X61 upgrade

[hallohallohallo]

Hi.

It´s my first post here. Although I have been lurking around for tips and info. Now I´m thinking about upgrading and I was hoping for some advice. I don´t see any point in replacing my X61 - love this computer.

I want to upgrade to a SSD disk and to add Ram(currently 3GB) and if I´m not mistaken. I need a new Bios in order for the computer to support the 64 bit. I see many recommending Middleton Bios so I guess that´s a good choice.

So I suppose that is the first step - to install the new bios from an iso file. But from there on how much ram is it advisable to add? And won´t these changes mount to any system problems... Does anybody here got experience with this kind of changes - any help would be great.

What do i have to keep in mind concerning specs when I select an SSD disk for my X61?

Thanks!

[wolfman]

Hello, welcome to the forum.

I've previously had an X61, very nice little machine. I didn't need to upgrade the BIOS to run 8GB of RAM in that machine. 8gb was the maximum RAM the machine would take. I had an Intel X25-M SSD in the machine and it was a very good performer for the time. If I'm not mistaken, you can go with pretty much any SSD you want as the X61 supports fill size, 9.5mm drives. You will be limited by the SATA 1 speed (a BIOS update may help get that to SATA II speed, but please look into Middleton BIOS to confirm - you can find details on Middleton BIOS searching here).

You'll want to install a 64 bit OS to fully utilize the RAM if you upgrade to 8gb. But do make sure you actually need the RAM as the DDR2 RAM is pretty salty right now compared to DDR3. Good luck.

[Tasurinchi]

Welcome to the forum!

As Wolfman said, you don't need to install Middleton's BIOS for RAM upgrade but to fully use SATA-II speeds. You don't have to buy 8GB RAM for a 64bits OS either, 4 GB could be enough, unless you need to use software that really needs lots of RAM.

One of my X61s has a 64bits Linux Mint 12 using 4GB RAM and it works like a champ!

[hallohallohallo]

Thanks!

Now I´m just waiting for a new shipment of crucialM4 128gb to hit the shore and I´m good to go. I´ll upgrade the ram to 4gb - I suppose that´s enough.

I think I´ll skip Windows for the first time in my life. I have been reading a lot of positive things about Ubuntu. Should I expect any problems switching, any tweaks that I should expect?
Thanks again,

[Tasurinchi]

Should I expect any problems switching, any tweaks that I should expect?

Well, that will heavily depend on you. Ubuntu is quite different to Windows so it's a matter of how fast you can/want to adapt. In worst case you can always go back to Windows

[hallohallohallo]

Well... that´s the thing. I really want to adapt. I´m 26 years old and I might have 50-60 years of computing ahead of me. That said I´d rather adapt then keep being frustrated with Windows the rest of my life.

[Tasurinchi]

That's the spirit!

Have fun experimenting Linux, I'd recommend you to go the home page of Ubuntu in this case and have starting to look there, IIRC there were some screenshots and introduction videos.

[ZaZ]

Should I expect any problems switching, any tweaks that I should expect?

I've been running Ubuntu on my R60e. Due to the lower overhead of Linux compared to Windows and the Intel SSD, it flies. I didn't tweak anything and because of the snappiness, it often feels like my fastest machine, though it has nowhere near the processing power of my other PCs.