Upgrade Your Netbook! 4 Lab-Tested Ways to Boost Performance
Posted 09/15/09 at 11:00:00 AM by Nathan Edwards
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.

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.
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 |
having an asus 1005ha i know
Submitted by jeramiah461 on Thu, 09/24/2009 - 5:06am
having an asus 1005ha i know for a fact that its battery is removable
More Memory
Submitted by kgoosie on Fri, 09/18/2009 - 5:08pm
Has anyone tested out a 4gb stick of ram in a netbook? I have the Toshiba NB205-312/BL.
I agree... Netbooks are not crap!
Submitted by jlkeizer on Fri, 09/18/2009 - 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.
Newegg has a deal on ram
Submitted by MuppetMower on Tue, 09/15/2009 - 12:18pm
Newegg has a deal on ram atm:
http://bit.ly/4w3jTu
www.game-central.org
Netbooks aren't crap
Submitted by phi on Tue, 09/15/2009 - 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.
that would be fine...
Submitted by N25PHILLY on Tue, 09/15/2009 - 10:22am
what you are saying would be fine if prices weren't constantly creaping up on netbooks without the hardware getting any better. They are recommending adding about $300 in extras, which based on even the cheapest netbook would put it at $600 plus (there aren't many sub $300 except for older models that are left over from no one wanting them), which sorry is just not worth the premium for such a limited system. Maybe after something like ion becomes common it might be worth it, but now it costs big $ for a slow system that can't even fit a browser window in the screen let alone do anything worthwhile. As long as you can buy a regular laptop for the same price and get real performance, because lets face it anything made in the last 5 years can perform as well or likely top any netbook it's just not worth it. Cut the price in netbooks in half and maybe your onto something.
Oh, and yes I see the kind of people that buy netbooks, and the majority of them barely know how to turn them on let alone how to use a computer. I guess the ignorant that can't afford a mac crowd is pretty big then
Is it just me...
Submitted by N25PHILLY on Tue, 09/15/2009 - 8:11am
or are they telling you to spend arounf $300 to upgrade garbage computers to maybe get them to the power level of a calculator? Netbooks are way to overpriced as it is to condone putting anything in them except for the extra ram
I can vouch for WIndows 7.
Submitted by Modred189 on Tue, 09/15/2009 - 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.
Nice article. Do you think
Submitted by spacedogg on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 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.
Which netbook do you have?
Submitted by Modred189 on Tue, 09/15/2009 - 5:19am
Which netbook do you have? It was a nightmare to get working on mine...
tried to upgrade...
Submitted by Dethelick on Wed, 11/04/2009 - 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.
It looked good, i skimmed
Submitted by comptech08 on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 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.
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