Looking to buy new laptop

[xud]

I have totally had it with my 3 year old Toshiba laptop. I am wanting to seriously upgrade to a new 64 bit item.
I have a couple of questions regarding this.

Firstly, I need the laptop to be able to run various 3D CAD software such as Solid Edge and Solid Works without bogging down.

Secondly, I could use some advice on what the minimum spec laptop would be for my requirements. i.e. Processor, Ram, prices etc

I have looked on Fleabay and an ACER 64 bit laptop is around £250. Would this be good enough?


Mike

[AB Editor]

Solid Edge minimum specs:

Windows Vista and Windows 7 Recommended System Configuration:

32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
Windows Vista Business or Enterprise Service Pack 1 or 2
At least 2 GB RAM
True Color (32-bit) or 16 million colors (24-bit)
Screen resolution set to 1280 x 1024


SolidWorks: (only giving you RAM spec as the rest was irrelevant)

RAM
Minimum: 1GB RAM
Recommended: 6GB RAM or more on Windows 7 x64 operating system

[ChuckFickens]

So what your basically asking us is "will a unspecified laptop be OK"

Sorry, no idea!

Anyhow... for CAD and 3D work I'd recommend at least an intel I series CPU (i3 i5 or i7.... the higher the better) at least 4GB of RAM and a dedicated graphics card (so either a ATI or Nvidea card) with at least 512MB of dedicated graphics memory.

[AB Editor]

The answer is, something fairly hefty... Windows 7 with 6GB of RAM, you're looking at over a grand I suspect?

Also, ignore this bit: Windows Vista Business or Enterprise Service Pack 1 or 2

[TTG]

What's the problem with your 3 year old laptop? Please post specs and the problems. AB users might be able to help.

[xud]

The problem with my old laptop is the hard disk is making constant whirring and clicking sounds and it runs incredibly slow. It has legitimate Vista, Office and Norton software. I have done scan after scan, disk cleanup, defrag but it stil runs slow. The only thing I can think of is to format it, wipe it clean and start again but I'm not sure how to format it.
Not only that, it is a 32 bit machine. I have in my posession a number of CAD programs which I need to learn to broaden my job prospects. Now all these programs are for 64 bit machines so it makes sense for me to upgrade the laptop. Due to the bewildering array of specs and add-ons available I get a bit confused. For instance, I was browsing Dell's website last night. There must be dozens of options on there which I never knew existed.
Mike

[ChuckFickens]

Hard drive constantly accessing and being generally slow is a classic symptom of a lack of RAM installed in the machine.

Check how much RAM you have installed (right click on computer and select properties) and if you have less than 1GB then adding RAM will benefit you hugely and is pretty cheap.

[xud]

The laptop has 2G of RAM. I have gone onto task manager and looked at the processes. There is nothing in double figures. On another tab the memory usage is on 1G all of the time. The CPU usage does not seem to be anything out of the ordinary.
BTW the ticking noise from the hard disk is rythmic pattern, if that's any help to get it sorted.
Mike