2GB DDR PC2700 333MHz SODIMM in IBM X40

[Gin'n'Tonic]

Hi Guys

This will seem like a very noobie question. I have recently upgraded my IBM X40 with an SSD drive and it is going great. I have read previously that the motherboard has a limit of 1.5Gb of Ram but searching the web tonight I found this;

http://www.qtmemory.com/nt/2gb-ddr-pc27 ... odimm.html

I was wondering if anyone had any luck overcoming this limitation? Is there any BIOS hack or anything that can be done?

I would eventually like to move to Windows 7 and figured the extra RAM would help truckloads.

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

G'n'T.

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

Two pretty big problems here:

A) There are no laptop PC2700 2GB DIMMS available that I'm aware of.

B) No BIOS hack is available to address this issue even theoretically.

Depending on the sub-model, X4x series have either 256MB or 512MB soldered to the board and only one slot open....

I'd also advise against running W7 on this machine, the lack of proper graphic driver will cause issues in various segments of its operation.

[Tasurinchi]

Welcome to the forum!

Well, I'm surprised to see that there are 2GB DDR RAM sticks (provided that the information of that site is true, I'm not familiar with the seller). If the specs are correct it seems it should work, however I have two comments to do:

1- It's a DDR PC2700 stick instead of the PC3200 that X40's support, if it runs it will be slightly slower, but probably unnoticeable (Doh! )
2- The price is very high, with $130 you could probably upgrade to a X6 series

My 2 cents...

[RealBlackStuff]

They even claim to have a 4GB PC2700 SODIMM: http://www.qtmemory.com/nt/hypermediar- ... odimm.html

The X40 supports PC2100 and PC2700 and probably PC3200 at PC2700 speed.

[Gin'n'Tonic]

Thanks for the replies and welcomes everyone. I have sent the seller an email to get the RAM verified and to also find out if it is ECC or Non-ECC. Will wait to hear back on their response.

@Tasurinchi - True about the pricing of the RAM but I do love my little X40. Goes on most of my travels with me now and with the SSD drive in it, its a great little notebook. Would love to be able to give it a little extra grunt. Never thought of 'upgrading' to an X6 series I must admin. Enjoy my X40 too much.

@ajkula66 - The model I have does have the 512Mb on the motherboard and I currently have another 512MB in it as well. Runs XP fine for what I need (basic web browsing, emails, reading docs, etc). Viewing holiday pics sometimes can be a bit slow. I have read on previous postings some people mentioning that they were able to get Win7 running fine on these. Is this not the case?

G'n'T

[ajkula66]

It all depends on what one views as acceptable performance...

I've seen people run W7 on T23.

When Vista first came out, eBay was filled with A31s and T30s loaded with it, at premium prices...

Will that type of a setup run? Yes.

How well? Like a three-legged dog in my opinion, possibly worse.

The same applies to W7 on X40.

The Intel integrated graphics in X40 are really pretty dated, and anything after XP is not supported, and with a good reason...

These machines make great Linux boxes IMHO.

[Tasurinchi]

@Tasurinchi - True about the pricing of the RAM but I do love my little X40

Don't get me wrong, I'm also very fond of the X4 series, but for Win7 their power will be on the limit, I've lent some years ago one of my X40 to a good friend of mine and he managed to install Win7, but the practical usability was limited to Internet and emailing only. This X40 was maxed out to 1.5MB RAM and a new ZIF hard drive.

These machines make great Linux boxes IMHO.

+1 here

I've used several Mint and Ubuntu distros with my X4's and they run great! I did an installation of the latest Lubuntu version on the same X40 discussed above (my friend gave it back to me) and it runs like a champ!

[Gin'n'Tonic]

Hey Guys

Thanks so much for the updated info. Will definitely have a look at the Mint and Ubuntu distros. I don't need anything as far as smashing performance goes. It will be mainly web browsing and emails.

However thinking about it further, it would also be good to view photos and videos off my camera while on holiday, so perhaps I do need to look at a distro which will help me there. The videos are in .mov format, so I will need to find a distro with some sort of native package that can handle these types of files as well. More research to come I can see.

Thanks heaps guys.

G'n'T

[Tasurinchi]

In that case I would tend to recommend Linux Mint, which installs by default a bunch of multimedia codecs

[twistero]

The only way to see whether you're satisfied with the performance of Windows 7 on your X40 is to see it yourself.
I used to have a Fujitsu Stylistic ST5011D slate tablet, whose specifications are comparable to the X40: Pentium M 1.1Ghz and Intel 855GM. I had 1.5 GB RAM in it, and Windows 7 + OneNote 2010 ran with quite acceptable speeds. It will choke on handwriting recognition, or with many tabs open in Firefox, but as a note taker it's definitely usable. The machine is now with my parents.