Thinkpad T41 ram?

I just bought a T41 quite cheaply, the thing is I want to upgrade to 2gb of ram (max supported).

I've searched but found nothing and I know that it requires Pc2700 ram, though thats where the problem is.

Pc2700 are relative short in supply, I've seen 2gb going for £50 on ebay, but thats too much imo. I also found 2gb of pc5300 and pc6400 going for £12 here.

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/-/2159/1...M-Laptop-Memory/Product.html?searchtype=genre

Can anyone give of a DEFINITE answer whether the ram listed above will work or not on thinkpad t41?

If not, then would someone be so kind as to point me to 2gb ram that will work? I dont mind if they are two sticks of just one.

Also thinking of getting a 500gb 2.5 drive for it later.

 

No that RAM won't work. It is DDR2.

Your laptop only supports DDR RAM. So, you'll have to look for PC2700/PC2100/PC1600 DDR-SODIMMs, which are a bit expensive.

And, since your notebook has an IDE controller, the max HDD size you might be able to upgrade to is 250GB.

 

You can only upgrade your memory with DDR sodimms such as PC3200, PC2700 and PC2100.
Your system supports a maximum of 2GB of memory (2 x 1GB)

Your laptop has an IDE based harddrive, so if you want the fastest drive for the interface, you should look into the Samsung HM160HC. Its a 160gb 5400rpm drive.
The only larger drive is the Western Digital WD2500BEVE, which is a 250gb 5400rpm drive.

You can read my review of the Samsung drive, and you can see how it performs.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=264209

Both the Samsung and the WD drive mentioned are really fast drives.
However since your laptop is on the older side please download hdtune and upload an image of the "info" tab.
If your system has a 48 bit LBA limitation, than the largest harddrive you can put in your system is 137GB, unless you partition it.

K-TRON

 

Thanks for the response guys.

there any major differences in performance between pc2700 and pc3200?

The logical choice for myself is to get a smaller, (100-120)7200 rpm ide drive for the os and program; while takeout the CD drive, swap in a ultrabay converter for 9.5mm sata drive and attach a 500gb drive, that ought to bypass the limitations, I could use sata in the ultrabay right?

Cannot imagine the side effects on the battery, a 9 cell battery ought to do the it.

Hefty upgrades coming up, hope it will be worth it.

 

IDE 7200RPM HDDs were useless. One I remember was the 7K100, which was probably the worst of 'em all. Hot and noisy. The HM160HC/HM080GC will pwn any of the IDE 7200RPMs.

The 500GB should work in an ODD HDD bay adapter, but it depends if the chipset supports 48-bit LBA, and if the BIOS will recognize a HDD upto 500GB.

Cheap in the UK, I can only think of ebay.

 

Ok thanks again, I shall have a look at the efficient single platter samsung drive.

What is 137gb limit about? Is that pre sp2 limit?

 

The 137Gb limit has nothing to do with the operating system. The limit is based on the IDE hub the laptop has and what the Bios can read.
Simply download hdtune, and post an image of the info tab.
There is a LBA box on that page, from their we can determine if your system bottlenecks at 137GB or not.

Their is no noticeable performance difference between PC3200 and PC2700. The PC3200 will only be faster if your cpu can make use of it.

K-TRON

 

K-TRON are you sure HD tune will show the correct info there? As i can see, one of my "drives" are not showing 48bit while the other does, so i only think it'll show the info on what the drive itself supports or not? Or what do you think?

 

Ok, I'll have the app installed as soon as the laptop is delivered tomorrow, see what it indicates.

One other thing, I did a bit googling; it seems the samsung drive, which Andy kindly suggested, has quite annoying tendency of creating 'superclicking' noise (previously less noticeable) in this machine.

The more disturbing thing is that it apparently, frequently went into slow PI0 mode for no reasons, even on clean os installs .

I'm not sure if this is still a good choice despite the great reported performance; as I'd hate to get a drive that makes noticeable clicking. as its afterall not a new drive. I might have a look at seagate's solution or single platter offering from other companies.

Some reports about the samsung drive for reference:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=55655&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

 

Oh, yeah it could be prone to clicking. Basically, its like this, every mechanical drive is prone to weird issues, like clicking, overheating, etc.

Personally, I haven't heard of any issues with that drive over here. You can checkout the WD Blue Series, 'cause they are like next in rank in terms of performance.

Here is a review of the Samsung.

 

Thanks for your quick resonpse, I've just read your review again, and think drive performance is important and shall try to get them, though in the UK, delivery costs upto 60% of the drive itself.

If unfortunate happens and I find the noise unacceptable, I hopefully get a few days to ship it back.

 

Just received it and reinstalled the os, must find some drivers now, before ordering anything else.

The intel pentium m 725, 40gb standard drive and 512mb of ram all score 2.9 out of 7.9 in wei. need to get those sorted out by getting a fast drive and 2 gigs of ram, then pin mod the pll to oc 725 up to 2.13ghz... Gone to be a fun evening