Upgrading netbook for better performance

Mobile Tech Laptops & Netbooks
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So I love to use old tech (guilty pleasure). I have an acer AO 532h-2527 netbook that I recently bought a replacement screen for (I rolled on the thing and broke the screen too many years ago too remember :smiley: ) Over the years I've wanted to get it up and running as it's been collecting dust and wasn't even used more than a few months when I broke it. I put an ssd in just a day ago and love it, I've been looking at upgrading the wifi card, as this one seems slow, and the ram. I wanted to be able to play small games like stardew valley, it runs the game currently but with the black boxes on the menu icons and mouse pointer. Also It can play 720p videos well and some 1080p but I've noticed the cpu usage is at 100% with some or a lot of stuttering or skipping/freezing. The netbook only has 1gb of ram and supports up to 2gb, I was really wondering if going from 1gb to 2gb would help with games like stardew valley and smooth out 1080p videos?

Any of you guys like to spend too much money keeping old tech alive ?

2

I have a Packard Bell ZG5, basically an Acer Aspire AOA-150 in a different suit.
I've upgraded to 1.5GB of RAM, installed a 240GB SSD, replaced the original battery with one that has over 6 times the capacity, flashed a custom BIOS ... and none of that helps with 720p or better video playback because it just lacks the processing power.

All you'll gain by upgrading the RAM is speed during regular use. It'll be snappier. Sadly when it needs to do intensive tasks you'll keep running into the limits of that slow CPU.
Still, it's a good machine for light duty, as a spare PC, for in-flight entertainment (you may want to look into a high-capacity battery for that) etc.

2 Likes
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My Dau's old Athlon 64 was allot better when I upgraded the Ram from 2 or 4 (forget which) to 8 gb.

I had to dial it back allot when it started driving my wife nuts, it can be adictive. I once bought a Tandy from a guy who had moved into collecting mechanical calculators. That was kinda cool:)