New to me T23 upgrades

[esciii]

My neighbor gave me his old T23 when he bought a new one recently. He said it didn't work and he was kinda right. It would hang and give the blue screen when trying to boot up. I formatted the hd and did a clean install of winXP and it now it works fine except it is really slow. It currently has 256mb of ram, a 4200rpm hd, and the 1Ghz cpu. The ram is easy, 2x512mb to give me 1gb should help a lot. The hd isn't tough to figure out either, 7200rpm was the fastest ide hd made and 100gb was the largest capacity of those. I only use about 80gb on my desktop internal hd so 100gb should be fine for me. Would it be worth it to also upgrade the cpu to the 1.2Ghz version? Also regarding the battery upgrade I assume that as long as it is 5200mah the t30 version isn't any better than the t23 version, is it? 5200mah was the largest capacity I could find for either the t23 or t30. Which version of windows should I install? It originally came with win2K but I have access to pretty much every version of windows made. I did see a youtube video of a t23 running windows 7 with only 512mb ram and it seemed to be ok. Is the only physical difference between the wifi and standard model the lid? Mine does not have wifi and I am having to use a card which isn't bad but it is kinda annoying having somthing stick out about 4 inches off the side of the laptop. Whew, I guess that is all the questions I have for now. Thanks in advance for all your help.

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

You are on the right path to getting the most out of a T23 by upgrading the memory to 1GB and installing a faster hard drive. I have not seen that much difference between the 1.0Ghz and 1.2Ghz CPUs, although I mostly use 1.13Ghz and 1.2Ghz systems. The T30 battery has the largest charge capacity offered by the factory but you may find aftermarket packs that are "rated" higher. Don't know how much longer those batteries will last as I almost use the T23s on AC exclusively. I generally get close to two hours of life when using the system full-time on the high-performance setting with the regular T23 battery (4.0Ah).

I am running Windows XP SP3 in my systems and as long as it is given 1GB, then it runs pretty well. I have not yet tried loading Windows 7 on the T23. You are correct about the wireless systems having a different lid assembly. It's easy enough to swap in a lid that has the antennas built in. When upgrading to wireless if you still want to have built in modem capability, then you will need to install the factory ActionTec modem/wireless combo card (replacing your modem-only MiniPCI card). Otherwise, I believe that you can add in most any type of wireless card. Most of my wireless T23 systems run a generic Broadcom 802.11b/g BCM94306 card.

As long as you are going to use the system for web browsing, Office tasks and general computing, then it should be quite capable. Just don't expect to run any "modern" games as the graphics chip (S3 SuperSavage) is inadequate for that type of usage.

[esciii]

Thanks for the quick reply. I won't be doing any gaming on this laptop, I don't game at all much anymore but if I did start back that's what the desktop is for.

I don't mind losing the dial up (does anyone use dialup anymore?) but I could see the possibility of needing the ethernet. I would lose both unless I used the factory combo card, correct? If so I'll just stick with the notebook card. The couple inches it sticks out is well worth not having to endure 802.11b.

I think I'll go with the newer higher rated batteries if I need to buy one. Even if they are over rated I bet they perform better/hold more of a charge than a used factory battery that is several years old. I'll update with how much time I get out of them if the battery I have now doesn't hold a charge for very long. I won't find out until the ram and hd come in becasue at the moment the laptop is too slow to use. I'll try to use windows 7 too and let you know how that worked out as well.

[rkawakami]

You will not lose ethernet capability if you replace the modem-only card with a wireless one. The ethernet interface card is on a separate board (called a CDC - communications daughter card) that's also socketed inside the MiniPCI bay. If modem capability is desired after upgrading to wireless, assuming that you don't use/want the factory 802.11b solution, then it's a matter of using a PCMCIA modem card, like you are using for wireless right now, or use a USB solution.

[automobus]

If modem capability is desired after upgrading to wireless, assuming that you don't use/want the factory 802.11b solution, then it's a matter of using a PCMCIA modem card, like you are using for wireless right now, or use a USB solution.

Or a RS-232 serial solution.

I ran Windows 7 on a T23 with 384 MiB of memory. Never mind performance of games; the integrated video will have poor performance for anything. There are no drivers for Windows 6 or later, so you would be using the "generic video adapter" compatibility mode.

[esciii]

Awesome guys! Thanks for the great information.