Big
deal. If a person doesn't have or doesn't know how to go to hardware
store and buy a T6 screwdriver, they shouldn't replace the harddrive.You could have pointed out which netbooks come with an internal cd drive. I consider that a minimum. Frankly, I got so frustrated with your article that I didn't read it
all but it would have been great (please forgive if you got around to
it) if you would have explained to customers why it is so important to
buy a netbook with an internal cd drive. I am constantly explaining
that to clients.And of course, I want a list of the netbooks that have RAM that is easy to access.
Three paragraphs with lists would have made me happy. As it were, the article is a waste of time. I have spent an hour looking for info where someone has compiled that info.
I would also like to know which older netbooks can be upgraded to Windows 7.
You FAILED.
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