New laptop for editing

[benners]

Hey everyone, it's been a while since a looked into buying a laptop, so any recommendations gratefully received!

I think I'm in need of a new laptop, current one is nearly 6 years old and stating to show signs of slowing down:
Acer Aspire 5750 15.6 inch Notebook, Intel Core i7-2630QM Processor, 8 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD

What spec should I be looking for in a new laptop so it can easily handle image processing in Lightroom, Photoshop, etc.?
Other than that, I don't use it for gaming, just regular web browsing really.

It needs to be a laptop as I take it out in the field, and I'm not a Mac guy (sorry! let's not go there, just take it as read )

Thanks!

 

[neil_g]

The second gen i7 quad core you have there is still a pretty pokey chip (certainly for a mobile cpu) .

What exactly does task manager show is low on resources when editing? Might be that you could throw another 8gb ram and an SSD at it and it'll be back on form.

 

[benners]

The second gen i7 quad core you have there is still a pretty pokey chip (certainly for a mobile cpu) .

What exactly does task manager show is low on resources when editing? Might be that you could throw another 8gb ram and an SSD at it and it'll be back on form.

thanks Neil

I am tempted to give it a good strip-down and start over... I have a feeling 8gb RAM is the max it can take, but I'll look into it.

a SSD is a good idea, a quick google seems to show they're not TOO pricey - is it, broadly, as simple as taking out the HDD and sticking in an SSD in the same slot?

It does seem to been performing more poorly since i installed windows10...

I'm not overly techy with computers, i've not seen what TM is showing as low on resources... from experience I can tell that things are taking longer, really!

 

[neil_g]

It does seem to been performing more poorly since i installed windows10...

ha, I had an issue with my 2nd gen i7 laptop on W10. intel dropped support for the 2nd gen chipset drivers that it used on W10 and the performance dropped when using the generic MS driver (hard drive light was banging away all the time). might want to look in to that. for some reason my 2nd gen i7 desktop does not appear to have the same issue.

have a look at task manager on the process and performance tabs, sort the columns on the process tab are any running very high % (if its the problem I mention above the disk will be very high)?

swapping a HD for an SSD is relatively easy if you have a little knowhow. the physical swap is straight forward, its just how you get the data from one to the other. you could either:

1) just do a new windows install
2) do a system image using built in Windows "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" where you create an image on an external drive, swap the drive over, boot from windows media and select the repair option, restore the image
3) use something like minitool partition wizard (free) to clone the drive (if you can get both drives attached to a machine at the same time)

 

[benners]

ha, I had an issue with my 2nd gen i7 laptop on W10. intel dropped support for the 2nd gen chipset drivers that it used on W10 and the performance dropped when using the generic MS driver (hard drive light was banging away all the time). might want to look in to that. for some reason my 2nd gen i7 desktop does not appear to have the same issue.

have a look at task manager on the process and performance tabs, sort the columns on the process tab are any running very high % (if its the problem I mention above the disk will be very high)?

swapping a HD for an SSD is relatively easy if you have a little knowhow. the physical swap is straight forward, its just how you get the data from one to the other. you could either:

1) just do a new windows install
2) do a system image using built in Windows "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" where you create an image on an external drive, swap the drive over, boot from windows media and select the repair option, restore the image
3) use something like minitool partition wizard (free) to clone the drive (if you can get both drives attached to a machine at the same time)

I think I'd be happy with any of those options... and i do have an HDD dock, so could have both drives connected at the same time.

I'll have a play on the laptop this evening and see if it's being a bit sluggish and pull up the TM.

I also want to start over on the laptop, as the W10 switch over didn't seem to like my previous partitioning of the C: (I set up a B: drive for my files, C: for programs).

It also did something weird with the users - there was only ever one, as the admin... now I have a "Benners" user and an admin user. "Benners" is set to admin, but still won't let me do some admin tasks. All very strange

 

[benners]

so I'm only using about 250gb of my 500gb HDD, so getting a 750gb SSD looks like an effiicent and economic selection, rather than a new laptop.
Crucial says the max RAM the laptop can take is 8gb, which is what i currently have

 

[Angelboy]

The second gen i7 quad core you have there is still a pretty pokey chip (certainly for a mobile cpu) .

What exactly does task manager show is low on resources when editing? Might be that you could throw another 8gb ram and an SSD at it and it'll be back on form.

I know, I've just bought a used 2012 MacBook pro for my daughter with an i5 processor, 8GB ram & 500GB hard drive and I know this will be fast enough for her. Even my 10 year old MacBook Pro with Intel duo 2 & 4 GB ram has been fine for most things (but crippled at video editing) so maybe the OP just needs to reform the drive and start again?

 

[benners]

I know, I've just bought a used 2012 MacBook pro for my daughter with an i5 processor, 8GB ram & 500GB hard drive and I know this will be fast enough for her. Even my 10 year old MacBook Pro with Intel duo 2 & 4 GB ram has been fine for most things (but crippled at video editing) so maybe the OP just needs to reform the drive and start again?

thanks i've installed a new SSD which seems to be working pretty well at the moment