I have a slightly older laptop (Dell Inspiron 1720) into which I am about to install an SSD. I'm wondering now what other options I have to improve the performance of this computer (since I can't buy a new one for quite some time yet).
I have already maxed out the RAM at 4GB (DDR2) and upgraded the discrete graphics to the highest processor available for my model.
I tried a permanent ReadyBoost USB drive, but saw no performance changes (plus several sites say that it's no benefit if you have more than 1GB of RAM).
I usually keep my windows installs pretty light and don't install a lot of programs, so that's already been accounted for.
Anything else that could help?
Finally, I'm currently running Windows 7 64-bit (to take full advantage of the 4GB of RAM), but I'm wondering if the older hardware actually takes a performance hit running 64-bit. I don't have any programs that require 64-bit, and I have 32-bit available. Should I reinstall with 32-bit?