Features

Once you've popped the keyboard, don't just wrench it out - check to see where it's attached and "hinge" the keyboard open around the connection, taking care not to strain the cable that connects the keyboard to the motherboard.

Adding memory is then simply a question of placing it in the slot and pushing it down gently to engage the catches. Be careful to keep hold of the memory via the edges of the board rather than the connectors or the memory chips themselves.

The results are impressive. Our test HP Pavilion notebook, with 512MB of RAM, originally scored 0.73 in our benchmarks. Adding another 512MB saw this rise to 0.86, which is an 18% boost. Upgrading to 2GB only increased this to 0.90.

Hard disk

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Chances are that, when you first ordered your notebook, you didn't take too much notice of how much hard disk space it came with. "I'll never fill up 20GB/40GB/60GB" you told yourself with smug assurance.

But anyone who's ripped their CD library into high bit-rate audio files, or uses their notebook to store photos and videos from a modern digital camera, will realise that anything less than 100GB runs out fast. With a Vista install requiring a whopping 15GB, you should certainly consider a hard disk upgrade.

The good news is that upgrading your hard disk is simple and likely to massively increase your storage space. Entry-level capacity for a notebook is now around 80GB and, although maximum capacities aren't up there with those available

The arrival of Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) technology, for instance, means more data can be squeezed onto those diminutive 2.5in platters. You can now purchase 2.5in drives up to 200GB in size, although Toshiba's MK2035GSS is currently the only one that offers this capacity in the standard 9.5mm drive thickness.

You should also see a marginal performance boost, but don't expect wonders; in fact, if you notice any difference it's more likely to be due to you reinstalling an operating system. In terms of benchmarking, when we upgraded a four-year-old disk to a new unit, we saw only a 5% increase in speed - nice to have, but some distance away from the performance boost afforded by adding memory.

Before you start whipping out your credit card, you have to consider the size of drive you need - not its capacity, but its physical dimensions. Although most notebooks use 2.5in drives, some ultraportables use 1.8in units instead. Just as important as this measure is the thickness, or height, of the drive. Some larger-capacity notebook hard disks are thicker than the 9.5mm standard and may not fit your chassis.

The best way to determine these all-important dimensions is to get busy with your screwdriver and ruler. If you're lucky, the hard disk will be tucked into a sliding caddy that can be pulled out of the side of the machine. More often than not, however, you'll need to remove a panel in the base and then, possibly, another screw or two securing the hard disk to the chassis. After this, removing the drive should simply be a case of tugging gently on a plastic strip to disconnect the drive from its connector. Note the orientation of the drive, so that when you replace it you don't try to force it upside down.

Once you've established what will fit into your notebook's chassis, you'll need to know what interface your new hard disk must be equipped with. Most new machines come with SATA (serial ATA) hard disks, but older notebooks (pre-2006) will almost certainly need a parallel ATA/IDE drive. A quick Google of your notebook's current hard disk model name should yield the information you need.