How Can I upgrade my laptop?

[Sharp Canadian]

Ok, so I bought a laptop a little while ago back in february, I was thinking it would be good for university and general use. The laptop is, IMO, a pretty good one, its got :

System----------

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
System Manufacturer: Acer, inc.
System Model: Aspire 5000
BIOS: Phoenix NoteBIOS 4.0 Release 6.0
Processor: AMD Turion(tm) 64 Mobile Technology ML-30, MMX, 3DNow, ~1.6GHz
Memory: 958MB RAM
Video-----------

Card name: SiS M760GX
Manufacturer: SiS
Chip type: SiS 760 Rev 00
DAC type: Internal

It runs well for the most part and I can play most game son it, Im playing Americas Army right now and it runs fine on normal settings.

I was reading this http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11381_7...1.html?tag=nav (An article about upgrading laptops) and was wondering if I would be able to upgrade my laptop when I need to or want to, I think my RAM, CPU, is fine but I notice I get poor sound quality and some games won't play I think because of my graphic card. Can my laptop be upgraded at all? like the graphics or sound cards?

Thanks for all help and Advice

P.S. If you need anything cleared up or got a question just ask

[ktkendall]

Usually on most laptops the most you can realistically do is your memory and harddrive. Everything else is pretty much integrated into 1 big circut board. Your Acer website will be the best place to see exactly what all you can do with your specific laptop.

[Sharp Canadian]

ok, typing this for the second time accidently closed out the page and lost my post

I checked the website again( checked it before but only quickly) and found the upgrades I couldnt decifer the chart to tell if X means upgradable or not http://www.acer.ca/acereuro/wr-resou...%206-12-06.pdf Next I found an ezDock for other models, would something like this be made for my laptop in the future?? http://www.acer.ca/acereuro/wr-resou...%205-10-06.pdf
Also is the a possibility of replacing my mainboard ??? from the company or somewheres else?? also does another company make a docking station for all kinds of laptops? and would there be any posibe way to upgrade anything besides the memory and hard drives ?

EDIT: the site says the ezDock has PCI express and VGA are these places you could put a PCI E or VGA graphic cars or the type of connector for external monitor?

[786ARS]

ram you can upgrade on turion acers. The cpu can be done also, but you need a ML not an MT, which is hard to find. And that's about it realy

[ktkendall]

If there is an X under your model then that means that is an Acer upgradeable part that would fit in your particular model. As you can see they don't even list harddrives, but I do think you can upgrade your harddrive. A key point when buying a laptop is try to get it with as much of what you will need from the get go because they are not nearly as upgradable as desktops.

[Sharp Canadian]

ok thanks, perhaps in the future when I really need an upgrade there will be one. My laptop suits me fine and I like it alot, I just wanted to upgrade it to make it even better , but that'll have to wait

Edit: ohh and my hard drives are two 45GB ones, I have one thats got about 10Gb left and the other(empty one) I use for backing up DVD's so its always full because those files take up 5GB a piece

[RazorDX]

Two 45GB drives or one 90-100GB drive with 2 partitions? I haven't seen a notebook with two physical hard drives. That would theoretically kill your battery life.

[thefultonhow]

There are some desktop replacements that have two hard drives, but they are relatively rare. I'm willing to bet that the hard drive is one 100 GB partitioned in half (it loses 10 GB due to the different ways that hard drive manufacturers and Microsoft measure capacity).

[glc]

Acer ships with a 3 partition drive - there's a hidden 3rd partition for system recovery. If you *see* two 45gb drives, you have a 100gb drive.

[Sharp Canadian]

Ok, thats nice to know, I just figured there was 2 physical hard drives at 45 GB and they cheapped out on my other 10 GB . It is supposed to be a 100Gb hard drive but in MY Computer is says Acer (c: ) and ACERDATA (D: ) And their FAT32

[glc]

Yup, that's the way Acer does it. You can use Partition Magic to adjust the partition sizes to suit - or even delete the D partition and stretch C out to the full 90 or so gb, then convert it to NTFS with the builtin XP convert command line tool. If you have not yet done so, I'd HIGHLY recommend you create your restore media.

[786ARS]

best to convert to ntfs, you can do it through the command line or through partition magic. F32 --> NTFS is a one way change, so if for any reason you want to convert back, you will need a reformat. but for FAT32 --> NTFS, no refornat is needed

[Sharp Canadian]

Hmmmm, ok Do you have any good links to some information on the NTFS and converting it?

Originally Posted by glc I'd HIGHLY recommend you create your restore media.

Whats a "restore media"? is it just a backup of all the things that I want to keep or like movies, songs and things like that?

Originally Posted by 786ARS best to convert to ntfs

So NTFS is deffinately better than FAT32, whats so good about it? and to convert back I need a reformat, how difficult would that be?

Thanks for all the help

P.S. I dont have too much time on my hands any more, I just got a job working @ canadian Tire full time for the summer, SO I dont have alot of time to browse the internet for information, but ill look at the dirves section of the forum later and see if I can fand anything Thanks again

[glc]

Restore media is CD's or a DVD that can reinstall the operating system and preinstalled applications. Acers do not come with it, you have to make it.

[786ARS]

ntfs is more secure and allows you to store files bigger than 4gb. when converting to ntfs, you dont lose any data. but if you convert to to fat 32 for any unconcievable reason, you end up having to back up your data, and you will have to reinstall windows either from a spare copy or from the restore disk.

[Dtree11]

Originally Posted by 786ARS ntfs is more secure and allows you to store files bigger than 4gb. when converting to ntfs, you dont lose any data. but if you convert to to fat 32 for any unconcievable reason, you end up having to back up your data, and you will have to reinstall windows either from a spare copy or from the restore disk.

Is it better to reformat then convert to NTFS or do I have the same outcome if I was to convert where the computer stands?

[786ARS]

when converting to ntfs you dont need to reformat