HP Pavilion ze5607wm HDD upgrade

Hi I'd like to find out if I can upgrade the current hard drive to beyond what HP technical email support recommends with this system.

I can find out more info if necessary about the motherboard/chipset, etc # I don't have the laptop with me right now.

HP support emailed me back after my inquiry to them:
" We would like to inform you that you can upgrade the hard drive up to 60 GB with ATA-100 EIDE hard disk drive - 4,200 RPM, 2.5-inch form factor, 9.5mm height and not to 5400 rpm. I would like to inform you that as your notebook was installed with 30GB hard Drive, it supports double the amount of Hard Drive capacity that is 60GB. On normal tested condition, we would not be able assure that if you upgrade the Hard Drive from 4200RPM to 5400RPM it would work perfectly due to some factors. However, if you would like to test, then I would suggest you to take the Hard Drive to your nearest local store and install the 5400RPM Hard Drive and check if it works."


Yeah well whatever! From doing some research it seems a faster 5400rpm drive would work but possibly generate some more heat. I'm interested in a 5400rpm drive for the performance increase over a 4200rpm one. A new drive in the range of 80-100GB would be great. I just want to find out what this system's limits are for a faster 5400rpm drive and HDD storage capacity. I'm also planning on maxing out the memory to 1GB. Thank you ahead of time for any help anyone can offer!

 

What is your current Hard drive temperature?

Get HWMonitor and find out.

Temperature above 55C is the enemy to hard drives, besides shocks and drops (with higher RPMs the temperature can possibly rise).

Get the Samsung HM160HC.. It's a 160GB hard drive. The fastest IDE drive around (besides SSDs?).


Even if your computer can only read 127GB (which is a common limit among older PCs), it'll still be worth it, and you might not need to up your RAM to 1GB (because your hard drive will be able to keep up enough with the pagefile, so you won't notice).

 

The 5400RPM might generate more heat, but there is no reason to think it would not work.

As for system limits, the HP "tech" has no idea what he is talking about. The only "limitation" I can think of is if the notebook does not support LBA, which would limit you to a hard drive size of 127GB and no more.

However, I am going to guess that your notebook does support LBA, which means any drive is going to be okay.

What notebook model do you have? That will tell me as much as I need to know.

EDIT: Wow, I can read. I see which notebook you have.

 

Could you download and run HD Tune, the free version?

http://www.hdtune.com/

When you do, please pull up this tab as shown and see if your computer supports 48-bit LBA addressing. If it does support LBA, then any size drive will work.

If it does not have LBA, you are limited to 127GB drives or smaller.

 

If it does not have the LBA limitiation, the Samsung HM160HC is the way to go.

namaiki linked you to my review of the drive

By the way guys the LBA limitation is 137Gb, not 127Gb.
The formatted size is 128GB

K-TRON

 

I think it would still be worth it even with the LBA limitation, which basically would mean that while the hard drive will have less accessible capacity, it also won't access any areas where the transfer rate is <40MB/s.

I had it like that before (by accident) and WEI for hdd went from 5.4 to 5.5 .. not that people really care for WEI.

 

If the system came with a stock ATA/100 drive, it might support 48-bit addressing, but not sure.

If the chipset doesn't support ATA-6, then even partitioning won't help....So to be on the safe side go for the HM121HC (120GB). It'll give similar, probably better performance than the HM160HC, and you won't need to worry about 48-bit addressing, etc....

 

Wow thanks for you guys jumping on like this for me I'm almost overwhelmed! I will follow thru with the links provided and get as much info back to you as soon as I can about HDD temp, LBA, etc etc. The 160GB Samsung sounds great but I should say that I really don't need any more HDD capacity beyond this potential 137GB limit. I would be quite happy with anything from 80-120GB actually, but if it turns out I can use the HM160HC Samsung that's fine too.

 

I thought it was 137...but didn't want to say anything.

On a slightly off topic note...137GB (as in retail box says 137GB) is 137,000,000,000 bytes. 137,000,000,000 bytes = 128GB in binary (computer 0's and 1's).

 

crap
(10 char)

Anyways, from what I can see from here and here, the Samsung HM121HC has a 120GB platter or 2 x 60GB platters. What I mean is that it has a lower data density than the HM160HC and is just a bit slower..

 

I personally stay away from Samsung hard drives...every Samsung drive I have ever purchased was dead within two months of purchase. I stick with Western Digital and Seagate for my needs, and use Hitachi when the price is right.

 

My HM160HC has performed exceptionally well. It has been in use for over 800 hours and not a single hiccup. The S.M.A.R.T. readings are all clear, and overall it is a great drive.
If you do not want Samsung, your otehr option for a fast IDE drive is the WD2500BEVE

K-TRON

 

The datasheet shows similar specs for the HM121HC and the HM160HC, so they should perform the same as well.

 

my old one was ze5385 and I did upgrade the HDD from 60GB 4200rpm to 100GB 7200 rpm drive ... and upgraded to 1GB memory (pc2700, was pc2300 or pc2400 before, don't remember <pc3200 may not work>, 2x512MB).

anyways, hell of a difference.

however, my specific drive produced more heat than other 7200rpm drives - it was a Hitachi, and as all hitachis I've had, it ran hot. This caused sometimes the touchpad to be unactive since the HDD sits right under it. So I had to reboot to get it to activate again. But I used external mouse so that didn't bother me a lot. I don't think there would have been a problem if I had say Seagate or WD 7200 rpm drive, lol.

 

I upgraded my ZE4145 to a Hitachi 7K60 7200 rpm 60GB ata-6 drive a couple years back when I still had it. Never had any issues with it, and it was a huge improvement over the ancient 5400 that came with the laptop. My former roommate actually just reinstalled windows XP on it fresh and said it runs great still. I also upgraded it to a XP-M 2500+ from 1800+ and 1gb of ram. Not bad for uh, 7 years old i think it is now?

 

UPDATE to post below: I didn't really run the HDTune tests under the best conditions- I should have shut down more processes, AV etc so I'm going to do it again soon. Btw, thanks for suggesting 7200rpm drives but I have a PATA/IDE interface and nowhere I've checked sells ones higher than 5400rpm for PATA. I've checked NewEgg, Drive Solutions, Apricorn, etc for examples. Sounds like 7200rpm PATAs are being phased out, but a 5400rpm is fine with me anyway.
-----------------------

Thanks everyone for all your feedback much appreciated. I'm going to share a bunch of data I got after running several of the tests/programs I was given links to. Short story is my system doesn't support LBA addressing & the HDD temp maxed out at 48 C. This was during the HDTune testing though- I had the laptop on for at least 1 hr and did the tests and when I captured the HDD temp awhile after the tests it was down to 43 C. Before the tests it was around 41C. Here's all the data I came up with:

CPUID Hardware Monitor 1.1.2.0
-----------------------------------------------------

Mainboard Vendor Hewlett-Packard
Mainboard Model 0850 (0xCD - 0x2220)


Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

ACPI hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0 47°C (116°F) [0xC82] (THRM)

Dump hardware monitor



Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

FUJITSU MHT2030AT hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0 43°C (109°F) [0x2B] (HDD)

Dump hardware monitor


Processors Map
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of processors 1
Number of threads 1

Processor 0
-- Core 0
-- Thread 0


Processors Information
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Processor 1 (ID = 0)
Number of cores 1 (max 1)
Number of threads 1 (max 1)
Name Intel Celeron
Codename Northwood
Specification Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.60GHz
Package Socket 478 mPGA (platform ID = 2h)
CPUID F.2.9
Extended CPUID F.2
Brand ID 10
Core Stepping D1
Technology 0.13 um
Core Speed 2592.1 MHz (26.0 x 99.7 MHz)
Rated Bus speed 398.8 MHz
Stock frequency 2600 MHz
Instructions sets MMX, SSE, SSE2
L1 Data cache 8 KBytes, 4-way set associative, 64-byte line size
Trace cache 12 Kuops, 8-way set associative
L2 cache 128 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size
FID/VID Control no
Features


Thread dumps
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU Thread 0
APIC ID 0
Topology Processor ID 0, Core ID 0, Thread ID 0
Type 01001005h
Max CPUID level 00000002h
Max CPUID ext. level 80000004h

Function eax ebx ecx edx
0x00000000 0x00000002 0x756E6547 0x6C65746E 0x49656E69
0x00000001 0x00000F29 0x0001080A 0x00004400 0xBFEBF9FF
0x00000002 0x665B5101 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x003B7040
0x80000000 0x80000004 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
0x80000001 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
0x80000002 0x20202020 0x20202020 0x20202020 0x20202020
0x80000003 0x65746E49 0x2952286C 0x6C654320 0x6E6F7265
0x80000004 0x20295228 0x20555043 0x30362E32 0x007A4847

Cache descriptor Level 2 U 128 KB 1 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 1 T 12 KB 1 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 1 D 8 KB 1 thread(s)

MSR 0x00000017 edx = 0x000A0000 eax = 0x00000000
MSR 0x0000002C edx = 0x00000000 eax = 0x1A10001A
MSR 0x000001A0 edx = 0x00000000 eax = 0x000001C8



Drive
-----------------------------------------------------
Name FUJITSU MHT2030AT


Display
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ATI direct I/O API

Display Adapter
-----------------------------------------------------
Name RADEON IGP 345M
Vendor ID 0x1002 (0x103C)
Model ID 0x4337 (0x850)
Revision ID 0x0


OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO



Property Value
Manufacturer Hewlett-Packard
Model 0850
Version NS570 Version PQ1B60
Serial Number None

North Bridge ATI RS200/RS200M Revision 02
South Bridge ALI M1533 Revision 02

CPU Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.60GHz
Cpu Socket Socket 478 mPGA

System Slots 1 PCI

Memory Summary
Maximum Capacity 1024 MBytes
Maximum Memory Module Size 512 MBytes
Memory Slots 3
Error Correction None

Warning! Accuracy of DMI data cannot be guaranteed



Property Value
BIOS Vendor Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
BIOS Version KF_KH.F.19
Firmware Version 111.101
BIOS Date 12/05/2003
BIOS Size 512 KB
BIOS Starting Segment E4ABh
DMI Version 2.3
Characteristics - supports ISA
- supports PCI
- supports PC Card (PCMCIA)
- supports Plug-and-Play
- upgradeable (Flash) BIOS
- allows BIOS shadowing
- ESCD support is available
- supports booting from CD-ROM
- supports selectable boot
- BIOS ROM is socketed
- supports booting from PC Card (PCMCIA)
- supports Enhanced Disk Drive specification
- supports INT 13 for Japanese NEC 9800 1.2M floppy (3.5-inch, 1024-byte sectors, 360rpm)
- supports INT 13 for Japanese Toshiba 1.2M floppy (3.5-inch, 360rpm)
- supports INT 05 print-screen
- supports INT 09 and 8042 keyboard services
- supports INT 14 serial services
- supports INT 17 printer services
- supports INT 10 CGA/Mono video services
- supports ACPI
- supports legacy USB
- supports AGP


Property Value
Number of CPU(s) One Physical Processor / One Core / One Logical Processor / 32 bits
CPU Full Name Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.60GHz
Vendor GenuineIntel
CPU Name Intel Celeron
CPU Code Name Northwood
Platform Name Socket 478 mPGA
Revision D1
Technology 0.13 µm
Instructions MMX, SSE, SSE2
Original Clock 2600 MHz
Original System Clock 100 MHz
Original Multiplier 26.0
CPU Clock 2593 MHz
System Clock 99.7 MHz
FSB 398.9 MHz
L1 Data Cache 8 KBytes
L1 Trace Cache 12 Kuops
L2 Cache 128 KBytes
---------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------