Thinkpads Forum

I just got handed a iSeries 2611-410 by my boss to upgrade .

I have a spare 40g HD and may have a stick of ram for it (it has 128). Will this take a 40g? And will it even run XP? It's huge

If I'm not mistaken, the i1410 only had a 300mhz Pentium MMX 300mhz; not even a PII. With that, I'd recommend Windows 98SE if the laptop has less than 64mb RAM and Windows 2K pro if it has 64mb or more. As for HD, it should take most modern HDs just so long as you have the latest BIOS but don't hold me accountable for saying that.

I had two of those. 160Mb was the maximum ram. You can run bigger than stock hard drives (but I never did). They will run Windows 2000 very reliably, but very, very, very slowly. ... JD Hurst

W2K can'tbe any worse on an i1410 than on a 133mhz ThinkPad 760E with 64mb RAM.

Thanks for the advice, looks like it might be going to the marketplace

I'm running WIN2K on the i1452 in my sig. It's fine for web browsing, office type stuff, etc. But it feels REALLY slow when you install new software (de-compressing files and so on), or when you do a virus or spyware scan... like 30 minutes on a drive that has only around 2GB of stuff on it.

I'm also running WIN2K on a Dell Inspiron (PII300, 192 MB RAM), with similar (adequate) results.

I think the 2611-410 has only a Pentium 266 MMX but will take 256MB RAM.

AlphaKilo470 wrote:If I'm not mistaken, the i1410 only had a 300mhz Pentium MMX 300mhz; not even a PII. With that, I'd recommend Windows 98SE if the laptop has less than 64mb RAM and Windows 2K pro if it has 64mb or more. As for HD, it should take most modern HDs just so long as you have the latest BIOS but don't hold me accountable for saying that.

I think the MMX CPU ended with the 233Mhz, which is also where the first PIIs started. At any rate, I have an i1400 (2611-420) that I cleaned up and loaded with W2K about 3 years ago. And my experience with it was like most peoples here, it was stable, but slooooow. If I had it to do over again, I'd definitely go with Alex's recommendation and use 98SE. If I remember right I had maxed out the RAM on mine, but it didn't help the speed on W2K much at all. Now I have to decide whether I want to bother with fixing the power plug and replace the KB to fix the Trackpoint.

http://processorfinder.intel.com/detail ... Spec=SL2ZH

http://processorfinder.intel.com/detail ... Spec=SL34N

http://www.kahlon.com/rn5643_IBM_ThinkP ... _1410.html

Well, obviously I was talking out of my a**! Since Lenovo showed those machine to have exactly what Alex said, which is P300MMX. I guess I was thinking that what they did with the 600 Series P200,233MMX, then on the PIIs was the same for other series. Apparently not!

I did run across curiousity though while I was looking that stuff up that maybe you guys can explain. Pretty much everything I could find says the RAM max is 256Mb for the Series, but some of Lenovo's info says there were only 256Mb sticks offered for the PC100 models and that, the PC66 models wouldn't take them. So how do you get to the their stated max? Doesn't that end up being 192Mb with the 64Mb onboard?

schen wrote:I think the MMX CPU ended with the 233Mhz

That's true only for desktop MMX CPUs.

My i1452 has 256MB. There's two memory slots. I got this Thinkpad used (for free ), but I think it came from IBM with one of those slots populated (32 or 64 ??), the other open. So, toss out that 32 or 64, and you can put two 128s in there.

Don't know if you could use two 256s... but there are quite a few computers out there (notebooks as well as desktops) that will take more memory than the manufacturer's "official" specs...

W98SE should perform well on that machine, but there are no new security updates coming. Ever.

Consider an OS that is being developed and can be lightweight. Linux using a smaller desktop manager like xfce.

Or maybe ReactOS. :)

leoblob wrote:My i1452 has 256MB. There's two memory slots. I got this Thinkpad used (for free ), but I think it came from IBM with one of those slots populated (32 or 64 ??), the other open. So, toss out that 32 or 64, and you can put two 128s in there.

The IBM Specs book on the iSeries didn't show an i1452, but everything from i1410 to the i1492 says the same thing. That they either came with 32Mb or 64Mb and they can take up to 256Mb. But like you said, there seems to be a variety of discrepencies. Like the later machines being spec'd for PC100 RAM whereas most (including my i1420) were for PC66, although all are supposed to be on the 66mhz bus. I know I have 2 sticks of PC100 in mine right now and they run fine. Also, I have 2 identical RAM modules in there, but the machine tells me that I have 192Mb, which would mean that I have 96mb modules in there!

schen wrote: Also, I have 2 identical RAM modules in there, but the machine tells me that I have 192Mb, which would mean that I have 96mb modules in there!

Not sure if this applies, but I tried to upgrade the memory on an older HP server, ordered two 256mb sticks, and they only showed up as 192. The reason turned out to be the "newer" sticks used half the number of 16mb chips than the older sticks that had double the number of 8mb chips. The mother board was unable to read the higher density sticks.

Might be your problem....maybe not!

Lenovo's support page says this machine (2611-410) has a P266MMX and came with 32MB RAM in one slot, and each of the two slots can use 128MB.

That agrees with crucial.com's total of 256MB.

XP says it requires a 233MHz CPU, but 300 is recommended.

Your machine CAN run XP, but I agree with the others: You won't like it much.

I handed this machine and power brick back to my boss in a green plastic bag and twist tied the top, I think he got the msg.