Should I increase memory? Or get another laptop?

[David L]

I have a Compaq Presario 1200-XL118 laptop, about six years old. It has an AMD-K6 3D processor, and a whopping 64 MB of RAM. It's running Windows 98SE. From internet research, I've gleaned that the processor is capable of 300 MHz. And the computer can accomodate a total of 192 MB of RAM.

I just installed a NETGEAR wireless PC Card, and the internet access is incredibly sluggish, much more so than when I was using an Ethernet PC Card to connect this laptop via Ethernet cable to the Internet. This wireless card's system requirements include "a notebook PC with a Pentium 300 MHz-compatible processor."

(BTW, I'm using a NETGEAR wireless router which is working great -- my other laptop, a Macbook Pro, has very fast wireless internet access).

So the question is, do I plunk more dough into this laptop and upgrade the memory to 192 MB, in the hopes that that will greatly improve my Internet access speed? Or is this laptop simply not up to the task (due to its older processor and limited memory) and am I better off getting something newer?

Thanks.

[bassman]

Hey David L, I am running basicly the same laptop at this moment. Biggest difference is, mine is a PIII 650 Mhz with the 192 Mgb RAM.
The RAM would give you a substantial increase in overall performance, but unless the K6 is running at 300 Mhz or better, your wireless card is bottlenecking on the processor. System requirements are system requirements.

Best to decide exactly whether or not wireless networking is that important for this machine then you can decide whether to replace it or just upgrade the RAM ;)

[mjc]

Actually, I've found that the wireless connection managers can be a big drag on performance on 9x machines, especially ones with low memory or slow (just meet requirements) processors.

Yes, that is a rather old machine and may be hard to find memory for...

Personally, if it performs well, wired, I'd tend to stick with that.

[David L]

Hey David L, I am running basicly the same laptop at this moment. Biggest difference is, mine is a PIII 650 Mhz with the 192 Mgb RAM.
The RAM would give you a substantial increase in overall performance, but unless the K6 is running at 300 Mhz or better, your wireless card is bottlenecking on the processor. System requirements are system requirements.

Best to decide exactly whether or not wireless networking is that important for this machine then you can decide whether to replace it or just upgrade the RAM ;)

Thanks for the responses ... is there some way to determine the actual speed at which the processor is running?

[bassman]

On the desktop, R-click on "My Computer", then click properties.

[David L]

I found the following method for checking processor speed on another site:

Click Start, and point to Programs.
Point to Accessories, then select System Tools, and click System Information.
On the Tools menu, click Windows Report Tool.
In the Windows Report Tool, on the Options menu, click Collected Information. At the bottom of the Collected Information dialog box, under System settings to copy, the processor speed will be listed as COMPSPEED.

Using this method, it said my processor speed was actually 480 MHz. Hm. So it seems increasing the memory could be worth it ...