Need help on T400 specs - 2 questions, ordering soon

Ok so I've actually posted this thread in "what should i buy" too but I want to order tomorrow and want to make sure I get some advice - you Lenovo followers will also be more familiar with the exact choices I have to make! Thanks.

I need some advice (please) on the following specs:

Operating System: (which one?)
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
Genuine Windows Vista Business downgrade to Windows XP Professional

HD - (which one?)
250 GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm
160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
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I had only used XP before my M1330 arrived on Aug 11th. I had a horrible experience with that laptop. Blue screen of death when I witnessed a "Fatal OS system failure" and had times when windows couldn't even start. Dell replaced it - same ****. I returned that one for a full refund. Some of those issues could have actually been Vista related but I'll never really know so now I'm gun shy about giving Vista another chance. Can you guys help me understand what may be at risk if I don't go with Vista? And what does "Genuine Windows Vista Business downgrade" mean? Will the laptop be running XP? Will I have a Vista Business disc? Will I have an XP disc?

I currently have a 160GB HD on my desktop computer. I've had that for about 5 years and have only used 42GB so far (that's 5 years of pics, 3,000+ songs, etc.) I think I am leaning toward the 160GB HD, 7200rpm because its faster than the 250GB at 5400rpm and I honestly don't think I could fill up a 160GB, let alone a 250.

Opinions appreciated.
Thanks.

 

"Genuine Windows Vista Business downgrade" means they give you the option to downgrade to XP from Vista, which means they'll give you both media or one recovery partition and one with media (seems pretty random based on the report here). There is nothing wrong with Vista, certainly no risks not to go with Vista for now. BTW, it is reasonable to say that Lenovo will support your laptopn regardless you run vista or xp.

HD size is really only based your individual needs, 160G seems to be fine for you.

 

I had problems with my M1330 running and with shutting down, in a period of about 8 or 9 days (that I had it) it had over 100 entries in the performance log with failures related to shutting down ... I'm just not sold on Vista but I could change my mind. I want to make the right decision. Thanks for your advice.

 

"Vista business with XP downgrade" is more expensive than "Vista home basic". Can you get windows XP through other way with lower price? If so, select "Vista home basic", and buy "windows XP" by yourself.

I am using vista home basic in my XPS m1330, and didn't met "Fatal OS system failure" and failing bootings. Thus I think "Vista home basic" is also fine for work and there's no need to upgrade to vista business unless you need windows XP.

My XPS m1330 has some other horrible problems, such as grainny screen, dead pixels and so on. I have had 5 LED panels replaced! And now I still cannot stop my worries due to 8400M GS graphics... I have decided T500 with LED screen will be my next laptop and about to be a thinkpad consumer, as you do^_^

 

Can't beat Lenovo prices either! I too had the NVIDIA card in my M1330 and had times when the display driver failed and I completely lost my screen image - it went black ... it would always come back but its scary. I have to rely on a laptop for my law exams and cannot afford any display driver issues. I experienced these problems all within 20 days on two different M1330's so I don't think its only a coincidence

 

So the XP business downgrade doesn't really have XP loaded as my OS or does it (I'm confused when it comes to downgrading OS's)

 

I believe it has XP preloaded and comes with the Vista discs as well for your upgrading convenience

 

As far as the harddrive, are you up for buying your own and installing it yourself? I would personally go this route, but if you don't want to then I would go with the 160GB one that you mentioned over the 250GB one.

 

I don't want to mess with installing a new hard drive as I don't want to go through loading all drivers, OS, etc. back on the machine. I'd rather select a HD that I'll just stick with. 250GB at 5400rpm and 160GB at 7200rpm are the same price. Will I notice a performance difference?

 

Yes, 7200 for better performance at the expense of battery life.

 

No need to go through loading drivers and such for a simple hard drive swap.
Use something like Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost to copy an image of the original hard drive to a new drive and you're good to go.

I bought my T400 with the 250GB 5400rpm drive and ordered a 250GB 7200RPM drive from Newegg. I didn't need the additional space of the 320GB, but you go go that way too.

When I got my T400 I went through to first setup stuff then as soon as I had desktop I install Acronis True Image and saved a hard disk image to a USB external drive. Took about 22GB of space. Also burned an Acronis boot disk.

I switched over to the new (blank) hard drive, booted from the Acronis boot disk, and restored the disk image onto the new drive. Piece of cake.

 

That rule of thumb is not as strictly true today as it used to be; the power usage gap has narrowed and some 7200rpm drives consume less power than 5400rpm drives (probably older generation).

Tom's Hardware has a neat charting tool based on their tests of different hard drives.

 

Lew - thanks for the link ... that's a lot of info. So between these drives, should I just be considering the space 250 v. 160 and ignoring the rpm speeds?

 

I'm still confused over which drive to get and Vista v. XP. Is it bad to get XP when "everyone else" is running Vista?

 

Between the two drives you should consider what your personal requirements are and how to best address those requirements using all available resources.

I needed more than 160GB and wanted 7200rpm speed. I didn't really need as much as 320GB. I also wanted a simple and fast way to access additional storage when at home.

So I bought the system with the 250/5400 drive and bought the 250/7200 drive after market. When my Bay Adapter II arrives the 250/5400 goes in there and will be used for backups, secondary storage, etc. That suited my needs.

There is a risk that if I have a problem someday that may be the hard disk or the system it's up to me to figure that part out since the drive isn't Lenovo's. Not an issue for me, but for others that may govern their choice.

 

Vista supports hybrid graphics and your ability to switch on the fly.
XP does not support; you have to change via BIOS and reboot.

I've been happy with Vista so far -- this is the first system I've had with Vista, and would switch to XP Pro in a heartbeat if I felt it necessary, but this thing works just fine with Vista.

 

Thanks for the honest feedback. I plan on ordering with discrete graphics for DVD watching, etc but plan on switching to integrated while in class to save battery. Sounds like I need Vista for this.

 

So weird, last night on lenovo's website they weren't offering 4GB, only up to 3GB. Now I see 4 available. I don't think I am getting a 64 bit system so is it worth it for me to pay for 4GB at this time? Probably going with:
P8600 2.4GHz
Vista Premium
250GB HD at 5400rpm

 

Why do you want discrete graphics for DVD watching? The integrated graphics should be enough for such a simple task, and from what I am reading, it even supports HD decode acceleration. I had integrated graphics in my previous laptop (Intel Extreme Graphics 2), and it had no problem with DVDs.

Am I missing something?

 

I guess not... its such a small price increase to get discrete so I didn't mind paying for it. Maybe that's not a good enough reason to go with discrete but I like having the option of toggling between the two.

I just spoke to Lenovo. When it comes to RAM they say systems run better when memory is evenly paired. They were recommending 4GB would run smoother than 3GB. I'm aware that a 32 bit system won't recognize the full 4 GB I have heard that there is still a pick-up in performance and that it may be worth it to spend extra for 4GB

 

Fair enough. With the switchable graphics, there is no longer a battery life penalty for choosing discrete graphics, and it will be nice to have the faster card if you ever need it.

 

OS: if you want to downgrade to XP pro, you should know exactly why you're doing it. Don't do it just because you've heard bad things about it or watched way too much PC vs Mac ads. I can only think of handful of reasons anyone would want to go with XP Pro with a newly purchased computer right now. For most people, Vista is the way to go, it's more secure, better user interface, better multimedia functions, very stable, most compatibility issues have been solved, and laptop will especially benefit from Vista because its superior power management. It is the OS of the future if you're sticking with windows.

HD: always get the 7200RPM HD for the OS drive. Now days the slowest component in ANY modern computer is their hard drive. It won't matter if you have a $1000 CPU in your computer with gazillion memory, if you use 5400rpm HD to load photoshop(or any other app) and i'm use 7200rpm drive, mine is going to be faster

 

Thanks for the advice. OS issue solved. I will go with Vista and assume that the Fatal OS system failures I experienced on my two Dell M1330's were Dell's fault and not Vista related. (fingers crossed).
I will go with 160GB HD at 7200rpm over the 250 since I don't think I could ever use up 160GB anyway.
But now what about memory - 3GB or 4GB? I know 32-bit system won't recognize full 4GB but is it worth it?

 

My take on it would be "no".
The main reason you would want to go beyond 32bit windows is that you can put more memory in it, and the reason you want to do that is because you want to have lots of windows opened at the same time with memory consuming applications for photo & video editing editing large files(such as 7-8 layers or more of hi-res photo editing in 16bit mode), and some programming apps. However, because of the screen size limitation of the laptop, and the HD limitation(# of drives: 1HD, 2 at most & speed: yes 7200rpm is still little slow compare to 10,000 or 15,000rpm SCSI drive), you won't have so many windows opened at the same time anyway.

So from my experience, I don't have nearly as many applications opened & services running at the same time on my laptop as my desktop(triple monitor, 2x21" + 1x 28"), 3GB is more than enough for me for at least the next 2-3 years on a laptop.

 

Then I'm sure it will be fine for me. I demand quite little of my laptop, internet, office, minimal dreamweaver and photoshop.

 

So what's the consensus on RAM, I'm placing my order tomorrow and want to get it right. Crossing fingers for an LG panel too...

 

Placing my order today (Friday) - should I order 3GB or 4GB? Does a system run smoother/better when there are equal memory components on each side - like 2GB and 2GB or would I really not notice a difference w/ 3GB?

 

The Lenovo people are referring to the fact that in order for all the memory to run in dual-channel mode, you have to have two identically-sized modules. Dual-channel mode just gives you twice the memory bandwidth of single-channel mode. In practice, it doesn't seem to make much of a speed difference. Tom's Hardware did some tests ( http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/PARALLEL-PROCESSING,1705-11.html) and the difference appears to be negligible. That's why I would get one 2GB module and then upgrade to 4GB whenever it becomes cheap. I think that way you'll have enough RAM for now, and soon you'll have twice as much and it'll operate in dual-channel mode. If you want to just get everything now and not upgrade it later, and if you're going with a 32-bit OS, I'd get 3GB. Seems like a waste to spend money on a gig that your OS will be unable to see, and whatever performance difference there is should be negligible under normal circumstances.

 

Hey thanks for the advice - that describes me. I really don't want to upgrade anything later and am trying to buy a machine that will be somewhat future-proof and last for 3 solid years. I am getting a 32-bit OS.

So even though you mentioned that Lenovo's opinion is that two evenly matched modules run better, its still ok for me to go with 3?

 

Ok ordering:
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40GHz 1066MHz 3MBL2) 25W
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
14.1 WXGA+ TFT, w/ LED Backlight, Camera
ATI Mobility Radeon 3470 with 256MB
3 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory
160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim
Express Card Slot & 4-1 Media Card Reader
Intel WiFi Link 5100 (AGN)

Any changes?

 

yes, 2 suggestion:
1) upgrade 5100 -> 5300(I actually ordered 5100 and i think it's fantastic, but if i were to do it again, i would probably go with 5300)
2) get the t9400 if your budget allows. it's not very important but lenovo doesn't charge much for the upgrade and a slight speed increase & doubled L2 cache is worth it. if you're on a tight budget, don't worry about.

 

I was wondering about additional generated heat from the T9400 over the 25w P8600 chipset. I am trying to keep costs down and think the P8600 should be enough for my small demands but I really appreciate your advice on all of my questions in this thread.

 

I think it's fine the way you described. The P8600 is a pretty fast processor in its own right, and the T9400 is not a big enough jump to justify the extra $75 IMO. The 5100 vs. 5300 wireless is a toss up; if you are going to use mostly Wireless-G networks as opposed to N, you probably wouldn't see any improvement from the 5300 card. FWIW I have the 5100 in my T400, and it works perfectly well on my G network.

 

Yes, it's still ok. It's not that evenly-matched modules "run better", it's just that there will be a marginal performance increase from having evenly-matched modules. But if you can only see 3GB of the RAM, I don't think it's worth the price. It's not like your system will be unstable with unmatched modules.

 

Thanks everyone. I'm going to stick with the P8600, Vista Prem, 3GB RAM, 160GB at 7200rpm.

 

Just pulled the trigger!
FYI - 6 and 9-cell batteries are delaying ship time

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40GHz 1066MHz 3MBL2) 25W1
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
14.1 WXGA+ TFT, w/ LED Backlight, Camera
ATI Mobility Radeon 3470 with 256MB
3 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)8
160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm4
DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim (Serial ATA)5
Integrated Bluetooth PAN
Intel WiFi Link 5100 (AGN)
4 cell Li-Ion Battery60
3yr On-site warranty w/ accidental protection

Looking forward to getting it! Now only crossing my fingers for an LG panel

 

Just pulled the trigger myself, now anxiously waiting to see if I rolled the diced right and got the LG panel. Knock on wood...

By the way, nice specs on your t400 Susie520.

 

What's the big difference between a 32-bit and a 64-bit system? (Aside from the obvious "32 bits"). I ordered a 32 bit system w/ 3GB but have heard that the new Microsoft OS will only be 64 bit. Should I have ordered a laptop that would be able to support a 64-bit system?

I also ordered the 160GB at 7200rpm - do you guys think the 250GB at 5400 will perform as well? I'm doubt I'd need 250GB but if that HD and the 160GB HD would perform the same then I might as well go with the bigger one.

I've already ordered and am already second guessing my decisions!!

 

The difference in price if I change my order (or cancel and place a new one) to go from Vista Premium to Vista Business 64-bit and increase from 3GB to 4GB is $92. Why would I want to go to 64 instead of 32? I don't mind spending the extra but is it necessary?

 

Relax, these differences are all minor! But the 7200RPM drive is the better choice.

64bit operating systems are the future. But your computer will be able to run one, you'll just need to remove your 32bit OS and install a 64bit one. Technically, the 64 in "64bit" refers to the size of the integers and memory address sizes that the computer uses. For a user the only practical difference is that 64bit systems can use more RAM and cannot run programs compiled for 32bit systems (but most programs have 64bit versions out now).

I don't know the current state of 64bit Windows, which programs are compatible with 64bit Windows, which are not, and when 32bit Windows will be phased out. Hopefully someone else can comment on that. But I've been running 64bit Linux since April without any issues.

edit: It's not exactly true that you can't run 32bit apps on 64bit Windows. Vista 64 has some 32bit emulation mode, but I don't know how well it works.

 

question for suise

how do you know that 6 cell batteries are delaying shipment

 

Basically I use the internet, MS office, downloading music and movies, watchign DVD's, light photoshop and dreamweaver. I don't ask much of my laptop so I could probably do with a $500 off the shelf purchase ... however ... that being said, I still like my toys and want to make sure that the laptop I'm purchasing now is future proof. Should I go ahead and upgrade to 4GB RAM so that when the next Microsoft platform is released (and if its 64-bit) I'll be ready? I am not one for adding hardware myself and am purchasing a 3 year warranty so I want Lenovo to be on the hook for all of my components for those three years. Please advise. I just don't want to regret my purchase in a few months.

 

Lenovo told me that I would get my laptop faster if I avoided the 6 and 9 cell batteries.

 

Why would I want to go to 64 instead of 32? I don't mind spending the extra but is it necessary?

It is not necessary. It really depends on your use. If you think you will be using very memory intensive applications or running many programs simultaneously, than 4GB (requiring 64-bit OS) would be a good investment. So without knowing what you will be using your T400 for I'll assume that 3GB should be fine (I have 2GB 1 dim so far that has been sufficient for me.)