T23, 2361 dock, video and Ultrabay HDD questions

[vpuleo]

Hi,

I'm working on upgrading my T23 too and just ordered the 2361 dock off ebay (for $6.25 + shipping!). I recently put in an additional 512 of RAM which improved performance, but I want to max out on the video card and hard drive options using the dock. Please pardon me if these seem obvious, but I haven't done much upgrading lately!

Some questions for anyone willing to answer:

1. What video card would get me the best performance using the dock and external monitor? I saw the compatibility list on the ThinkWiki, but those all seem kind of dated/wimpy. Can I assume if a video card will fit in the PCI slot profile that it will work with the T23? I've never been able to use this machine for games/heavy graphics editing and think the bigger card I get will help with these things. Is that true, or would one of the older cards with less memory work just as well? I've been looking on newegg and wonder if this card would be OK(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814139046).

2. I think I'm going to get the Ultrabay 2000 HDD adapter. Is there a limitation on the size hard drive I can use with that or will any hard drive that will physically fit be compatible? Like this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136414).

Thanks,
Vin

[RealBlackStuff]

As to 1), that video card gets slammed for overheating in dock-use, if you read further down the reviews.
I would pick this Matrox card: http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/produ ... pluslppci/

As to 2), if you really need the space, get an Ultrabay 2000 SATA-adapter, which allows up to 500GB (and probably over now).
PATA hard disks are limited to max. 320GB.

[vpuleo]

Thanks for the response... any second choice recommendations on the video card? I found a refurb on the Maxtor for around $140, but if there were something good out there for less than $100 that would be better for my "upgrade budget".

Also, do you know for sure the Ultrabay 2000 SATA-adapter (this one right? http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Ultrabay_ ... DD_Adapter) is compatible with the t23? Just want to be sure. 320 GB is enough space for now, so if there is any question on compatibility I can go with the PATA adapter.

Thanks again.

[RealBlackStuff]

No, that particular SATA adapter will not work in a T2x/T30/T4x/R5x.
You need Ultrabay 2000, not Ultrabay Slim or whatever other variant.
This one works, but is expensive: http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-Thinkpad-2nd-Ha ... 0015284949

[vpuleo]

Thank you RBS for your response!

I finally decided on a video card to put into the 2631 dock for use with my T23. It is a low profile PCI nVIDIA GeForce 6200 card. I was under the impression it would be compatible with the dock/laptop (see http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=30979), but I'm having trouble getting it to output to my external LCD monitor. Basically it looks like there is no signal getting to the monitor (I'm using the VGA connector off the card, not DVI if that makes a difference) as it goes into sleep mode.

I've played around in the BIOS (v1.18), changing the display setting from AGP to PCI. The PCI addresses were all set to IRQ 11, and at one point I put them all to auto, but seeing no change I put them back to IRQ 11.

I have disabled all the drivers in Windows XP, and installed the new drivers. The dock was working with the built in VGA video, but now that is not working either. I'm guessing either my dock is busted, or the nVIDIA GeForce 6200 chipset isn't compatible with the T23.

Has anyone had a similar experience getting a PCI graphics card to function in the 2631 dock? Any suggestions would be very helpful. Thanks!

Vin