I am an teacher in an inner city middle school. We have lots of R51s and R52s in bad condition. Our tech guy is cannibalizing the really destroyed laptops to make useable ones for my classroom but even with all his work, these machines are very slow. Their primary purpose in my room is to access the internet and Google Docs. The tech says replacing the hard drives with solid state drives like the Transcend TS32gssd25-S2.5"sslc will speed things up. I am confused, I think he said we need PATA not SATA, but I'm not finding PATA with the above hard drive! Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm trying to get technology into my classroom for daily use!

Thank you,
English Teacher

Im positive the 51 takes a PATA. However I dont remeber clearly what the 52 takes....Im thinking SATA, but someone else will chime in shortly.

Ron

Here is the most consistant place I have found for PATA HDDs.
http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=414
There are other places.

Ron

R52 takes PATA drives as well.

By the time you're done upgrading those machines with SSDs you will have spent way too much money and still be stuck with next-to-obsolete equipment...

Upgrade the RAM, install the lightest version of XP imaginable and enjoy...

Thank you!

I dont think I would classify either of these machines as slow. Fairly zippy with a standard HDD, at least 1 gig of memory and XP. My wife successfully killed 2 of them and loved doing it. Copule of pointers:
At least 1 gig but 1.5 or 2 gig of memory.
Run a 5400 rpm or faster HDD
DO NOT use McAfee or Norton Anti-Virus, Avast or AVG, as well as several other free are fine.
Run Firefox for a browser.
Go through the hassle of installing all of the updates before trying to use it. The updates will slow everything down.

Give us some details and we will help where we can.
Ron

Hi everybody, I'm Silvestro from Florence Italy.

I agree with jronald.

R52 isn't slow, it just needs a little more space and speed.
And that's my problem.

My seven-year old R52 1864-64g -i.e. hdd 60GB, 15", Intel 1,73 GHz, wireless 2915abg, eth 10-100- has the exact configuration jronald recommends:
1.5 gig memory, Avast Av, Firefox (14.01), XP Sp3

but space is the issue: 60 gig HDD is too little and a little bit more speed is always welcome.

The machine is still in good condition -battery still performs max 1 hour- and everything is okay.

I just wonder: could I replace 60 gig HDD PATA with a SSD 120 gig?
As theboardroom suggests, the operation could be feasible but I don't think I'll send my MB overseas -too risky.

Do I just need a compact flash - ide adaptor or the operation is a little more complicated if not useless?

I thank you in advance for your replies.

Without SATA mod, the T43/R52 can take up to 320GB 2.5" PATA hard disks.
This 1.8" SATA to 2.5" IDE converter thread can also be applied to un-modded T43/R52.
Edit: Sorry, does NOT work in a T43/R52!

WITH a SATA mod, the limit (as of March 2013) is 1TB (that's one TeraByte).

We are in about the same boat here, with the R51/52 at the "end of life" in our school district as well, however, our tech department isn't nearly as accommodating, choosing to auction them off as "surplus" instead. Other than being a teacher, I was an IT guy in former life, and will have to say that I feel like a properly configured R52 can still be a very useable machine, especially in your circumstances.

There are a couple of things to remember though:
1) That type of older DDR RAM is getting expensive, but if he can scavenge bigger chips to get each machine over 1Gb it'll really make them run better. I've found that less than 1.5Gb doesn't run SP3 very well, so I try to keep those machines on SP2 with individualized patches on top.
2) These (along with the T43) are the machines that will throw the 2010 error on POST if the HDD isn't one that's on the whitelist. It's not really an issue, just an annoyance. He might also be able to find enough of the original drives in good shape to make you a classroom set, but you might also want to ask him to clone you some spares set in caddies ready to go as the inevitable occurs and they fail.

I'm in a school district that issues and uses ThinkPads with the students, so I'm fairly familiar with using them in the classroom. You are more than welcome to contact me directly with questions, or simple commiseration. I wish you good luck on this project!

I'm sure you have heard of TTAV134's modded BIOS, which finally eliminated that infamous "Error 2010" for unapproved hard drives.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=92115
It's not always easy to find the files for download.
Copy/paste the filename(s) from the above post, and search in Google for it.
With the new BIOS you can put in any PATA hard disk or PATA SSD.

G'day Folks,

An alternative **PATA** SSD .. is the Chinese Kingspec SSD ... It uses NAND flash & is built into a case 100 % compatible with PATA. ie: It is just like plugging in a mechanical PATA drive. So is a 'perfect' alternative. Website is: <www.kingspec.com>.

I bought one via <made-in-china.com> .. a 64GB .. for ~A$81 .. (so a tad more in US$).
(NB: You can pay with Paypal). And there are greater capacities - with suitably higher prices of course.
Mine came pre-formatted with a single NTFS partition.

HOWEVER ... be aware that SSD drives do have a "lifespan" .. tho' this is typically ~10 yrs.

*Please* pass on this info & solution to others.
PATA HD - either size - are hard to find here now as well.


An observation: (= my 2 bob's worth) ....

There must be zillions of very usable m/cs 'out there', still requiring a 2.5" PATA HD - so I think this is a very smart move by Kingspec ... ie: One that other SSD manufacturers would have been wise to follow!
It is not always possible (nor often wisest)... to change to a newer standard.

Barry

If anyone gets a PATA SSD to work in the R52 please post the info here.
I have been unsuccessful with the Transcend brand.
Only other brand I found was Kingspec.

Kingspec has a horrible reputation. Transcend isn't much better.
This website http://www.superbiiz.com/query.php?categry=683 and this one http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/solid- ... ndex2.html have plenty of IDE/PATA SSDs to choose from, both in 2.5 inch 44-pin and 1.8 inch ZIF form factor. I've personally used a Super Talent DuraDrive ZT2 1.8 inch SSD in my X41 tablet, and had no problems whatsoever.
Alternatively, try the small SATA SSD + adapter approach discussed here viewtopic.php?f=2&t=99771 .

The R52 can be SATA-modded, after which you can stick in any SATA SSD or HD you like!

I am aware of the SATA mod but the laptop isn't mine to mod, it's work related and I don't mind one day having to swap an original HDD back in should I need to return the laptop.

If anyone got this to work specifically on the R52 is of interest to me... not a 4x series or other because the drive works in a T42 - it's a problem specific to the R52.

I am just not sure if it's a compatibility issue or design flaw that no PATA SSD will work in the R52, so far I haven't seen anyone report success. The reason I want to try Kingspec is because it's a different brand than what I have now, but I just don't want to waste money on experiments of what in the end simply won't work no matter how I try it.

You'll run into MAJOR roadblocks with a PATA SSD on R52, due to the SATA-to-PATA converter chip it will run like a three-legged-dog at best...

And Kingspec has not the best of reputation either...
Your second-best bet is a PATA WD Scorpio Black drive (SATA-mod is #1).

Vintage R51/R52's, used in a school environment, have to be pretty close to end of life in any case. There isn't much value to be had in spending big money on these machines, and DDR1 and faster 2.5" IDE drives arent' cheap, reliable because of age or easy to find. The big bottlenecks are likely to be too little RAM and too slow hard disks. (AFAIK most of the OEM drives were 4200rpm.)

The simplest and cheapest solution where the primary purpose "is to access the internet and Google Docs" is to junk XP and replace it with Chrome OS or a light Linux distribution. I suppose it would give the school district the heebie jeebies though.

Please inform yourself better before putting in such an answer!
R52 use the plentiful and cheaper DDR2 RAM, the standard drives ex factory were all at least 5400rpm.
They take 2GB RAM and can even run W7 easily!
Use a modern, fast 160GB 5400rpm HD like the Samsung HM160HC (as fast as older 7200rpm drives).
And with a SATA mod and SSD they would still run circles around a lot of today's laptops!

You're right about the DDR2 in the R52. I should have checked before writing.

On the other hand, you're wrong about the hard drives. Looking at the tabook, I count 141 models of R52, 53 of which are 4200rpm. Of the 47 models marked "educational" as per the OP, 24 are 4200rpm.

I'm also sure one can run Windows 7 on a Pentium M. If one wants to tweak two dozen settings to reduce resource usage. And then still go mad.

Myy earlier advice stands. Instead of spending a nickel finding DDR2 (DDR for the R51) and upgrading a hard drive for 7-8 year old machines which have likely been ill treated for years by children and whose primary purpose today "is to access the internet and Google Docs", replace XP with something lighter, newer and less virus prone. Much more bang for much less buck.

Spending $20, or probably close to $100 for a new hard drive (or SSD!!!), on ancient hardware where something else is almost certainly going to fail soon (prime candidate: CCFL backlight) making it a complete writeoff, is at best ill advised.

All IMHO of course.

P.S. I am no early adopter. I usually tell people that old and cheap is probaly good enough when it comes to computers. My family uses multiple 5+ year old T60's and T42's, all bought used. I have a Pentium 4 DDR1 IDE tower in the basement being a file server. As long as it runs, it can hum along. When it goes bad and there's no available spare part in the junk drawer to make it hum again, I won't spend $100 or even $20 to fix it. When craigslist is jammed with much newer and faster stuff for $50 and up, it's nuts to pay for rubber bands and chewing gum to fix Old Faithful.

I wish that people would stop referring to tabooks like they're Bible, Q'ran or Torah. Not all models of any generation are listed there, not by a long shot. All mid-range models had 5400rpm drives, and the best ones shipped with 7200rpm units.



I also wish people would stop talking about stuff they haven't properly explored.

I'm typing this on a SATA-modded T43p which still gets a WEI of 3.8 in Windows 7 due not to its Pentium M CPU, but to its GPU. Oh yes...scores better overall than a T61 with Intel graphics...hmmm.

Two dozen tweaks? Nowhere near that. And I'm loving W7 on it.

I would just like confirmation that the Kingspec works in the R52, so far BarryDay seems to possibly be the only one whom tried based on his post