[Jeff Guidry]

I have just replaced the harddrive in my Dell E1705 laptop with a 320 gig for movies/TV, etc. Problem is that the processor is a bit too slow to convert my DVD's at a sufficiently rapid rate for my tastes.

I am currently using Vista 32 bit, and the RAM on my computer is 533mhz.

Perusing the Dell forums, I have learned that I can upgrade from the current Intel Core Duo T2250 (1.73ghz, 533mhz FSB, 2 MB cache)

to a Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 (2.16ghz, 677mhz FSB, 4mb cache) for approx. $200 on eBay...

...or go whole hog with the Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 (2.66ghz, 677mhz FSB, 4 MB cache) for approx. $400 on eBay.

I know that I will have to change out all my RAM to make this happen (another $100 for max. 4GB 667mhz RAM I believe), and I will upgrade to Windows Vista 64 bit to take maximum advantage of the RAM processing (another $160).

My question is: for what I want to do with this machine, is either upgrade worth the cost? What can I expect in speed improvements?

Thanks.

 

[Al4x]

i have a machine like you describe, and it is a dell

what conversion are you talking about

mine
dell xps m1710
t7600G 2.33ghz but at 2.83,
[dells lets me put it up to 3.12 and about 5 steps between]
1 x 160gb 7200rpm drive
1x320gb 5400 drive in the optical bay,
[it takes 2 secs to swap optical for 2nd hdd but i generally use an external superdrive and always leave in the hd]
=444gb actual space
[so you could have 2 320s]
4gb of ram seen as 3.2gb
512mb 7950 gtx graphics card

i convert using handbrake a videots folder

i do it to
2000-3000kbps
slowest deinterlacing
2 pass encoding, [not express]
h264
aac +ac3 audio at 48 sampling and 160kbps

each pass takes under an hour for most films around 100mins

converts a film to iphone in 20 mins using other software

uses both cores at 100% and drives the fans crazy,

i like my laptop

edt, you must have the same bits in your laptop as mine, mine is maxed out, go with the double hard drive, i use one for media and one for eerything else, programs and the converting on the fast one, primary, and just copy it over to the big sort of portable drive, and it will fit in other laptops with the same hole size, ie the standard

 

[Jeff Guidry]

I currently have:

Intel Core Duo T2250 (1.73ghz, 533mhz FSB, 2 MB cache)

I can upgrade to:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 (2.16ghz, 677mhz FSB, 4mb cache) for approx. $200 on eBay...

...or go whole hog with the Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 (2.66ghz, 677mhz FSB, 4 MB cache) for approx. $400 on eBay.

I was curious on anyone's opinion on whether either of these upgrades would be worth the money spent.

I wasn't aware that I could replace the optical drive with another hard drive...that's good info there. Thanks.

 

[TheMarchingMule]

Optical drive =/= hard drive.

I personally am using a laptop right now with an upgraded T9300 (2.5MHz) and 4GBs of RAM and Vista x64. Use x64 OS if you're using more than 3GBs of RAM, mm hm.

As for processor, all I know is that my old one (uh...T5450 I think, 1.66MHz) did HORRIBLE with Blu-Ray rips. It made the video lag behind the audio something awful.

Also, don't forget that laptops are a bit harder than desktops to tinker around with. Hope you have some AS5 with you.

EDIT: Woah, also check what socket your laptop is capable of. I'm talking Socket P, but some laptops use a different socket number/letter....

 

[Al4x]

so you could get pretty close to mine, yeah ive had mine in the optical drive several months now, the little caddy i got from ebay works as described

i can store many many dvds there in h264 mp4, probly 120 or 100 + music,

t7600 is good with rips, what speed you get atm?

 

[Jeff Guidry]

PQ is important for me, so I use DVD Shrink, reauthor the DVD to copy only the movie, and then use the custom ratio to shrink it as small as the program will allow...and then I use that file as the movie file (no further processing, Handbrake is too slow with my system). I can usually get a two hour movie down to a little less than two gigs...I don't think I can get it much smaller without beginning to get noticeable artifacting, a no-no for me.

Now, I converted the movie "Far From Heaven" into DVD shrink with ZERO compression, then allowed Handbrake to shrink it in Constant Rate Quality preset. It looked good, but became choppy and laggy, and only saved a few hundred megs from the DVD shrink max shrink version.

AND it took more than 8 hours. DVD shrink typically takes 1 to 1-1/2 hrs. and that includes the deep analysis...

 

[Al4x]

hmm thats the size i aim for, about 2 gigs, i lso quite fussy about PQ i will open up 2 windows, one with the uncompressed ifo file and one withe the compressed mp4 file and play them on the monitor at the same time, to much artefacting, and it goes to a higher bit rate, i may give dvdshrink a try

as of now i use dvd faab for getting the dvd off the disc, and handbrake for the conversion, most are good

8 hours is very long, takes me 2 hours per dvd as i said, just let it go into the night and shutdon on its own

so iyo dvd shrink is better?

 

[Jeff Guidry]

Give it a try and see for yourself. Handbrake just has too many bugs for me.