Overhaul an X41 Tablet

[cromas]

Hi everyone =)

I've got an old X41 Tablet that's served me well for many years. I have had four years of the fancy overnight parts warranty, but with four years nearly behind me, renewing the warranty again would be nothing more than a "just-in-case" for the hard drive. So I'd rather put that money towards retrofitting some cool things that I've been reading about on here. I'd like to ask some clarifying questions, since it's easy to get confused when wading through forty pages of old posts.

To start with, I just installed Windows 7 RC, which breathes incredible new life into this hardware.

I'd like to replace the aging 4200RPM HD. I read five or six pages on the SSD page, and came away with the impression that the 32GB KingSpec SSD was the good price/performance point. Should I be considering anything else? Are there any special setup options necessary on the KingSpec drive? I read some about "cluster alignment" but wasn't sure what that was and what drive(s) it's necessary on.

At the moment, I have 1GB RAM, 512 in the fixed slot and 512 in the upgrade slot. Windows 7 uses half of that on boot, and so it seems like a good place to upgrade. I was confused by what I read about memory upgrades, though. If I stick a 2GB stick in the upgrade slot, how do I configure the system to use it best? Will the system use the 2GB and the graphics chipset the 512MB? I read some things about boot-time switches, but couldn't tell what was settled on. What's the "best practice" on this one?

Are there any other magic upgrades for the X41T that I'm skipping over? I currently have 1.5GB on an SD card set to "ReadyBoost" -- I never used Vista, and so this feature is new to me, but seems like it can't hurt. ...right?

[Pain]

I have no complaints about a Kingspec SSD so far, but I have only had it about 6 weeks now. There really is no other better option at this time although there are cheaper CF card options that I am still skeptical about long term reliability on those CF cards. Fast (over 300x) high quality 32GB CF cards are more expensive then the Kingspec SSD. There are other companies like Photofast working on 1.8" SSD too so I expect the price will continue to come down and the speed will go up.

1.5 GB of memory is all you really need, but you might as well go to 2 GB since it does not cost much more and you might be able to disable your page file for a performance boost. The Intel 915 chipset will limit you to 2GB no matter what you think you see in software. I think the onboard 512MB is just not used when you put in a 2GB chip.

One thing that Windows 7 does not have is a proper video driver for your X41. See here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=76736
I have not tested it on the tablet but it is likely it will work. Worst case you just roll back the video driver to the original.

[cromas]

Thanks for the info! =)

One thing that Windows 7 does not have is a proper video driver for your X41. See here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=76736
I have not tested it on the tablet but it is likely it will work. Worst case you just roll back the video driver to the original.

That was because Intel stupidly decided not to develop a WDDM driver for anything earlier than the 950 chipset. The driver posted on that link works great in 7 RC though. 7 Beta was crashing all the time unless I disabled basically all hardware acceleration.

[loyukfai]

SSD and Windows 7.

If you use a SSD, I think you may as well skip ReadyBoost.

[sjthinkpader]

What kind of Readyboost device can you use with a X41t?

[cromas]

I'm using a 4GB class 4 SDHC card. Not sure if it makes a difference, but it blinks happily along.

[sjthinkpader]

I have a 32GB CF in the ATA slot, 8GB CF in the PCMCIA slot and a 2GB SD of my X40. When I tried to set Readyboost, the tab screen for those devices noted that Sysmain is turned off. Sysmain turned out to be name for Superfetch, which was turned off since I am using CF flash already.

Additionally, both the Page file and Indexing functions were turned off since I am using flash storage. The new TRIM function requires device support and the RiDATA CF card of course don't have it. Supposedly leading SSD chipsets will support TRIM by year end.