New OS, Office, HDD & fan for T60, things to do while there?

[T7TrainingSystems]

My trusty T60, used 12 hours a day for three or four years now, is getting a bit of a day-spa treatment in a week's time.

The fan has gone rattly, so that's being replaced. New larger HDD. Upgrade from XP to Win7. Upgrade from Office 2007 to Office 2010.

Since I'm doing all this, any advice for things to do while I'm there? Has 4GB of ram already. I figure I'll clean the keyboard, clean the monitor and clean the outside. Any cleaning tips for this era Thinkpad?

[Johan]

You don't specify what 160 GB harddrive (or SSD?) you've got in your T60, but in the case that you have an usual mechanical drive (5400 or 7200 rpm), then there is no doubt of what I'll suggest - provided of course that you're ready to spend a few more $$? In such case, I'd certainly strongly suggest that you consider getting yourself an Intel X25-M Solid State Drive (SSD)... that's THE best upgrade you can give your T60.

As I am sure you know there are many SSD's out there, and more are coming all the time, but the Intel X25-M's has a very fine reputation (and supports TRIM under WIn 7). I have a couple of X25-M's myself (one in a T60), and again: That's THE best upgrade you can do to a T60 - period! SSD's are fairly pricy, but still within reach for most folks, and maybe the price on Intel's SSD's will drop once the 3rd generation is launched shortly (codenamed ”Postville refresh”); it is said to happen in February or March (see this link and this link). Notice that the T60's are limited to SATA-150 speed (1.5 Gb/s - see e.g. the thread T60 Sata II speeds), so you won't benefit of getting any of the newest, very fast drives.

Try Google for "X25-M review" or see the many user-feedbacks e.g. on Newegg.com or on amazon.com or use this search script to see forum.thinkpads.com users opinions.

Johan

[techweenie]

What CPU do you currently have? If it's not a Core 2 Duo, I'd recommend looking for one. Since you're exposing the socket anyway, now's the best time to do it.

[T7TrainingSystems]

Thanks for the advice guys. Money is very limited unfortunately so the solid state drive is out of reach and as I already have a Core Duo, I'm not sure it's worth the expense of upgrading the processor. If only money wasn't a factor!

Model is 2007-BN5 and I've replaced the drive in the past with a 7200rpm model. I reckon I'll replace it with Hitachi Travelstar Notebook HDD 2.5" SATA 500GB 7200RPM which seems to get a good write-up here and elsewhere.

Thanks for the info that T60's are limited to SATA-150 speed - I didn't know that, pity about that limitation.

I think I might just give it a nice clean inside with compressed air and do some searching on the board for advice on cleaning up the inside and outside.

Thanks for the replies!