New T61p: Some House-Keeping Questions

Hi everyone. I finally plunked down the money for the new laptop and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my T61p. I have some questions about setting it up...

1. Do I have to do anything with the hard drive like burning backup discs or did Lenovo already include those?
2. My last laptop's hard drive came formatted as Fat32 and I had to take the time to format it to NTFS. Does the T61p already come as NTFS?
3. On battery life extension, what are the necessary settings for the battery program to just charge up to 40%? I heard that it is a bit quirky and settings can only be changed when the battery isn't pluged in or soemthing- is this true?
4. Does the T61p support dual channel RAM? Crucial's Memory Advisor says the t61p doesn't support dual channel memory. Can anyone confirm or debunk this? I'd probably just grab a 2GB stick to go with the installed 1GB.
5. Anyone know what brand of RAM Lenovo likes to use or is it a parts-roulette?
6. I was half asleep when I did my order and accidentally took the smart card slot instead of expresscard. Is it some adapter that just slides out or am I screwed?
7. Lenovo was out of the Bluetooth adapters. Will the sell them seperately to just plug into the internal antennas, or will I have to make due with a USB adapter for Bluetooth?

Thanks for your time.

 

I'll answer what I can.

1. You will have to burn your own recovery discs. This is a quick procedure.

2. It will come as NTFS.

3. The Power Manager software is a bit tricky to use. Here's a quick breakdown,

4. Yes, it will support dual channel RAM.

5. Basically a roulette where it countes (LCD and Keyboard).

6. According to the Hardware Maintenance Manual, you'd have to completely disassemble your computer (down to the motherboard) in order to replace the smartcard reader. It's also not User-replaceable according to the parts look-up. I recommend you call them back and report the desired change.

7. Not sure.

Hope that helps.

 

Thank you so much for the info and advice on . I DID catch them before they finished it, but they had to canceled the order. The helpful represetative redid the order with the express card. Really, it's setting me back 4 days. By the time it's done the new models are out, but this is a big puchase that should be done right. Thank you.

Also, the representative told me they are "all out" of bluetooth models for the T61's. She said just go an external one as she didnt know even if I could buy th internal card later for it.

 

yea they arent getting the internal chips until the 11th or later or august as per my discussion with them yesterday...really annoying.