upgrading X200

[flightspeed]

Hi All

Need some advice on the below

I have been a fan of the Thinkpads since 2005 - Was issued a T41 -> R61->x61s->X200 since joining the company and i have loved it since. Havent looked at other brands and probably wont for a long time

Anyway - the current issued X200 is running a little dated, just upgraded the internal wifi card ( 1 hr ago to the Intel 5350) and was wandering if i could enhance the performance of this machine with the below upgrades - I am on Windows XP Pro 32 bit ( Office required )

Upgrades i m considering

1. RAM - Kingston Hyper X DDR 1600 4GB x 2 ( currently on 2 x 2GB rams but showing 3032 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory - Belarc Advisor )

2. Processor - Hopefully change to I5 or I7 ( currently on 2.40 gigahertz Intel Core2 Duo, 64 kilobyte primary memory cache
3072 kilobyte secondary memory cache, 64-bit ready, Multi-core (2 total), Not hyper-threaded - Belarc Advisor )

not sure if above can be done - any recommendations ?

Thanks
Ed

[craigmontHunter]

1) The hardware will accept 8gb of ram however the 32-bit os will only see and use ~3gb. Unless you can get an upgrade to either vista or 7 64-bit, you will will be able to use all 4gb of ram, however IMHO there is not a big diffrence in performance between 4gb and 8gb of ram, unless you know that you willbe able to use it all.

2) You will not be able to upgrade the CPU without upgrading the motherboard, however if you are sticking with a x200 motherboard, you can only get a faster core 2 duo, which is not a worthwhile upgrade IMHO, since you already have a fairly fast one. If you use a x201 motherboard, you can get a i5/i7, however that path has its own issues, which are outlined in a thread on notebookreview (I'm too lazy to search)

[erik]

instead of trivial items like CPU and memory, invest in an SSD.   a good SSD like an intel 320-series will give you more overall performance than any CPU or memory.   besides, like craigmontHunter said, you're stuck with your current CPU and limited to 1066MHz memory anyway.

welcome to the forum, btw!

[flightspeed]

Thanks for e response and welcome . I'll look into ssd's

Many thanks

Ed

[flightspeed]

Can i just confirm if a SSD is a Hard Drive ? sorry for this question but as u can see i m not very IT savvy

Will i need to reformat everything again and install all applications etc ? I got loads of apps ( office VPN , etc etc ) this will be a mammoth task for me and i m not sure if i can pull it off

otherwise can i add an additional SSD into my X200 ?

Currently my laptop is using - HITACHI HTS543216L9SA00 [Hard drive] (160.04 GB) -- drive 0, s/n 090122FB2232VCD3WKEB, rev FB2ZC48C, SMART Status: Healthy - Belarc Advisor

Thanks

[ZaZ]

Yes, a SSD is a hard drive made from flash memory, which is why it's so fast.

You will need to install Windows on it. You've got a few options here. You can download a Windows disc here, then do a clean install. Thinkpad's Rescue and Recovery can do a format to the factory state then restore the drive to however it is now if you do a Rescue and Recovery back up. Your other option would some sort of cloning of the hard drive. Something like the True Image can clone the drive and put it back like it was before, but the thing you have to be concerned about with those two options is whether they will set partition alignment correctly. I don't have an answer for that, but to get the best performance, you'll want to have it aligned correctly. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I can post. If you do the clean install Windows will align the partition properly, but that's a lot more work.

Unlike the X220, the X200 doesn't have any mSATA options. You might want to consider the Seagate Momentus XT. It's a platter based drive with a 4GB flash drive attached. It gives near SSD performance while offering up to 500GB of storage capacity.

[flightspeed]

Thanks FredGarvin

i reeeeally hope they people over here in Guangzhou knows what they are doing