New T40 owner, new upgrade race!!

enry183 · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:44 am

Hi i'm an Italian student, just now an happy owner of a fantastic T40 2373!!! his tecnical spec. are an 1.3 Pentium M Banias, a very slow 4200 rpm hard disk, and only 256 Mb of ram...

as everybody can imagine it absolutely need an upgrade... however also with these detailed lists it works truly well.

my upgrade maratona start from the RAM memory, 1G is absolutely necessary but which I must buy?

sodim pc2100 or i can buy also a pc2700 (that can be easy put in a future T43....)?

thanks!!

enry!

xyz · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2007 3:57 am

You can use the pc 2700, you can use upto the t42, the t43 uses dd2 533MHz so you won;t be able to use the memory in this.

Also upgrading to a 7200 rpm hdd will also give you a signifcant increase in speed.

FTC · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2007 4:08 am

I would start by adding memory (a 512MB additional sodimm... PC2700 will work and is better looking to the future) AND a fast (7200, 7K100 or similar) hard disk.

This will keep you running for a while. Afterwards, upgrading to a Dothan 1.8Ghz or 2.0Ghz will be a good option too.

enry183 · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2007 9:57 am

the hdd from 7200 rpm very reduce the life of the battery?

pianowizard · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2007 10:00 am

enry183 wrote:

the hdd from 7200 rpm very reduce the life of the battery?

Compared with a 5400rpm drive, the difference is several minutes at most.

underclocker · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2007 10:37 am

Welcome to forum and congrats on a machine that many of us love.

Depending upon budget, I'd do the following;

1) upgrade CPU to 1.5 or 1.6 Pentium M - they sell for as little as $10.00 now!

2) upgrade the RAM to either 512MB (by adding a second 256MB sodimm), only about $10, or upgrade to 1.25GB (by adding a 1GB PC2700 sodimm), about $75.

3) upgrade the hard disk to a 5400rpm model (a 40GB 5400rpm model recently sold for $20 on this forum), or upgrade the hard disk to a 7200rpm model, in the U.S., from $75 and up for a new drive.

Later, you could upgrade to an even faster CPU, but for now 2.0GHz CPU's are about $150.

Good luck.

Johan · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:28 pm

Hi, enry and congratulations on your new ThinkPad!

With respect to your upgrades, I suggest you check these threads, as thay may all contain useful information – and potentially also some good deals!

FS: Parting out T40 (GET that 1.8 GHz Dothan NOW!),

WTB: 2.1GHz Dothan (SL7V3) For a ThinkPad T40 Upgrade

FS: Pentium M 755 2.0GHz Dothan - 400MHz FSB, 2MB L2

WTB: Dothan CPU for T41 + Long Fan

Hardware removal and installation - ThinkPad T40/p, T41/p, T42/p, 43/p

T42 Upgrade Possibilities (NB: Although this thread is specific for T42’s much will also apply for T40’s).

Be sure to keep an eye at the Marketplace of this forum - many good offers pop up there!!

Very soon you’re going to need the official IBM T40 User's guides and manuals and in particular the Hardware Maintenance Manual - ThinkPad T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p .

Good luck with the upgrades - personally I would start with a Seagate Momentus 7200.1 100 GB (7200 rpm) PATA HDD, and some more RAM - and of course getting the very cheap 1.8 GHz Dothan mentioned above! :-)

Best regards,

Johan

enry183 · **Posted:** Tue Sep 04, 2007 1:44 am

Thank you johan!!!

can you say if every CPU Dothan with 400 Mhz BUS is compatible with mt T40?

and the hard drive is an idee or a sata?

thanks

Johan · **Posted:** Tue Sep 04, 2007 2:37 am

enry,

I am not a specialist in CPU's for T40's, as there are some advanced details with respect to the particular type (its stepping!), as evident from the thread WTB : Pentium M 1.8/2.0/2.1 GHz, fsb400 or Upgrade to Dothan on T40p or Will T40 work with this Dothan processer? .

About the HDD, it has to be PATA (sometimes designated ATA or IDE). A SATA drive will not work in a T40. I trust that you will find more useful information in these threads:

I need info about T40 upgrade

upgrading hard drive on t40

Do IDE HDD fit in IBM T40?

T40 HDD Upgrade Fails - New HD not recognized

Quik Questions about T40/41 series

Upgrading HDD for T41

T41 HD cloning w/Acronis: no luck, PITA

Can't get 100GB hard drove recognized on T41p

General specifications for T40's you'll find in the tawbook - entitled: "Personal Systems Reference, IBM ThinkPad Notebooks A, T, X, and G Series, 2000 to 2005 - withdrawn (May 2005 - Version 291), get it here - it includes (redrawn) ThinkPad's up to T41, but no T41p's, no T42/p's and no T43/p's.

Hope the above is of some help - although you will have to do some reading on your own!

PS: Try the "Search"-function here in the forum; it is highly useful! :-)

Best regards,

Johan

rhema83 · **Posted:** Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:51 pm

There is another thread that has a very similar discussion going on. Let's all go there to consolidate our ideas.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=46242

enry183 · **Posted:** Wed Sep 05, 2007 3:15 am

http://cgi.ebay.it/512MB-Samsung-DDR333-PC2700-SODIMM-512-MB-M-DDR-PC-2700_W0QQitemZ270161660339QQihZ017QQcategoryZ80201QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQc

Is this ram good? will work over my T40?

all the two ram banck are modificable?

rhema83 · **Posted:** Wed Sep 05, 2007 11:34 am

Any 200-pin CL2.5 non-ECC SODIMM should work. However, I strongly recommend that you buy a 1GB piece of RAM. They are inexpensive and much better from an upgrading standpoint.

New T40 owner, new upgrade race!!

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