Advice for "cheap" upgrades for T61-CPU-SSD-especially RAM?

[eyeland]

I know that these issues have been dealt with in other threads, however, after days of reading, a few questions remain unanswered.
Thus, as always, feel free to point towards the proper thread if you feel I have overlooked the info that I am seeking
A year ago I got a slow T61 7661gn3 with a cracked LCD for next to nothing and I am slowly upgrading it as I use it for media-production (AbletonLive+ CS5). I am a “poor” student, so I tend to ponder my upgrades for a looong time
Thanks to all the people who helped me fix various issues with the LCD replacement/upgrade and the seagate enoyances if you see this, plz have patience with me yet again
I am currently looking at the next 3 upgrades, namely CPU, SSD and RAM, as I realized that an SSD alone, although offering a remarkable overall boost, might not be the real bottleneck when it comes to peakperformance in regards to VSTs and Photoshop compared to CPU and RAM.
CPU: seems like a nobrainer = looking at a few secondhand T9300 from trusted German ebay-sellers at 80-100$, can't really go wrong at that price?
SSD: Going with 120 gb Vertex or Vertex 2, demoting momentus7200 to ultrabay.
RAM: Here is where it starts getting more difficult for me. Options seems to be 2+2, 2+4 or 4+4 but brand/kind/specs?
A few comments:
I am planning to try Middletons Bios mod before upgrading in order to obtain SATA2 and error-free boot with t9300 along with the other “perks” unleashed I upgraded the ram from 1+1 KVR 667 to 2+1 KVR 667 a while back and now, to great dismay, I realize that the DDR2 prices has almost doubled in DK...
As to RAM, a nice price-performance balance would be going from 2+1 to 4+2, leaving room for a future 4+4 upgrade, but as I can gather from other posts 4+2 is not considered as stable as 4+4 or 2+2?
Now, before you bring out the usual guns , I don't expect ROCKstable, server-like performance from my TP like some in here seem to endorse (I save often and it seems to be my tweaks and my FW audiointerface that crashes me once in a while when performing live-sets anyways and I have learned that NO system is failsafe and thus I will run a minimal backingtrack from a CD/MP3 that I can quickly xfade to while waiting for my TP to recover if needed). That said, I enjoy periodic crashes as little as the next guy, just so we're clear
While reluctant to dish out for what some would call "real" RAM , I am ok with the rather steep price of the SSD as I can use it in my next rig as well. When it comes to CPU/RAM however, I am more reluctant to dish out as I hope to be able to afford a new rig within 2011 or 2012 at the latest (finishing studies and getting a work-permit in my new country (carefull with those foreign girls I tell you!:)
Again, sorry for the long posts (I know this excuse makes it even longer, but my life IS a performative contradiction after all), I hope you have a piece of advice or perhaps have similar questions of your own.. If not, feel free to /ignore and move on without leaving any insulting remarks;)

[eyeland]

Both the kingston and the Crucial site suggests DDR2 800mhz ram for my T61 which is curretly cheaper than 667 in DK, can anyone confirm from personal experience that this works and if so, whats the situation with the higher latency?

[ThinkRob]

Regarding RAM brands: ignore them. Get whatever's cheapest. Run memtest86+, and if it passes a couple passes, use it. If not, return it.

[richk]

Regarding the 9300 cpu, it is a Penryn with digital thermal sensors. On;ly a few motherboards support them, and probably not for yours, if you have a low-end T61

[eyeland]

On;ly a few motherboards support them, and probably not for yours, if you have a low-end T61

Aww, thats too bad, was just about to submit a bidding for one on ebay..
Is this incompatibility related to the need for a hacked bios or is there a chance that it just wount support it period?
Furthermore, how do I determine for sure which MB I have?

[eyeland]

Regarding RAM brands: ignore them. Get whatever's cheapest. Run memtest86+, and if it passes a couple passes, use it. If not, return it.

Roger that
any comments on the issue of 667/800mhz ? Is it safe to say that the 800mhz will not run slower than the 667 due to higher CL?
Is it only ok as long as I don't mix 667 and 800? (I know that MB will throttle speed but what about timing?)
Will 2+4 be as stabile as 1+2 or does something else happen when surpassing 4gb?

[richk]

The FRU should be on a sticker. 2 places to look are under the battery (best, easiest to get to) or on the top of the motherboard, under the palmrest/ You can see it by removing the DIMM (s)

[eyeland]

oh, no way to ascertain MB model/rev from an app like Sisoft Sandra?

[richk]

no. For example, 41W1489 and 44C3933 have the same features and graphics chip, but only the second one has digital thermal sensors

[eyeland]

[censored] that means that I actually have to turn her off and face normal lights for a while
I would have thought that there would be some kind of giveaway, thanks for sharing.

[eyeland]

Seems my board is FRU#41W1487.
I didn't actually look insidet yet, I just entered my serialnumber on lenovos site which gave me a rundown of all the different parts in my machine and their respective FRU.
I can't however figure out if this board supports Digital sensors?
If it does I'll still take a look inside before ordering to make sure that the info provided by Lenovo is correct, but seeing as it used to be a corporate machine I'd assume that it is.
In the event that my board is not compatible with the T9300, would this issue be solved by "risking" the much debated bios-mod from Middleton as mentioned in my original post or pressing ESC at bootup?

[eyeland]

hmm, just found another post where you state that

The MB is 41W1487. It will not take the CPU upgrade.

so much for that question, the bios-mod question still stands though

EDIT: ok, sorry, found the answer in another post...
Seems that this is one of the issues that the Middleton Bios-mod adresses, if its safe or not is another question altogether of course..

I'd still love some more input on the ram questions mentioned above or a link to any thread dealing with it
(The differences involved in 1+3 vs 2+2 vs 2+4 vs 4+4)
Gonna do some more research and systemanalysis (might start a new post/revive an old one, dealing exclusively with the RAM issues
Sorry about the excessive posting... long night..

[RealBlackStuff]

You can run the 800 RAM instead of the 667.
If you mix (800/667), all RAM will run at the speed of the slowest unit, in this case 667.
It's best to run matching-speed RAM, but not necessary, if money is in short supply.
It won't crash your machine.
If you have 2 matching sticks, RAM will run in dual-channel mode, which is (only marginally) faster than single-channel.
Best forget about any gains here.
If you run a 32-bit OS, there's no point installing more than 3 (or 4) GB.
Only 64-bit OS will be able to use RAM beyond ~3GB.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 95&start=0

I don't think there are 3GB Sodimms.
Your options are 1-1, 1-2, 1-4, 2-2, 2-4 and 4-4.
2-2 is probably the most common, but only your budget can tell what to get.
Other than the marginal DC gain (see above), you can run any combination that suits you.

[eyeland]

Let me clearify my questions as to RAM: What happens to the timings of an 800mhz module when running at 667? will they remain unchanged?
The similar priced 800 and 667 mhz modules I am looking at are CL 5 and CL6 repectively. Seeing as the 800 module will downclock to 667 I was wondering if this will have an effect on the latency - if not - it would seem intuitive that the "native" 667 modules will actually outperform the 800 while this is not the case if the latency changes as well ?
"1+3" was a typo, I meant 1+2
Of course I run x64, both in Linux and Win - guess I went to far with downscaling the fontsize of my Sig...
I don't think I need memorybandwith enough to dish out for a 4+ 4 syncronious dualchannel kit atm.
My High Memory usage is primarily CS5. Is the bandwithgain from dualchannem ram of any significant benefit in regards to a fast SSD?

[richk]

The board you have does not have the hardware to read the digital sensors. Any BIOS mod would simply skip error messages. If you really overheat, I would argue that you would rather shut off than burn something up.

[eyeland]

I don't fully understand the issue.
I seem to recall that people still get certain temperature readings even after an "esc-boot" or with a modded bios. Shouldn't it be possible to set up some form of security overheating shutdown up manually or are we talking about some hardware-failsafe-shutdown that would kill the power at a certain temp even if the OS has crashed?