Upgrading hard drive and RAM on laptop....where to go?

[Mckenzie]

I bought an averatec 5110hx last year from future shop with the extended warranty. Now, I have only about 9G of space left and it is pretty slow as it is full of music and other misc crap.

So future shop wants $250 to go from a 40-60G hard drive plus $45 labour and about $130 to go to another 512 RAM plus $45 labour.

Just a few quick questions:
Is this a good deal?
Are they good parts?
Will going somewhere else void my warranty?


Any input is appreciated.

Thanks

[BokCh0y]

check out memory express:

www.memoryexpress.com

i see they have a fujitsu 5400 rpm 80gb hard drive for $199.95 roughly double the space and $50 cheaper than futureshop. Notebook ram starts at like $70 depending on the amount and the speed.

[tictactoe2004]

don't bother going to a 60 gig, go to either 80 or 100, going to a higher RPM 80 will make your machine a lot faster... since averatecs usually use slower RPM hard drives. buy from memory express, they're the best place for parts. There's OEMdepot but memory express although being about 5-10% more money, will treat you a lot better if you have any problems or warranty issues.

[EK 2.0]

What I do not understand is why are they charging you douvle on the labour for the Ram and HDD install...

I mean they are already in there to install one or the other...why not just charge you once and install both pieces...

[BokCh0y]

just install the stuff yourself. pretty easy or post on beyond for some help. i'm sure there's lots of guys here that will help you out for way cheaper.

[eblend]

definately instlal yourself, super easy on laptop, ram is located at the bottom, flip ur laptop over and there will be a few covers on thre that are closed by a few screws, open them up first and chek that you have an open slot for ram. There will be a few covers under there, one might be completely empty, look for the one where there is already a ram stick in there and see if there is room for another one. if there is buy more ram, pop it in and close the cover, easy as that. For the hdd, super easy too
there is usually a screw that hold the plastic cover for the hdd, remove the screw and the drive just slides out, put new drive and slide it back in.

overall 5 min of work

[Mckenzie]

You guys are great....thanks for the advice. I guess future shop wants to charge a flat rate for each part installed....apprently they want to be greedy. I never thought it was that easy to do....I am pretty amateur when it comes to hardware type stuff.


So for the hard drive then, how would I swap everything over to the new drive?

Sounds like a PITA....

[hexified]

You could ghost your old drive onto the new drive to swap everything over...thats typically what i do when i upgrade hard drives. Just make sure youre virus free when you do it

[eblend]

never done it with a laptop and to tell you the truth have no idea how really, but you have to ghost ur existing harddrive to the new one, problem is, u can't put a second harddrive into a laptop i dont' think, so how to make it work no idea, maybe if u had one of those external hdd boxes that hooks up through usb or something, make a copy using norton ghost or powerquest driveimage and then put the drive into your laptop

[90Tegra]

just find any small business computer store in your area. future shop is a RIP OFF

[Davetronz]

I havent worked on an averatec before but I am a laptop technician.
The memory is easy enough to install if you have the correct number of chromosomes.
Replacing the hard drive might be a bit more tricky, especially if it isnt easy to access. On some laptops you have to pull apart either the whole top or bottom assembly to get to the hard drive.
If the hard drive is not DIRECTLY accessible take it in to get it done.