T30 Upgrade help for a newbie!

[routeski]

Hi guys

I got myself a t30 recently and was interested in various upgrades that I've been reading about on this forum. Mainly, I want to improve performance, and perhaps modernising it somewhat.

As I can gather, my machine is a T30 1.7ghz with 512mb, though whether thats 2x256 or 1x512 i dont know.

RAM[/b]
I want to be able to get this machine up to the best I can. Apparantly you can get 2x1024mb ram chips to get me 2gb of RAM. However on the crucial website they only sell 512mb chips.

Hard Drive
Apparantly the higher RPM can improve the T30 a lot. Is there a maximum size/rpm i can use? Particular brands? I've seen an Hitachi 100gb 5400rpm drive.

USB2
Sadly, the T30 does not have USB 2.0. Is there a way of doing this? I assume a PCMCIA card is the only option. My friend has an old sony laptop and bought a belkin card that fit in perfectly without sticking out. Does anyone know of a good card to use? Or other options?

DVD Rewriter
I have seen these on ebay. I assume I can just buy one and slot it in so there shouldn't be a problem with that right?

Battery
My battery life is appalling. Maybe 20mins tops at fully charged. I've seen batteries from China on ebay for around $40. Is this a good idea? Sounds too cheap I thought. Maybe a fake or faulty?

I really appriciate your help and I'm sorry if I sound stupid! I'm just new to all this laptop business!

Thanks all

[jdhurst]

<snip>
Hard Drive
Apparantly the higher RPM can improve the T30 a lot. Is there a maximum size/rpm i can use? Particular brands? I've seen an Hitachi 100gb 5400rpm drive.

USB2
Sadly, the T30 does not have USB 2.0. Is there a way of doing this? I assume a PCMCIA card is the only option.<snip>

DVD Rewriter
I have seen these on ebay. I assume I can just buy one and slot it in so there shouldn't be a problem with that right?

Battery
My battery life is appalling. Maybe 20mins tops at fully charged. <snip>

Hard drive: The Hitachi 60G 7200 rpm drive works a treat in that machine. Had one and did that.

Rewriter: Hard to get now (as least from my vendor) but the IBM DVD / CD Writer just slips right in. Install the software and you are good to go.

Battery: Older machine - buy a new IBM battery is the best advice I could give.
... JD Hurst

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

RAM
I want to be able to get this machine up to the best I can. Apparantly you can get 2x1024mb ram chips to get me 2gb of RAM. However on the crucial website they only sell 512mb chips.

There is a recent thread about this:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=34718

I believe that in this case, 1.5GB was the maximum that uberT got working.

Hard Drive
Apparantly the higher RPM can improve the T30 a lot. Is there a maximum size/rpm i can use? Particular brands? I've seen an Hitachi 100gb 5400rpm drive.

Any 2.5" PATA (parallel ATA) notebook drive can be used. I don't think that the T30 has any restrictions (like some newer systems do).

USB2
Sadly, the T30 does not have USB 2.0. Is there a way of doing this? I assume a PCMCIA card is the only option. My friend has an old sony laptop and bought a belkin card that fit in perfectly without sticking out. Does anyone know of a good card to use? Or other options?

Like you say, the PCMCIA solution is it. Most cards nowdays have the USB ports sticking outside the card bay. There are some that have "dongles" but can be hard to find.

DVD Rewriter
I have seen these on ebay. I assume I can just buy one and slot it in so there shouldn't be a problem with that right?

Mostly yes. However you have to watch out for a couple of things. If you stick with drives specifically intended for the Ultrabay 2000/Plus then no worries. If you are like me (cheap) and want to put non-IBM drives into the T30, then you will probably need to do some alterations. The front bezel of the optical drive will need to be replaced or trimmed to fit the Ultrabay 2000's "notch" on the right side. You also need to transfer the two side rails and rear connector off of an Ultrabay 2000 drive. If you already have a CDROM or DVD, then you can use those pieces. I have installed UJ-820 and UJ-840 drives into T23s and they work fine. Another poster here also found that there's another type of connector on the back side of the optical drive that's different than what I've seen. If I can dig up that post, I'll add it here.

Battery
My battery life is appalling. Maybe 20mins tops at fully charged. I've seen batteries from China on ebay for around $40.

I, and others here, have used batteryrefill.com to obtain geniune IBM batteries that have been re-celled. I don't know if they ship internationally or not. If you like eBay, search for the seller "xreplay" as they tend to carry good batteries and appear to ship overseas.

[ronbo613]

I asked many of these questions about my T30 just a short time ago. Ray has covered most of it, but here's my two cents;
RAM - I had the RAM slot issue, luckily I got it fixed. I had 256MB, I bought another 512MB from a forum member for 768MB, which runs XP Pro fine. I think with the P4 2.0M, 1G would be just about right. If you can do 2 X 512MB, that would be good.
Hard Drive - A 7200rpm drive is the best call. I like Seagates, but this 80G 7200rpm Travelstar has been the perfect blend of cost and performance.
USB 2.0 - DVD-RW - I got a $20 PCMCIA USB 2.0 card that I use with external hard drives. If I needed it, I would buy a DVD-RW and put it in an external enclosure, but the 2G Compact Flash cards I have for my camera work for data transfer to and from the T30. They make 8G cards now and bashing them around won't hurt them as much as it would an optical drive(no moving parts).
Battery - Mine lasts about 40 minutes, I reckon it's about half dead. I'd like to have at least two of them, batteryrefill.com sounds good. I'm not an expert, but these T30s seem to suck the juice.

[routeski]

Thanks guys

I bought a Belkin USB 2.0 card and a 100gb Toshiba 5200rpm 16mb cache drive.

My friend told me that 5200rpm was the highest speed laptop hard drives could do but it turns out he was wrong. Oh well, it should be fine for me. Storage over speed for me at the moment.

[danage]

5400 rpm is what you want to get for an optimum between speed, noise, reliability and price.

[schen]

Thanks guys

I bought a Belkin USB 2.0 card and a 100gb Toshiba 5200rpm 16mb cache drive.

My friend told me that 5200rpm was the highest speed laptop hard drives could do but it turns out he was wrong. Oh well, it should be fine for me. Storage over speed for me at the moment.

I don't have any recent Toshiba drives myself, but my brother has has a lot of bad experiences with them over the last year or so. He has found that the newer ones have a tendency to fail after a few months, so I'd keep it backed up regularly.

I've had very good luck with IBM/Hitachis (they usually go the normal 3 plus years).

[furiousmonkey]

RAM - I had the RAM slot issue, luckily I got it fixed.

You had the slot fixed? is this the same problem with the T30 one ram slot not working? or are you refering to another issue?

I would like to know how to fix the single slot issue with the T30.

[ronbo613]

RAM - I had the RAM slot issue, luckily I got it fixed.

You had the slot fixed? is this the same problem with the T30 one ram slot not working? or are you refering to another issue?

I would like to know how to fix the single slot issue with the T30.

I got my T30 from my sister, read about the RAM slot problem here. The slot was bad, luckily the computer had two weeks of warranty left, so back it went(twice) for a new system board.
I was happy, the repair people weren't that stoked.

[Temetka]

Something tells me the underpaid tech doesn't really care about your warranty status. Just how many machines he has to get out the door to keep his boss happy.

[ronbo613]

I think they might have been a little low on spare parts.

[routeski]

So I've replaced the hard drive...Couldn't quite work out how to remove the old drive. Its stuck into the IDE connection good and proper and I had to use a knife to get it out! (doubt that was very good)

I think i'm missing a screw or some kind of caddy that holds the hdd to the outside of the case.



Oh and I found this battery http://tinyurl.com/2gpcr6 on ebay. Worth a go? For that price it doesnt really matter if it breaks so much!

[RealBlackStuff]

You can get a much better price from this fella. I just bought a T30 battery off him (to Ireland).
His name is campus111
His price: 66.00 AUD = 26.6788 GBP
Currently on eBay http://tinyurl.com/26t649

It says 4400mah, but it's even better, it's 4700mah.
Very pleased with it.

[routeski]

Yeah I've seen him before. But I'm a bit dubious about buying electrical things from China. I mean are they safe? Are they real? Do they even last?

Its not me being racist of course! It just seems SO much cheaper than batteries elsewhere that alarm bells start ringing.

[richp]

If it's too good to be true it probably is, but, if this guy has good positive feedback I'd probably try it. Besides I need to have my suspicious sub conscious side reinforced from time to time. I never buy off ebay if it has more then two parts on it but I just bought a DVD burner for my T30 and the darn thing works. Next thing you know I'll be believing not everyones a con artist out to rip you off.

[JHEM]

I believe that in this case, 1.5GB was the maximum that uberT got working.

I've had 2GB (2 X 1GB PC2100) RAM in my T30 for dog's years Ray. Same for both my A31Ps.

For the OP, if you want to make your T30 all it can be you can upgrade the CPU to a 2.6GHz.

James

[rkawakami]

I've had 2GB (2 X 1GB PC2100) RAM in my T30 for dog's years Ray.

Yes, I know. I probably should have mentioned here that uberT settled for 1.5GB after all that he went through to get there.

[RealBlackStuff]

Oh and I found this battery http://tinyurl.com/2gpcr6 on ebay. Worth a go? For that price it doesnt really matter if it breaks so much!

So what's the problem with the battery from campus111?
You want to spend £10.- more for the same battery from a local supplier?

But I'm a bit dubious about buying electrical things from China.

Where do you think justdeals-uk's battery comes from? Look at the pictures, they are identical!

If it helps, the manufacturer is BND Ltd. in China.
I've bought 3 more batteries from the same guy, 2 for the T23 and 1 for a TP A22M. That was about 8 months ago, not a single problem.
It's your call!

[routeski]

Yeah I think i'll bite the bullet and buy a couple of batteries. The main reasoning is I have a couple of flights coming up-one to NYC and one to Australia and BA do not provide power points in their ecomony seats! In case I don't get the ungrade that I so crave, I would like batteries to help me through the trip. I don't like flying much and it'll be great to play games along the way to take my mind off it.

Slightly off topic, but has anyone ever been on a long flight where they don't have power points? Are the staff often happy to let you plug the laptop into business class and leave it for a bit? Is it possible to charge a laptop battery without it actually being inside the laptop?

Lastly, I bough the Belkin USB 2.0 card but it doesnt work very well at all. My iPod plugs in fine, but most other USB hdds don't. My IT friend (ironically the one who said 5400rpm is the fastest drive you can get) says that chipsets on USB1 motherboards won't always allow all USB 2 products to function. Is he right?

[tomh009]

I wouldn't count on being able to plug your laptop into a business class outlet if you are sitting on economy, unless you make exceptionally good friends with the cabin staff. However, check SeatGuru to see what power will be available on your flight.

There is no fundamental reason why a USB 2.0 card wouldn't give you full speed on a T30. If you look at it using the Windows XP device manager, is it shown as a 2.0 device?

[routeski]

The card is recognised by the laptop and a number of devices work. However when I plug in an external hard drive then it doesnt even make the "da daa" noise!

[tomh009]

It could be that the card doesn't supply enough power to your hard disk. Have you tried a drive with an external power supply?

[RealBlackStuff]

Don't know which chipset that Belkin card uses (probably a VIA), but in general it's the USB-cards with the NEC chipsets that perform best, even no-name cards.
To run an external HD you may need to use 2 USB ports to get enough power (using a Y-splitter).
Try a card from someone else if you can.

[jimmy274]

I have a USB 2.0 card with NEC chipset and an LC power (cheap) rack with a 40gb 4200rpm travelstar in (T23's original). The cable for the rack has 2 USB connectors - one main (for data&power), and the aux just for power. The thing is - I can plug both the connectors in the USB 2.0 card and the rack is not responding. However - if I plug the main in the USB 2.0 card, and aux in the back of my T23 (the ol' USB 1.1), everything works. Seems that the ports on T23 give more power than the PCMCIA card (which BTW is declared for 500mA on each port ) . Lies, lies, lies...

[uberT]

I've had 2GB (2 X 1GB PC2100) RAM in my T30 for dog's years Ray.

Yes, I know. I probably should have mentioned here that uberT settled for 1.5GB after all that he went through to get there.

This upgrade (from 512MB) to 1.5GB has worked well for me. Photoshop and some of my other larger apps run like never before