Should i buy a new laptop or upgrade my old one to an SSD?

Switching out the hard drive is easy. Using a laptop with an SSD after being used to a hard drive, it's like the computer has just had a shot of espresso, it's great.

Does the £130 charge include parts? Is it cheaper if you supply the SSD yourself?

What work do you do at university? I would not recommend getting a chrome book at all. Like, if you are that tight on a budet in the future I would suggest buying used, you can get perfectly capable machines used with decent specs and even better if you want to go the DIY route (changing the CPU on motherboards which take PGA chips and not BGA).

The laptop you linked is alright, should be easy to service (you just need to remove the bottom panel and use a thin tool to disconnect the plastic clips holding the bottom to the main chassis). I wouldn't worry too much on another part of that laptop failing after a while although Hewlett Packard are not known for quality but they get the job done.

The £130 charge includes VAT and "full service" whatever that means. I assume that just means assembling/disassembling it etc. Yeah it's a hefty price but believe me however easy it is.. I can't use a screwdriver for my life. I guess it's expensive because that's just how they do business.

5 years old and HP

Yes indeed you are correct - it's more or less Microsoft's answer to Chrome OS, a fast and secure OS aimed at the education PC market. Chrome OS is the preferred choice according to the market share figures and is certainly the one I'd choose out of the two.

I believe there are plans to support running virtual machines within Chrome OS, meaning you'd be able to run Windows within Chrome OS.

The only significant difference between Home and Pro to the average consumer is the price!

I study a Biomedical Science degree so it doesn't involve me downloading/using large applications anyway. I only use it to write essays, research and obviously use Ms teams for online lectures. I feel like even though it's old, it still has 8GB of ram and that's wayyy more than I'll ever need for my course right? I thought the processor was quite old for 2021 but after researching I think the real culprit is the HDD. Especially after using newer laptops with SSDs, I'm just amazed at how much smoother and quieter they perform. It doesn't even sound like they are switched on.

It's more than enough for your workload. it's only 4 core and 4 thread (no hyperthreading) but that is still more than enough for basic research, browsing and using MS teams. RAM wise again 8GB is more than enough.

I mean like I mentioned earlier. I use a laptop from 2007 for my basic on the go work, that has a core 2 duo L7500 and 3GB of RAM and that is still fine (It's barely in spec to run x64 Windows 10). I have much heavier workloads but i don't do them on my laptop, i have a dedicated Epyc 7H12 machine for that, but the work I do on my laptop is very similar to what you are doing (research) and other non power intensive tasks such as network monitoring and forensic software (Cellebrite etc.)

An SSD doesn't "sound like it is switched on" because that's what it is, a Solid State Drive, it has no moving parts, the only noise you would get from an SSD is possibly coil whine (although i've never seen an SSD exhibit coil whine). An SSD is a great way of reviving a laptop due to greater transfer speeds. It's why a lot of people with old laptops will use an SSD to extend the lifespan of a machine, hell with much older machines such as those which use the IDE format we use flash cards.

I will say 1 thing, if you are looking to buy an SSD make sure it has DRAM. There is a huge difference in the performance between an SSD with DRAM and one without (The one without has to solely rely on NAND which is much slower).

Yeah.. I find the newer laptops don't seem to have any fans either which again makes them seem soo much more peaceful to use. Or they do but they are not as loud? (idk your the tech whizz lol) That's another problem.. anything with moving parts is bound to stop working soon. So I'm just afraid if once I get the SSD fitted, the fan could stop working. My Fan always seems to start getting really loud when I'm doing heavy tasks like streaming video or attending online classes on MS teams. I've already cleaned it with compressed air to get rid of dust. I find it gets even louder when I have the charger plugged in probably because there's more heat generated... Maybe that's just another sign of my Laptop's age?

The £130 charge includes VAT and "full service" whatever that means. I assume that just means assembling/disassembling it etc. Yeah it's a hefty price but believe me however easy it is.. I can't use a screwdriver for my life. I guess it's expensive because that's just how they do business.

Oh wow I'm so dumb thanks for showing me that. I had no idea that my Laptop was only worth £180. I was only looking at the fact that it had 8GB of Ram and Windows 10 Pro as most laptops that have both of these are well between £400-£500 so I thought mine would be worth around the same.. I guess its due to the ageing processor which is why the value is so low? In that case I might be better off paying another £100 to get a cheaper low end laptop that is more lightweight and portable to carry around uni. I guess the only problem would be that it would have to be Windows 10 S and only 4GB of ram which seems too restricted as people have posted before

Oh wow I'm so dumb thanks for showing me that. I had no idea that my Laptop was only worth £180. I was only looking at the fact that it had 8GB of Ram and Windows 10 Pro as most laptops that have both of these are well between £400-£500 so I thought mine would be worth around the same.. I guess its due to the ageing processor which is why the value is so low? In that case I might be better off paying another £100 to get a cheaper low end laptop that is more lightweight and portable to carry around uni. I guess the only problem would be that it would have to be Windows 10 S and only 4GB of ram which seems too restricted as people have posted before

Yeah.. I find the newer laptops don't seem to have any fans either which again makes them seem soo much more peaceful to use. Or they do but they are not as loud? (idk your the tech whizz lol) That's another problem.. anything with moving parts is bound to stop working soon. So I'm just afraid if once I get the SSD fitted, the fan could stop working. My Fan always seems to start getting really loud when I'm doing heavy tasks like streaming video or attending online classes on MS teams. I've already cleaned it with compressed air to get rid of dust. I find it gets even louder when I have the charger plugged in probably because there's more heat generated... Maybe that's just another sign of my Laptop's age?

Yes, it's almost certainly the processor.

The fan will get loud when you do stressful tasks. That means the sensors and the fan are still indeed working and doing their job. Not to mention with it being an old CPU, it's going to be pushed harder than a similar specced, but more modern CPU which will have performance and likely efficiency improvements over your current CPU.

Passive cooling laptops can be a bit iffy. It really depends on the model and what chips are being used. If you plan to play games on the laptop, I wouldn't even think about a passively cooled laptop. If games aren't something you plan on doing, just look at professional reviews. Some manufacturers have just been doing passive cooling for the sake of marketing and ultimately ended up releasing a bad product that is just thermal throttling all the time.

If that is the laptop the OP is using, it is a bit more involved than most other laptops. Still easy but it does carry more risk than most other laptops I've seen which is mostly down to the ribbon cables (usually rather fragile buggers) and the speaker cable which runs directly over the screws that hold the HDD into place.

It's not quite your unscrew, plugin and play that a lot of laptops are, it's a bit more involved.

You have to unscrew the entire backplate and then pry it open
Disconnect the ribbon cable connected to the battery
Unscrew the battery then move it out of the way, being careful not to rip out the connection on the other side of the battery
Unscrew the HDD mount, being careful not to damage the wires for the speaker running directly over some of the screws
Disconnect the HDD, which is also connected via a ribbon cable
Remove the HDD out of the mount...
Then you put it all back together.

Still easy, but as I said, it's a bit more involved than most other laptops and I can see why your average, none experienced user might want to shy away from a user-upgrade with this model.

Yeah, this is why I really don't want to risk it because i've never disassembled an electronic device in my life. I'm defo not going to be using it for gaming. I only need it for my final year of uni and that's literally it. I think I might just be being a bit too picky with the sound. The ticking HDD noise is certainly annoying and noticable but it isn't insanely loud and I guess you only hear it when you are in a really quiet room. I bet people who are less fortunate than me and can't afford a new one would probably just deal with the noise and carry on using it. .. It just doesn't sound right though, like the PC is struggling to keep up with what I'm doing even though it it's completely fine. I just don't know if its worth spending loads of money just for one stupid repetitive sound. Then again as people have said, the processor is old and the HDD will probably die in a few months anyway or it might last longer who knows?

Woah woah woah...

Ticking noise? Damn, I must've missed that part. That changes things a bit. What sort of clicking noise are we talking about here? Are we talking about a one off sort of thing every so often or is it a repeated clicking?

I'd also suggest backing up your important files to the cloud or something

Oh I'm sorry I don't think I've mentioned this to you before. It's not exactly a loud clicking noise but it's a constant jumping kind of noise and it happens repeatedly when the PC is idle. So my Laptop has like a flashing light which flashes everytime the HDD processes something and It's always repeatedly blinking every second along with the sound. I have all my data backed up on a USB stick cause I don't even have much stored on it anyway. It's strange because I've showed and explained it to different people; Some say it's completely normal cause HDD's will always make that kind of noise, but some say that the HDD is on it's way out and needs replacing right away so I really don't know. It's hard to explain what kind of sound it is, almost like a little ticking clock inside the machine. I don't know if you'd be comfortable if i sent you a video recording on whatsapp or something? If not its completely fine

It depends on the noise. Some noise is normal. The odd click isn't necessarily out of the norm either. But constant clicking is usually a sign the drive is on the way out or has been damaged and the longer you let it run, the higher the risk of corrupting/losing data.

Is it something like this?

HDD Clicking Not Normally (click of death) (HD) - YouTube (Off topic sidenote- Damn that's some solid video quality for 2009)

If it's not, then uhhh... Yeah, might be one that needs to be heard. But no, I'd rather not post information like that. Perhaps upload it to Youtube or something and post the link here.

Yes it sounds exactly like that! And yeah good idea I completely forgot about YouTube lol.
Have a listen just to make sure please: (You might want to turn your speakers up a bit, dw you won't be greeted with inappropriate sounds lol)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUegD0hFH5M

Hmmm, I see why you're getting conflicting advice. I'm not sure what to make of that. Could be some light data reading that's spread across the discs, but could be a lot of bad sectors. I think I'd be more inclined to say the former, because every so often you hear the head moving a lot in a short space of time, which is more typical of regular operation... But if it's clicking all the time? Idk... Could just be a noisy drive.

Just check if the drive has been defragged. Search for defrag in the start menu and it should open a window called "optimise drives", analyse it and defrag if it's fragmented. Though I'm pretty sure Windows does a weekly defrag by default.

Besides that? I think the best thing I can say is open up the Command Prompt (on the start menu, search cmd). If it doesn't pop up on the start menu for whatever reason, press the windows key + R, type cmd and hit enter

Then in the command prompt type:
wmic diskdrive get status

What this does is read the SMART information of the drive and gives you a general idea as to the health of the drive.

It'll either be:
Ok - Meaning there's probably nothing wrong with the drive.
Caution - Meaning that things aren't necessarily bad, but the drive could potentially fail soon.
Bad - Meaning the drive is basically on its death bed, replace asap.
Unknown - Something is having it's own little moment and it couldn't grab the info.