Just bought VPR Matrix 180A5 on Ebay

[poppy_morenito]

Hello all,

I have been reading this forum while deciding whether to purchase a VPR laptop on Ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3477634565&category=177&sspagename=STRK%3AMEBWN%3AIT&rd=1

I went ahead and won the auction. I am curious to what I should do first as far as upgrades. My goals are to have the laptop used as my video editing and travel laptop for carrying my work home and watching DVD's on the plane.

the specs so far are:

1.8ghz Pentium4 Mobile Processor - Powerful!
512 MB DDR SDRAM - 30 GB hard drive
15.2" WIDESCREEN TFT display 1280x854 -
CDRW-DVD combo drive -
Built-in 802.11b Wireless
32MB ATI Radeon 7500 Graphics
2 1394 ports - FIREWIRE!
Integrated 56 Kbps (V.90/V.92) modem
Integrated 10/100 Base-T Ethernet LAN - 2 USB 2.0 ports
S-Video port - Great for PRESENTATIONS
1 15 pin VGA monitor port - for connecting external monitor
1 RJ-11 modem port and 1 RJ-45 Ethernet port
1 microphone and headphone connection
PCMCIA card slot
Battery and AC adapter
Weighs only about 6.5lbs!!!
About 2 years left on warranty from BestBuy

Software included:
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition -
CyberLink PowerDVD -
Microsoft Works -

My first plan is to upgrade to XP Pro and OFFICE PRO .
Then upgrade ram to Max Amount 1 GIG I think.

Next should I replace the hard drive with bigger faster one ? It seems from reading here the one it comes with is a dog.

Also is this the model with the bad wireless card and will VPR replace it for me for free ?

Thanks again for reading ....

[Jimmm]

Really no reason to upgrade the office suite...just more money for microsoft.

You could upgrade the ram, esp if doing vid editing, but 512 is usually sufficient. My friend does fine on 256 with Premier, no problems.

Hard drive will be upgraded for space only. The speed limitation is from the bus from what I hear. For vid editing, could probably use the space. Or get an external firewire/USB 2.0 drive. I have one, seems to be faster than the internal hard drive.

Cant tell you about the wireless card. You could upgrade to 802.11g for some extra speed, but you gotta find the right card.

No reason to upgrade to Windows XP pro either. You will hear many say...OH, you MUST have XP pro., but I have had home on my VPR laptop for a year now with 0 crashes. This is with many installs of many programs, lengthy uptime, intensive processing, and beta programs as well.

Thats about all you can possibly upgrade.

[flecrone]

Upgrading the RAM is a good idea, if you will be doing a lot of things at the same time.

You won't see much speed increase going with a faster hard disk, but you might like the increased space. Replacing the drive is somewhat of a task, however.

My WiFi card does OK (I have the 200A5). I've set it to channel 6, which helps reception here. Test out the card you have, it may work well enough for you.

Good luck!

[Rajshnu]

Hey, for practical business purposes no need to upgrade harddrive or ram (it has 512 DDR remember not single read); as far as wireless card, never had a prob so far on my 180 B5 going on 2 years almost....... the only complaint I have so far is that the casing is cheap and battery life is not as long as some of the newer comps.... by the way anybody know where to get the bottom portion of my casing... I dropped and chipped it big time on back bottom by the svideo out; DO not get xp pro, not really worth it.... I have XP home and does just fine... make sure to get good virus protection such as symantec... and make sure to do all microsoft software recommended updates.. other than that for presentations, visio, objects, powerpoint, excel, any sort of graphics displays, or database work, you will be fine