Thinkpads Forum

hey guys long time reader first time poster, i just got a i1480 the 2621-480 one, and was wondering what kind of upgrades could i do to it in terms of processor (i think its got a celeron 460Mhz right now) what about faster ram, i know its got PC66 how about PC100 or PC133. and last the hard drive it comes with a tiny 6GB drive how big can i go how about 20GB. well thanks in advance for the answers.

You should check the hardware maintenance manual (you can find a link to this in the FAQ) for the accuracy of this but I'm pretty sure the iSeries laptops have the CPU permanntly soldiered to the motherboard so your CPU will have to stay. For RAM, since your computer runs a 66mhz bus speed, you'll see no difference if you switch to using PC100 or PC133 RAM. For the hard drive, you should be able to use almost any off the shelf hard drive up to around 100gb.

i looked at the manual and i could not find anything about the cpu, maybe you know of another one, i got the maintenance manual right out of IBM's web site and its got nothing inside about the cpu, but maybe i missed it.

I think it's mounted onto the system board so you'll have to replace the entire system board for a faster chip. However, if you have a Celeron 466 as you claim, then you are already at the top as that's the fastest chip to use the 66mhz bus that was used in laptops if I'm not mistaken.

I'd look at upgrading to a higher amount of RAM and a newer hard drive (at least with 5400rpm) if you really want to see significant boost in speed.

AlphaKilo470 is correct. The CPUs are soldered to the systemboard. Increasing the ram to 256 and adding a faster hard drive are your best possible chances of speeding it up...short of replacing the system board altogether.

For the record though, these systemboards aren't THAT expensive on eBay. I bought one for my i1400 from hammerheadtech for about $50, I think, about 2 years ago.

My boards have a 500MHz processor. I think that they went as high as 700MHz, but I can't remember off the top of my head.

well its already got 196MB of ram, so its been upgraded from what i can tell. maybe a new hard drive would speed it up, how do these systems take to overclocking? does the heat sink handle it or not? the guy i got it from put windows xp on it so its really slow, i just spent the last week cleaning up the malware/tojans and viruses from it, that did speed it up a lot of its still slow, it takes a long time to load things so maybe the hard drive would be a good thing, what do you guys recommend?

Overclocking is not really recommended in a laptop (yes, there are those that disagree), but especially in a laptop that you cannot change out the processor if something went wrong.

dang, ok so i guess i'll just have to leave it be, well thanks for the info guys.

If possible, I'd reccomend a fresh Windows XP install if possible with all the updates and service pack 2 since your computer is fast enough to run that. If not, then just do your best to keep out the junk that's on the current install. Good antivirus software that won't slow your computer too badly (like AVGfree) and a good spyware scanner (like AdAware) will help keep your laptop healthy. Also, depending on your hard drive, it might help to upgrade that. When I got my 400mhz 600E, I put a 4200rpm 20gb Fujitsu drive in it and everything ran fine but when I upgraded to a 5400rpm hard drive, it was almost like having a new computer. I can only imagine what a 7200rpm drive would be like in this machine. Also, with hard drives, it's good to make sure that not only does it spin at 5400rpm but also that it have an 8mb or better buffer size. A 5400rpm hard drive and a fresh install of WinXP would probably have your iSeries laptop running circles around the 400mhz 600E that I use daily.

about the hard drive a found a nice Toshiba 5400rpm, 40Gb 2.5" ata-6 with a 16Mb cache, would that one work( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822149015 )? I'm new to laptops so how do you transfer the data from one to the other, because a on desktop i just use the ribbon cables, how do you do it on a laptop?

For file transfer, I use an external usb enclosure that lets me hook a laptop drive to a desktop through USB. As for that hard drive, that's actually the same exact model I used in my 600E before removing it and putting a Hitachi drive in it's place. That Toshiba drive is a nice model and runs really well and thanks to the 16mb buffer, transfer speed is pretty quick but I eventually removed the drive because the Hitachi drive I had didn't heat up as much. For that Toshiba drive, I'd make sure your laptop is able to sufficiently cool itself before installing.

what program do you use to transfer, i suspect its on a floppy right? also how about this drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822145096
i would rather not have something run hot, i like the hard drives cool. also to transfer the data there is no way to use a desktop computer to do it like i normally do is there?

The Hitachi drive should also run fine in your computer. The drive you have linked, I actually have it's redecessor, the 5k80 (40gb) in my 600E and it runs very coo and very quiet. I would definitley reccomend it without a hitch.

As for software transfer, there really is a number of ways to go about it. I would look into getting a USB 2.5" IDE enclosure so you can plug your laptop's hard rive into the USB port. Another transfer method I use is netowork. Buning CDs on the desktop is also something I do regularly.

what program uses a usb port to transfer everything over because i have not seen anything yet. i mean i want to transfer everything the whole operating system and all that.

If you want to copy the entire drive so you don't have to reinstall OS, you can look around for various drive imaging programs. Nortn Ghost is one of the more popular softwares for that.

If you only want to transfer specific files, you can simply use Windows for that without extra software.