Thinkpad Z61e CPU upgrade

[Grapefruit02]

Hello, I'm new to these forums, but I've owned a thinkpad for a number of years now (first R50e, now Z61e).

I've been wondering whether it would be possible to upgrade the Z61e (model 0672-2YG), and upon searchin through these forums, I found that I should technically be able to upgrade from my T2300 processor to a T7600. Could anyone confirm this, as I haven't really messed around with computer hardware before, and I don't want to mess things up >.<

Also, i've heard that there are some faulty "ES" versions on the market - could anyone explain to me what this means?

Thanks in advance.

[ZaZ]

If you're just doing every day stuff like office and internet, upgrading to a faster hard drive is probably a better use of your money if you've not done so already. Things like office and internet don't really push the CPU enough to where you will notice a difference, but the faster drive does make things a bit more peppy. I've not done so on a Z, but the CPU upgrade shouldn't be too difficult. Lenovo has videos on their support and training website showing how to complete each step of the process. While the Z61e is not on the site, the Z60m is. I would think it's quite similar to the Z61e.

Engineering Sample

[Grapefruit02]

Thanks for the reply - I didn't know that lenovo had video walkthroughs as well as their hardware maintenance manuals, so that's a great help.

And I enjoy playing games frome time to time, so I assumed that it'd be better to upgrade the processor rather than the hard drive. I also run the BOINC client to help with some grid computing projects, and that eats up any spare processing power so a better processor would help that too.

Do you know of any good hard drive vendors?

[ZaZ]

There definitely are some things like coding video where the faster CPU will have some benefits, but for every day stuff the hard drive is usually the better upgrade. If you're looking for a CPU upgrade, I'd look at the T7400 or T7200. You'll get the benefit of the extra L2, but not pay a large premium for a little extra oomph. Since the T7600 is the fastest Merom CPU, it commands a premium over other CPUs. Look on eBay and you'll see what I mean.

It's been a while since I've been to London and I definitely wasn't looking at hard drives. I'm not really in a position to help on that one. The best mechanical drive right now is the Seagate 7200.4. It comes in 250 and 500GB sizes. SSDs are another option. They are extremely fast, but offer limited capacity and are expensive per GB. I suspect like the T and the R series, the Z limits the throughput on the SATA controller to 150mbs as a power saving measure. You won't be able to use the fastest drives like the Intel X25-M to its full potential.

[Grapefruit02]

I've looked around a bit, and you're right about the premium for the top of the range Merom - it's a good £70 more, which is ridiculous for such a small increase in processor speed. I think that I may get a T7400 or T7200, and with the extra money that would have been used to pay the premium, will buy a new HDD.

As for throughput - with research, I found that my system is a "Napa" platform, and that the throughput in this is limited by the chipset, so I wouldn't be able to use faster drives to their full potential whatever =P

What is the main difference between the Seagate Momentus 7200.3 and 7200.4? I've found them on sale, they seem to be fairly similar, with the only difference being a 0.15mm difference in height, and a 0.15mm difference in width. The price difference is some £0.60, but it seems most places are sold out of the 7200.4, whilst the 7200.3 is abundant in most online stores.
Also, is worth getting G-Force Protection with the hard drive?

[ZaZ]

The 7200.4 is hard to find. They've been sort of been trickling out. The 7200.4 offers better throughput, but it's the seek times which will make the drive seem faster. There they should be fairly similar. Unless you're doing stuff with a lot of throughput or need the extra space, the 7200.3 is still a very good drive. If you do get a Seagate drive, you can get a free download of DiscWizard from Seagate. It's a limited version of True Image, a very good imaging tool. I like to use it in place of Rescue and Recovery. Do a clean install and make an image, which you can put back at any time. Then put the data on a separate partition. Your ThinkPad already has hard drive protection. I wouldn't pay extra for it.