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X31 upgrades

X20/X21, X30/X31, X40/X41 Series
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MacAoidh
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Location: West Dunbartonshire - Scotland - UK

X31 upgrades

#1 Post by MacAoidh » Sun Oct 04, 2015 5:09 pm

What upgrade can i do the my x31, ramssd ?
T61 (7661) Middleton BIOS - w14.1 WXGA+1440x900 LCD - Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU T9500 @ 2.60GHz × 2 - 8GB RAM - Intel X3100 - Intel Ultimate N6300 - Samsung SSD 830 256GB - Ultrabay Samsung Spinpoint M8 HDD 1TB - DVD-Rec - 9cell in Green - Linux Mint 17.1 'Rebecca' x64

X31 (2672N7G) Project

ajkula66
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Re: X31 upgrades

#2 Post by ajkula66 » Sun Oct 04, 2015 5:37 pm

mSATA SSD + an adapter, 2GB PC 2100/2700 (DDR 266/DDR 333) RAM.

More on the mSATA aspect of the story can be found here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=112081

Do bear in mind that for the purposes of this particular upgrade, your X31 is pretty much the same as T41/42.

Happy upgrading.
...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

Cheers,

George (your grouchy retired FlexView farmer)

One FlexView to rule them all: A31p

Abused daily: T520, X200s


PMs requesting personal tech support will be ignored.

MacAoidh
Posts: 41
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:53 pm
Location: West Dunbartonshire - Scotland - UK

Re: X31 upgrades

#3 Post by MacAoidh » Mon Oct 05, 2015 7:47 am

Best SSD ?
T61 (7661) Middleton BIOS - w14.1 WXGA+1440x900 LCD - Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU T9500 @ 2.60GHz × 2 - 8GB RAM - Intel X3100 - Intel Ultimate N6300 - Samsung SSD 830 256GB - Ultrabay Samsung Spinpoint M8 HDD 1TB - DVD-Rec - 9cell in Green - Linux Mint 17.1 'Rebecca' x64

X31 (2672N7G) Project

ajkula66
SuperUserGeorge
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Re: X31 upgrades

#4 Post by ajkula66 » Mon Oct 05, 2015 9:12 pm

MacAoidh wrote:Best SSD ?
Way too many different options as well as opinions...

I'd stay away from anything SandForce-based, but that's me.
...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

Cheers,

George (your grouchy retired FlexView farmer)

One FlexView to rule them all: A31p

Abused daily: T520, X200s


PMs requesting personal tech support will be ignored.

fschwep
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Location: France + Netherlands

Re: X31 upgrades

#5 Post by fschwep » Wed Sep 14, 2016 10:23 am

Just boosting this post a bit... ;-) I think it depends on what youn want to do with it. If you want to play with it and see how fast it can get or how long it can run on battery power, get an SSD - but these will be expensive, probably more than you paid for the computer itself.. If you consider toting it along as a travel computer and not as a toy, and you have a lot of data (photos, files, software) that you want to carry with you locally without the need for an external drive, you can mount a larger, faster harddrive (of the rotating platter kind). More gigabytes on the same platter size means faster access times, too, so although it is not nearly as much of a speed boost as an SSD, the machine does become quicker. Maxing out the RAM is the most obvious upgrade, and the most cost effective.
Personally I don't care all that much about ultimate speed. An X31 only has 16 MB of video memory and whatever you do, it's not a real gaming or movie-watching machine. Having a practical, reasonably light travel laptop that can connect to almost anything, even from the stone age, is for me a more compelling reason to hold on to my X31, and so it has been fitted with a 320 GB harddisk and as much RAM I could get my hands on for little or no money at the time (modules ransacked from broken R- and T-series, to upgrade the X31 to 1.5 GB RAM which in my experience is quite enough to run Win XP with several programs open).
T42 (14"/250GB/1.5GB; NL; with minidock); R51 (15" flexview/40GB/1 GB). X31 (12"/320GB/1GB); T42 (14"/60GB/1GB; FR)

Puppy
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Re: X31 upgrades

#6 Post by Puppy » Wed Sep 14, 2016 11:59 am

fschwep wrote:Having a practical, reasonably light travel laptop that can connect to almost anything, even from the stone age, is for me a more compelling reason to hold on to my X31
I used it that way for seven years (Europe, Japan) but it is so slow even for web browsing these days because of poor graphic acceleration capabilities. Moreover mobile connection is also issue, I had an obscure PCMCIA wireless card but it supported 2G only. These USB sticks have bad signal reception and are no longer compatible with Windows XP anyway.

It was fun to use it, especially the excellent keyboard but it is getting old. So I have given up and use ThinkPad 8 LTE tablet now instead. I appreciate the weight loss and much better screen quality :)

The X31 (it is a refurb from IBM) is incredibly reliable, no single BSOD, disk error, data loss, lock-up, no single issue in seven years. I used hibernation all the time.
ThinkPad (1992 - 2012): R51, X31, X220
Huawei MateBook 13

fschwep
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Re: X31 upgrades

#7 Post by fschwep » Fri Oct 21, 2016 11:20 am

Puppy wrote:I used it that way for seven years (Europe, Japan) but it is so slow even for web browsing these days because of poor graphic acceleration capabilities. Moreover mobile connection is also issue, I had an obscure PCMCIA wireless card but it supported 2G only. These USB sticks have bad signal reception and are no longer compatible with Windows XP anyway.
My problem with any computer is that in our rural location, internet speeds are very slow anyway. Even using a more modern computer, one is not going to spend a lot of time watching videos or playing online games here. (Actually, just this afternoon we signed a petition of the inhabitants to protest our slow internet connections - it is that bad.)
So I have gotten used to minimal multimedia use (the constant insertion of Google-pushed animated ads on many websites does become more and more awkward though). Hence, the X31 does not feel especially slow. I still use a T42p as my daily machine as I do a lot of writing and prefer the keyboard and 4:3 screen (1400x1050), so the X31 compares decently with that as a travel laptop doing essentially the same stuff. And indeed, it is very sturdy.
As far as the wireless connectivity, mine has a good built-in wifi card and reception is usually excellent. I use no 2G or 3G mobile phone connection inside my laptop - again, there is no mobile data net availability here either, I have to use bare bones GSM just to make phone calls that are dropped half the time. When I am on the road and need to use the 3G phone network instead of wifi, I connect my smartphone to the 3G internet and then set it to act as a miniature wifi hotspot, so my X31 can get on the internet through the phone.
Basically, as long as one is happy to do mostly the things they did 5 years ago with a computer, the X31 is perfectly useable. Like discussing on boards such as this one....
Of course these machines did cost the equivalent of some 2000 euros when new, so in terms of build quality no modern netbook or affordable hybrid/convertable lightweight Win10 machine can compare with them...
T42 (14"/250GB/1.5GB; NL; with minidock); R51 (15" flexview/40GB/1 GB). X31 (12"/320GB/1GB); T42 (14"/60GB/1GB; FR)

ajkula66
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Re: X31 upgrades

#8 Post by ajkula66 » Fri Oct 21, 2016 4:51 pm

fschwep wrote: Basically, as long as one is happy to do mostly the things they did 5 years ago with a computer, the X31 is perfectly useable. Like discussing on boards such as this one....
+ 1.

The older I get, the less I'm interested in the wonders of Internet, and more appreciative of the effort that was put in IBM-era designs.
Of course these machines did cost the equivalent of some 2000 euros when new, so in terms of build quality no modern netbook or affordable hybrid/convertable lightweight Win10 machine can compare with them...
QFT.
...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

Cheers,

George (your grouchy retired FlexView farmer)

One FlexView to rule them all: A31p

Abused daily: T520, X200s


PMs requesting personal tech support will be ignored.

dr_st
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Re: X31 upgrades

#9 Post by dr_st » Sat Oct 22, 2016 2:25 am

fschwep wrote:Basically, as long as one is happy to do mostly the things they did 5 years ago with a computer, the X31 is perfectly useable. Like discussing on boards such as this one....
Boards such as this one - yes. But some of the "modern style" boards with heavy custom scripted multi-frame design are heavy enough to tax the poor Pentium M almost to 100% usage.

Even 5 years ago when I got my current X32 (and that's a high-end 2Ghz 2M cache Dothan model) things already felt a bit sluggish at times.

However, I do agree that for posting on nice simple phpBB boards, these machines are still great. And for many other casual things as well. :)
Thinkpad 25 (20K7), T490 (20N3), Yoga 14 (20FY), T430s (IPS FHD + Classic Keyboard), X220 4291-4BG
X61 7673-V2V, T60 2007-QPG, T42 2373-F7G, X32 (IPS Screen), A31p w/ Ultrabay Numpad

brchan
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Re: X31 upgrades

#10 Post by brchan » Sat Oct 22, 2016 8:44 am

My problem with any computer is that in our rural location, internet speeds are very slow anyway. Even using a more modern computer, one is not going to spend a lot of time watching videos or playing online games here. (Actually, just this afternoon we signed a petition of the inhabitants to protest our slow internet connections - it is that bad.)
There are very lightweight browsers that are designed to work with very low connections speeds (most are linux only, however). My favorite is "Dillo". Extremely fast (recommended specs are only a 486 cpu and dial up connection!!!) and is perfectly capable of rendering most simpler to medium websites well enough. If you need some JS support, there is also "NetSurf" which is almost as quick, and if you need to support more content, then "Palemoon" will probably be the only other option.
Current Thinkpads: W530 (functional classic keyboard mod), X301, T61, T60, T43, A31p, T23, 600X, 770
Other: mk5 Toughbook cf-19, mk1 Toughbook cf-53

Kidzi
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Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2016 6:05 am
Location: Pszczyna, Poland

Re: X31 upgrades

#11 Post by Kidzi » Tue Dec 06, 2016 6:18 am

ajkula66 wrote:mSATA SSD + an adapter, ...
How about ready IDE SSD, like Transcend 330 ? Has anyone tried something like that ? I know it's expensive, but maybe it's more compatible ...

brchan
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Re: X31 upgrades

#12 Post by brchan » Tue Dec 06, 2016 7:56 am

Kidzi wrote:
How about ready IDE SSD, like Transcend 330 ? Has anyone tried something like that ? I know it's expensive, but maybe it's more compatible ...
IDE SSDs are a lot more expensive expensive and don't offer nearly as good performance or reliability. A big benefit of mSata is that you can also use it in a newer machine if you choose.
Current Thinkpads: W530 (functional classic keyboard mod), X301, T61, T60, T43, A31p, T23, 600X, 770
Other: mk5 Toughbook cf-19, mk1 Toughbook cf-53

WarMachine
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Re: X31 upgrades

#13 Post by WarMachine » Tue Feb 14, 2017 2:27 pm

Hello,

I love my X31 (i have 3 of them). I use two of them without modifications, one as a router under pFSense, and another as an alarm clock (with XP). The third is used as a proxy (Squid / Dan's Guardian), under Debian 7.0, and I wanted it to be quicker, so I put an SSD in it. It works nicely. I had a spare SSD (the one which was used in my X301. It's a Micro-SATA one - 1.8" is the format). I bought an adapter on MicroSATACables, another adapter to put everything in the 2.5"bay.
Everything is running fine. I tried to install 7, it's was not very good due to the lack of graphics drivers. But Linux distributions are fine (Debian on this unit, as I said, but I also tried Slackware, and it runs nice too).

Take care of you X31, it's a real nice machine, and it deserves it ! :)

W.

EDIT : I bought the caddie at Shapeways : https://www.shapeways.com/product/4CSVL ... de-adapter
701Cs| 755Cs| 560| 600E| T23| X20| X24| X31| T30| R30| T41p| T42| T43| X41
T60 14.1"| T60 15.4"| T61 14.1″ WS| R60| X60t| X61s| X61t| X301| T400| T400s| W500| X200| X201| T410| T410s| X220| T420| T420s| W520| T430| X240| T440| T440s| T440p| T450s| X250

Davemci
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Re: X31 upgrades

#14 Post by Davemci » Tue Sep 26, 2017 1:19 pm

My X31 is running windows 7 and has the ATI MOBILITY RADEON driver installed. I haven't noticed any slowdown running Windows 7 over Windows XP and since I have an SSD drive I prefer to have an OS with TRIM support. That leaves Windows 7 or Linux. However, Aero will not work, but eye candy doesn't matter that much to me.
X220, 600X, Edge 13, T22, T23, 701C, 560Z, T60p, T43, 240Z,....

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