ThinkPad a31 more power

[fracchia23]

Hi im Franco from Italy,im glad to be a member of this big family.
I bought a THINKPAD A31:
-INTEL PENTIUM 4
-MOBILE CPU 1.4GHZ
-1.02GHZ,640 of RAM(ram modified from original)

I would know a way to have much more power from my PC because when i run 2 programs at the same time it will freeze for 30-60 seconds or more.
There is a way??

Thanks a lot to everybody.
Ciao Ciao from ITALIA

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

From the quick description of your A31, my normal advice would be to maximize your memory (2x1GB) but it really depends on what you are trying to run on the system. I'm currently using a 1.7Ghz A31p with 1GB of memory and Windows XP SP3. On occasion, it takes more than 30 seconds to minimize all of the programs and get to the desktop using the "Show desktop" icon in the Quick Launch toolbar. I generally have Firefox 14 running with at least 8 tabs (500MB of memory alone), a DOS box, Windows Explorer, AVG, several applications in the System Tray, FTP uploading or downloading; usually 60+ processes running. This delay doesn't happen all of the time and it may be worse than your system because I have a 1600x1200 display with 32-bit color.

With a delay of 30-60 seconds, that usually means your system does not have enough memory and must switch out programs to the swapfile. It is generally recommended that your swapfile be about 1.5 times the amount of physical memory; smaller if you already have a large amount of memory. You could also consider changing to a faster hard drive (i.e., 7200RPM) if your system is still using the original drive. The other "easy" change would be to swap out the CPU for a faster one. I'm not an expert on this part but you may be able to go up to 2.0Ghz which could be a noticeable difference.

There's not much else you can do except to try to keep the number of running programs to a minimum. If you do a lot of disk accesses, keep it defragged. The A3x systems are several generations obsolete but they can still be useful. I've been using two A31p systems (home and work) for almost the last year mostly because of the large screen and two Ultrabays.

[fracchia23]

problem is that 90% of times i have like 150mb rams free and CPU 0% free.......
Why happend this?

[ajkula66]

You need:

1) More RAM - at least 1.5 GB

2) Faster CPU - a 2.0 P4M will be fine

3) Minimal number of processes running

[fracchia23]

i have just a slot for RAM.... THE MAXIMUM i've found was 640mbRAM

[ajkula66]

No.

You have two slots.

Each of them will take 1GB PC 2100 (DDR266) or PC2700 (DDR333) laptop RAM.

[fracchia23]

i will check it out.... thx

[jronald]

As George (aj66) pointed out, the sweet spot on this machine, as well as the T30 is 1.5 gigs of RAM and the 2.0 processor. With this combo they will run cool and happy, all day long. Never give a problem and will run forever.
Yes you can go with more memory and a larger CPU, but the heat created by these beasts are not really what the machine needs (or your lap). I have a 2.4 T30 that runs scorching hot when pushed to its limits, where as all of my T30s with the 2.0 are very comfortable on my lap.

The 2.0 processors are dirt cheap in America (under $10.00), the memory roughly $30.00 USD.

YMMV
Ron

[fracchia23]

maybe i will buy them on EBAY