Memory for my (wife's) T61

I'll blame this on my wife (heh heh) She orders this Lenovo T61 laptop for a good price, on eBay. It's in pretty good shape, has XP 32 bit, and a 70 gig 5400 rpm drive. Right away she is complaining about how s-l-o-w it runs. I check it and find that it only has 512 mb of ram (512MB 2Rx16 PC2-5300S-555-12). I orders up a couple 2gig dimm modules (2GB DDR-II 667MHz) and install same. I get 1-3-3-1 beeps and so they don't work. I find something on Crucial's site which may work but they come as a set of 2 ea 2 gig dims but for $71.00, which I thought was a LOT! Anyways I'm looking for cheaper dims and really only need a total of 3 gig (XP-32 bit) and am wondering if anyone has info on how to find 3 gigs worth of dimms at a reasonable price. I would sure appreciate it. I'm also going to upgrade the HD to something a bit faster.

 

Indeed DDR2 SODIMM prices are very expensive to buy brand new these days. Your best bet is to find working second hand modules from eBay, you should be able to get 2x 2GB modules from a reputable company for much cheaper than $71. It might be worth investigating the type of RAM available for the price as the T61 is compatible with DDR2 533MHz, 667MHz and 800MHz RAM. Browse around and find out which works out best for your budget.

Tips:

- Go for branded aftermarket RAM such as Kingston, Crucial, G.Skill and Corsair vs. unknown branded RAMs. Why? You may find that these companies will still honour their lifetime guarantee on their modules despite its age and will replace like for like at their expense if something goes wrong.

- You can mix and match RAM rated at different speeds, if for example you have a 1GB 667MHz module and 2GB 800MHz module installed it should still work together. However take note that the modules will run at the lowest speed but should still work nonetheless. You may find this route cheaper than a same kit of 2.

As for the hard drive I would definitely look for a SSD upgrade. SSD's are relatively affordable these days and run much, much faster than the standard 5400RPM drives. Plus non-moving parts makes it a bit more robust than your standard spindle based drive. It's one of the most noticeable speed upgrades you can do to any computer.

 

965GM/PM chipsets only support up to 667 MHz DDR2, 800 MHz will work but they will be downclocked to 667. I've found some ThinkPads are more picky about RAM combinations then other laptop brands.