Thinkpads Forum

I looking for any and all recommendations in upgrading my T61.

I'm looking to give it a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro.

The part number for the computer was 6465. It currently has a gig of ram and an 80 gig hard drive.

As far as the OS, 32 or 64 bit?

I was thinking of upping the ram by 2 Gb, any thoughts?

On the hard drive, any recommendations on make. Doing research I had seen a message board that claimed the T61 had a hard drive size restriction, besides that of form factor. Can anyone shoot that down for me?

The computer is used for day to day activities, check email, surfing, and listening to music, but has been used for occasional video edit. I'd rather keep the price down but not going overboard. In addition to the above upgrades if you one could suggest whether I should add a dvd burner, I would appreciate help. Namely, are all the thinkpad mediabays interchangeable?

Any question to further help me out just ask. Thank you everyone for any help.

No reason I can think of not to go 64, drivers are upto date and I've never had any problems. As far as the hard-drive is concerned, I have a WD 320gb Black and its incredible. Quite, cool and fast, probably noticed a bigger change then when I upgraded the RAM. I think the HD was $119 cad so it was a pretty affordable upgrade.

BlueSamurai wrote:No reason I can think of not to go 64, drivers are upto date and I've never had any problems. As far as the hard-drive is concerned, I have a WD 320gb Black and its incredible. Quite, cool and fast, probably noticed a bigger change then when I upgraded the RAM. I think the HD was $119 cad so it was a pretty affordable upgrade.

Thanks for the advice, I'll look into WD. I'm so excited by this upgrade.

hehe I have just upgraded my T61 from 1G RAM to 3G but I think if you intend to use 64bit OS then put 2x2G (Kingston / Corsair). I am still thinking should I just get a WD / Fujitsu 320G HDD to replace my stock 120G Hitachi HDD but 120G SSD is another option.

istudio wrote:hehe I have just upgraded my T61 from 1G RAM to 3G but I think if you intend to use 64bit OS then put 2x2G (Kingston / Corsair). I am still thinking should I just get a WD / Fujitsu 320G HDD to replace my stock 120G Hitachi HDD but 120G SSD is another option.

Are SSD's ready for prime time? I didn't think the price vs. capacity had valleyed out yet.

The T61 SATA controller supports SATA II, but is capped at SATA I speeds. The best drives like the X25-M or OCZ Vertex won't hit anywhere near they're full speed, but a SSD will still be faster than any platter based drive. I've had good luck with Seagate drives of late, but YMMV.

FredGarvin wrote:The T61 SATA controller supports SATA II, but is capped at SATA I speeds. The best drives like the X25-M or OCZ Vertex won't hit anywhere near they're full speed, but a SSD will still be faster than any platter based drive. I've had good luck with Seagate drives of late, but YMMV.

Thank you for the info, I'll do the research.