T43 max upgrade hard drive, disk drives and ram

[haia]

Hi,
I have a t43 1875-e1u with 80gb, 2gb ram, cdrw/dvd, XP. I was wondering up to how far can I upgrade the hard drive, drives, ram and maybe OS as well? and are these harddrives SATA drives? and do I need to update the bios when upgrading the hard drive?

Thanks much for the help.

[underclocker]

Welcome to the forum!

Max upgrades are 2.26 Pentium 780 CPU, 2GB RAM, Western Digital 320GB 5400 rpm PATA hard drive (but will show a 2010 error with every boot, see sticky in T4x forum for much more info), and DVD burner. You can run any OS you like.

Enjoy the upgrades, but be careful, one or two of them plus the value of your machine might exceed the cost of a used T60. T60's are just much faster all around performers.

The good thing is that you have a model with the Intel GPU, which is reliable, as compared to the ATI models. (Keeping the BIOS upgraded is a good idea prior to performing upgrades.)

[ZaZ]

The T43 uses PATA drives. Lenovo employed a SATA to PATA bridge in order to use PATA drives. Because of this any drive not on the whitelist with the correct firmware will cause the 2010 error. The error doesn't cause any harm, but is annoying. The bottom line is you can use any drive you want if you can live with the error. I think there's an option in the BIOS to continue, so it won't beep and only causes a small delay.

The largest PATA drive right now is the WD 320GB. If you want to go 7200RPM, I believe either the Hitachi 7k100 or Seagate 7200.1 will work without the error, but are limited to a 100GB capacity. Because they've not been made for a while, the command a bit of a premium. If you don't want to the error I think the 120GB Fujitsu is the largest drive that works without it, though I could be wrong. Good Luck.

[Tasurinchi]

The previous posters did an excellent summary what you can do so there is not much I can add. You will probably find lots of threads complaining about the 2010 error, but in my experience is not that annoying, it take 3 more seconds to boot and you can mute the speaker to avoid the noisy sound.

Considering you can put a fast and (storage-wise) big 320GB drive in your T43p the pros overrules the con of the silly sound...

My 0,02 cents

[lifrancis]

Considering a large capacity PATA hard drive at the moment may not be a good idea. PATA drives are near the end of their usefulness, and are more expensive than SATA drives of the same capacity. So, why not keep your present hard drive for the OS and put a large capacity SATA drive in the ultrabay for storage (with a cheap 3rd party SATA ultrabay tray)? When you finally get rid of your T43, the SATA drive will still be useful for any next generation laptop.

[haia]

Thanks much for all your inputs.. The biggest issue right now for my laptop for me is the HDD space. I might end up buying an ultrabay tray as what lifrancis is suggesting. Are there anything i need to consider in purchasing an SATA ultrabay tray for my t43? and what SATA HDD can i used in it?

I am also thinking of purchasing a laptop to replace my t43 that will be my all around laptop that i can play some games or use photoshops. IF im going to get a new laptop, Im currently torn between t4xx, x2xx or x3xx.. But since im also considering the size, i might be leaning more on the X series one. But if used, maybe a t6x/t6xp, X6x?? Any suggestions guys?

Thanks again in advance!

[ZaZ]

You can use any SATA drive you want. I don't know that any of the smaller Thinkpads are going to be great for gaming, though I suppose it'll depend on which games you wish to play. The T60p machine would probably do OK, but the V52x0 cards in them are known to run hot. All the discrete cards in the T61/R61 have higher failure rates. I don't know if they'd be a great choice either. Probably the best choice of the more recent Thinkpads would be the T500 with the 3650 GPU. The 3650 is slightly better than what's being offered on the T510 and you can get it with WSXGA+ if that floats your boat.

[haia]

Thats good to know, I'll strike out the T6x then, as I dont like hot machines. For gpu power, I would like to have something better than my current t43. T500 are too big for me, might consider t400s or the x200s/x300s instead. I'll prioritize the power , portability then gpu, as I want it to last atleast 5years Any suggestions on the new or old X series that can deliver me these requirements? Thanks much..

[haia]

Sorry for the million questions.. for the sata drive, would this generate more heat if i used 7200 vs 5400 hdd? Any specific hdd brand you could suggest? thanks again..

[RealBlackStuff]

5400rpm HDs are just as efficient nowadays as 7200rpm and create less heat.
The current crop of 2.5" SATA drives is enormous.
Good choices are HDs from Hitachi, Fujitsu and WD Scorpio Blue (not Scorpio Black, they suffer from vibrations).
Seagate HDs seem to less favored.
Please note that the max. throughput of the T6x/R6x/X6x Thinkpads is only at SATA 1.5 GBit/s, but any SATA 3.0 HD will work fine.
This also applies to SATA adapters in these (and older) models.

[haia]

Thanks for the feedback. I am reading the SATA hdd adapters here in the forum, and i am seeing that my t43 might need a sata-pata bridge before i can use the sata hdd adapter? or something like severing a part of t43? which i had attached below.. and im so confused right now.

if its not much trouble, can someone please point me directly to which sata hdd adapter to purchase to use any sata drives? As I am currently lost with all of these infos..

thanks..

*******************
Just found some info:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=53734
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=41927

Someone did put a SATA HDD in the Ultrabay of a T43!! However you'll have to sever something first. It'd be difficult without instructions..

Nice to know USB HDDs don't have any limit. For the Dock II, I guess it's negative since there doesn't seem to be any official SATA HDD adapter for Ultrabay 2000

[Harryc]

I've never seen a picture of the procedure to snap off the piece on the adapter, but it is described here.
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Ultr ... DD_Adapter

You need an Ultrabay Slim SATA HDD Adapter . The FRU# is 26R9246 . The adapter itself contains the PATA to SATA bridge chip, so the T43 needs nothing.
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Ultrabay_ ... DD_Adapter
http://cgi.ebay.com/ThinkPad-Serial-ATA ... 20b19bbfb8

[lifrancis]

Thats good to know, I'll strike out the T6x then, as I dont like hot machines. For gpu power, I would like to have something better than my current t43. T500 are too big for me, might consider t400s or the x200s/x300s instead. I'll prioritize the power , portability then gpu, as I want it to last atleast 5years Any suggestions on the new or old X series that can deliver me these requirements? Thanks much..

Most of the new generation of laptops are now being sold with Win 7, it should be quite easy to get the information needed for a proper comparison. All you have to do is to take note of each laptop's performance index as listed by Win 7. As for the 5 years expected life, who can foretell the future? When the T4X series first came out, IBM did not tell everyone that the laptops will suffer GPU and Southbridge problems. We only found that out a few years down the road (usually after the warranty expired). The manufacturers may have learned not to make the same mistake, but Murphy's Laws say they will find and create new ones. I look at laptops as tools for my work. My work involves mainly communication, report writing, CAD, and some 2D and 3D finite element analysis. Almost any laptops (NOT netbooks) should have enough horsepower to handle all that and still keep me entertain with the occasional DVD movie. So, if I were in the market for a laptop now, my major concerns will be:
1. Screen (for my weak eyes),
2. Thinkpad (for its keyboard),
3. Price (for my limited budget).

[tabpclover]

Almost any laptops (NOT netbooks) should have enough horsepower to handle all that and still keep me entertain with the occasional DVD movie. So, if I were in the market for a laptop now, my major concerns will be:
1. Screen (for my weak eyes),
2. Thinkpad (for its keyboard),
3. Price (for my limited budget).

well said