A22m upgrade purchase questions.

[SIRIUS]

Hello.
I have an A22m which has served me well, but I wish to upgade.
I need more speed and dependable stability.
also...
I have ultrabay 2000(?) attachments I would like to retain and use.

What is the Model # hierarchy?
or...
Which model would be considered as the best model to step up to?

Thank you.

Sirius

[brainpicker]

I'm assuming you are still looking at something like your A22m, say a 15" desktop replacement that you can travel with on occasion? If so I'd recommend an R52 if XGA or R51 if SXGA+. I like my R52's just a wee bit better due to the use of the latest parts (for example the DDR2 RAM, Express Card slot and X300 Graphics), but IBM didn''t use the better IPS+ or Flewview screens in the SXGA+ 15" R52's so we went with an R51 for that purpose. Either is fine, they are built solid, offer pleanty of speed, and they use the latest version of the Ultrabay 2000 called Ultrabay Enhanced. That would be my opinion as a place to start.

Good Luck,
-Yak

[schen]

My wife and I went went through this process recently. And I agree with the 2nd post in that the most obvious current model would be the R Series. I also considered that if you aren't looking to go whole hog to a new machine, there are all manner of intermediate models to think about. There are a variety of resources that will tell you the model families and progression, but here is a quick rundown for the form-factor you are looking at beginning with the A20.

A20,21,22 (e,m,p) PC100 Bus PIII or Celeron CPUs, 12,14,15 inch screens
A30 (p) PC133 Bus PIII (1.13, 1.2 Tualatin Core- Same as P4), 15" XGA, SXGA, UXGA screens
A31 (p) DDR P4 (1.4 1.6, 1., 15" screens (resolutions similar to A30)
R Series

If you're looking for a budget solution that is an upgrade to your A22, I think the A30/31 might be a good option. You get a decent performance pump with having to pay an over $500 price. A later A30 (1.13/1.2) or an A31 pretty much does everything that anyone wants unless they want it to do high end video editing or graphic work. You can pretty easily get into an A31 for less than $400 and A30 for less than $300. So, if you set decent budget (something like $500), you can put 1Gb of RAM and a 5400 or 7200rpm 60Gb+.

So it's all about what you want to do. The last of the As (30/31) that represent a good value and can do a good everyday workhorse. The more current R Series that cost a more, but probably have a unit that will stave off obsolesence a little longer.

Oh yeah, the A30/31 are probably the biggest and heaviest of all TPs, but they do have 2 Ultrabays (one is an Ultrabay plus) so you can configure it to have virtually any combination of drives, batteries, etc. that you want. My wife loves her A30, it's combination of features is just right for her. She still uses floppies so she has an LS120 in one bay, a DVD burner in the other and we can put an Ultrabay battery in a when she needs extra unplugged time or another drive in when we want to burn a disk cover directly.

[SIRIUS]

Thanks for the info re: A22m upgrade.
It is appreciated.
I will take some time to study these facts (and compare model features).

I should have mentioned in my first post that I am also considering an upgrade to the USB and Wireless aspects of the A22m.

I think my A22m only supports USB1 and has no W/L built-in.
I have been using the PCM/CIA slots for USB 2 and W/L.

I do like UBay swap capabilities.

So...
I guess I need an R series with 2 UBay ports like the A30/31 mentioned.

More research needed.

I'm still open to suggestions, too.

Thanks again.
Sirius
*********

[wolfman]

I don't think there is a series that IBM makes any more that has 2 swappable bays like the A31 did. The R's have 1 swappable bay (and the R's can't use the Dock II as far as I know like the T's can - there is an additional swappable bay in the Dock II)...

[schen]

I should have been more clear in my earlier post. The A30/31 was the last of the 3 Spindle (what the consumer market calls the "desktop replacement" notebooks) machines from IBM. That unique capability to configure is one of the main reasons why we went with that machine. Two other factors was the price of PC133 RAM is one of the lowest (significantly lower than the PC100 from the early A/T Series), and it had built in wireless (my wife always hated the card sticking out of her machine). You'll have to do a little checking, but at least some of the A30s and probably all the A31s have wireless capability, but I'd double check that on older forum threads. I'm currently in the process of finding a good deal on an Atheros chipped wireless MiniPCI card for her A30 since I just upgraded our AP to the D-Link DI-624 SuperG. My T23 with the Atheros card connected right up at 108Mps so that's a neat side benefit.

The school where I teach uses the R4/5x notebooks in the computer classes and they seem to be very rugged and capable machines. And if you want to have an option of using a touchpad, it's a better option.

[chalrie_hng]

I agree with the instructor. The possibilities of upgrading your A3X such as:

* Hard Drive
Go for 5400 or even 7200rpm.

* Mini PCI slot - wireless
Replace the Ethernet/Modem with Wi-Fi card. But you have to settle the antenna if your model don't have a built-in.

* PC-Card slot
You know what you can use.

* Processor
Check your model and find a top processor from eBay.

* Memory
1 GB is your limit. Still need to check your model for compatibility.

* Ultrabay 2000
Replace it with DVD-RW

That's it. I think you will compare the investment cost with buying a new R51/R52. Of course it also depends on how you value your A30. My case is, when done all the upgrade on my A20M(700MHz->900MHz, 128MB->512MB, 12GB->60GB,CD-ROM->DVD/CD-RW, Wi-Fi PC-card. that's >$200 investment in one year), I ended up keeping it to my first grader chile and buy myself a R51. That's a happy ending.

[SIRIUS]

WOW!

Thanks to all for the GREAT information generously posted here.

Since there isn't an "R" series with 2 Ultrabays, an A31p may be my best choice
(considering cost, UBay flexibilty,and track record).

I have examined the TAWBOOK and I am making sepecific model comparisons.

I wish to aquire the best A31p model with the best options for possible upgrades in the future.

Can anyone comment on the different A31p models and best OS (XP pro vs. Win 2K) for these models?

I would like to do some video, etc.
I like firewire and USB 2.0, also.

Thanks again.
Sirius

[cpn]

WOW!


.
.
.

I would like to do some video, etc.
I like firewire and USB 2.0, also.

Thanks again.
Sirius

I use the Apricorn EZ USB 2.0 Card. I like this card as it has two ports. One provides the full 500ma USB spec and the other provides a 100ma worth of power. All without requiring any other plugs or adapters. This card is also a flush fitting card and so can be left in when traveling. The only downside is that to make it flush fitting, it uses a "dongle" for the ports. I like this as it doesn't block the other slot if you have another big card you want to use. They also make a firewire card that works the same way, but I haven't had any experience with it. But if you get a A31p then the firewire would not be an issue.

I love my A31 and I am soon going to upgrade to a 7200 rpm HD. I recently upped the CPU to 2.4 and the ram has been at 1GB for awhile. I run Windows XP w/SP2 but not IBM's default install. I just borrowed a friends true OEM disk with SP2 integrated and did a blank install using the key from the bottom of the notebook. I did recover from my set of recovery disks the pre-installed apps that I needed. (Record now the main one). Just needed it installed once so the downloaded update would find it and install.

Craig

[SIRIUS]

Hello, again.
I want everyone to know that I took the plunge and purchased a used A31p-2653 AU5.
So far, everything is fine, but the built-in wireless is dropping out and connecting at only 11Mbs.
I still have to test Bluetooth, Ultrabays, etc.

Thanks again to all on this forum!
Your help is greatly appreciated!

SIRIUS

[schen]

Hey,

Congrats! Glad to see you took the plunge with the A31p. It's the last of the IBM full-sized notebooks and had really amazing stats at the time it was introduced.

I'm sorry to see that you're having a few problems with the wireless though. My wife's A30 occassionally has issues with connection speed as well. Her machine has the Actiontec card that's 802.11b only. It ocassionally will show connection speed as 5mps, but that eventually goes ahead and picks up to the 11mps limit. What card do you have in your machine? Is it one of the Intels that's B/G or B, Actiontec B, or Atheros A/B/G? This type of behavior seems to be rare occurance with my T23 that has an Atheros card in it.

[lithium726]

A30 (p) PC133 Bus PIII (1.13, 1.2 Tualatin Core- Same as P4)

I know this is a bit off topic, but this is so glaringly wrong... the Tualatin (P6) and Willamette/Northwood/Prescott (netburst) are so radically different that saying a Tualatin is the same as a P4 is like saying a giraffe and dog are the same thing...

the Tualatin will outperform the P4 at similar clockspeeds, the p4 will take the advantage at higher clocks... this is how the p4 was designed in the first place. the p4 will consume a considerable amount of power compared to a tualatin - load wattage is 35w to 25w of a tually, and idle wattage is something like 20w to 5w. Banias, Dothan and even Yonah are based on tualatin, which has architechtural foundings in the Pentium Pro... Netburst was a complete departure from what intel had done before, and as recent processor advancements at Intel have proven, that little experament didnt work out too well in teh long run...

that said, the tualatin has an archaic bus, no support for SEE2, and is not a good choice at this point in the game. The OP was right in choosing the A31p, even though that one still lacks USB2.

[schen]

Yup, pretty much right on the mark from a technical standpoint, but functionally.... the Tualatin chip runs very well for what it is and does exactly what most people need their machines to do today (web surf, email, spreadsheet and wordprocessing). So, from that standpoint, it generally runs pretty much at or better than the early P4s. So, yeah, giraffes and dogs are both mammals.