Thinkpads Forum

I just got a new-to-me 14.1" widescreen T61 with 2GB RAM. Not being really up-to-date on Windows (I'm more of a Mac person), I was gonna max out the ram, but some friends are telling me not to bother - 2GB with XP should be plenty. Will I see a performance increase going to 4GB, well 3 and whatever change anyway? I'm not really detecting it swapping right now.

Also, the battery I've got right now says it's a Panasonic. 6-cell, with a cycle count of 28. What's the average cycle count? I'm thinking about getting a 9-cell since I want to be able to use it away from my desk for a while, but wondering if it's worth it before I spend $90.

It depends on how much RAM you normally use, which is directly related to the applications you run and how many of them in parallel. Check your peak memory (commit) usage (using Task Manager or Process Explorer). If it never goes above 1.5GB, for example, then you won't benefit from extra RAM.

As far as battery goes, well the 9-cell will give you 50% more battery life. But on these models it is a hideous monstrosity that extends diagonally up from the back of the laptop and weighs a ton. Whether you'll benefit from it depends on how often you need to be mobile and for how long.

Cycle count is how many times the battery has been charged/discharged (roughly, since partial cycles also count towards the total eventually). Your current battery is a Panasonic, which means it's a good thing. On average it should still be almost as good as new even after a couple of years. I saw a Panasonic for T4x, 5 years old with 730 cycles on it, which still had about 55% of its original capacity left.

How does the 6 cell battery double life it it isn't twice as many Wh? It's only got 150% of the capacity of the other battery, not 200%.

2MB is plenty for XP, if you have it reasonably optimized and not a lot of bloatware launching on startup. (the little icons down by the clock)

for Windows 7, you will want the full 4MB

True - I should just grab the 4GB while it's cheap.

Can win7 address 8GB on this platform? Although I'm unlikely to spend the money to get 8GB on this laptop. (It's more expensive than putting 8GB on my brand new Macs.)

4GB is plenty, even for Windows 7, just get high quality RAM

here is the most reliable 4GB matched pair of RAM I know of:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231154

win-7 64-bit can use all the memory, but the 32-bit version will not be able to use much more than 3gb