A31p upgrade complete

[dwhatfield]

I finally upgraded A31p....found a 2.6 processor, and bumped the memory to 2 gigs. Last month, I swapped out the wireless for an Intel 2200 B/G and put a 100 gig 7200 rpm hard drive in.

As the many posts state...it was smooooooooth. Figured I gained a few more years on the old girl.

Anyone wanna buy a 2.0 P4M? LOL

[djpharoah]

How much for the 2.0?

I would be upgrading an A31.

[underclocker]

Totaly insane. Very nice work.

With USB 2.0 ports, IBM could still sell some of these as current models.

I finally upgraded A31p....found a 2.6 processor, and bumped the memory to 2 gigs. Last month, I swapped out the wireless for an Intel 2200 B/G and put a 100 gig 7200 rpm hard drive in.

As the many posts state...it was smooooooooth. Figured I gained a few more years on the old girl.

Anyone wanna buy a 2.0 P4M? LOL

[schen]

Wow! That would certainly be a NICE unit even in today's market. Like Ed said; add USB 2.0 ports and it's good for some time. That would definitely sell as a good unit in the "desktop replacement" market, but with a size and weight you can still carry.

[k2jsv]

Just wondering, where did you find the processor?

[dwhatfield]

I found a few on Ebay...however, I bought mine from memory4less.com. It was $231.00. They do not have them in stock; rather, they get them from a supplier or something...it was not in a box, have no idea if it was a pull or whatnot.

It was super clean, no residue of thermal compound on it.

And...I guess I am not finished upgrading it yet. I bought a Ultrabay 2000 DVD drive, and a Pioneer DVR-K05 slot load dual layer dvd burner yesterday off of Ebay. These two additions will finish up the upgrading...unless someone figures out how to put USB 2.0 on the board to replace the 1.1 it has....

[Milos]

I found a few on Ebay...however, I bought mine from memory4less.com. It was $231.00. They do not have them in stock; rather, they get them from a supplier or something...it was not in a box, have no idea if it was a pull or whatnot.

Guys, fyi, I looked around a bit when upgrading CPUs on my A31 (in Sep/Oct '06) and found that on ebay a 2.6GHz went for around $200 (since they're the fastest in the family), while you could get a 2.4GHz for $80 and 2.5GHz for $100 (both latest D1 core stepping, though it doesn't matter). Simply bid near the end and bid no more than $100. Be patient and if you don't get the first one, you'll get the next - that's just the level of demand. I got a 2.5GHz proc for $100 that way (first try) and am very happy with it.

On another note, a complaint about 2GB of ram.. When I had 768MB, and ran out of RAM, the computer would start swapping and slow to a crawl so I would know when I need to close a few applications/windows to get it going again. But with 2GB, it never starts swapping since it has no more address space than physical ram (I guess), so I just find that programs crash when they request ram and there isn't enough, or else they give weird errors. I suppose these must be programs that are badly designed, but it's mainstream software.. Outlook, stuff like this. Kind of disappointing. Otherwise maxing the ram is great.. it extended the life of my machine for a couple of years for pretty cheap.

Milos

[dwhatfield]

I looked around a bit when upgrading CPUs on my A31 (in Sep/Oct '06) and found that on ebay a 2.6GHz went for around $200 (since they're the fastest in the family), while you could get a 2.4GHz for $80 and 2.5GHz for $100

I almost went the 2.4 or 2.5 route, but I thought if I could grab a 2.6 reasonably priced, I would...since it is the fastest that I can ever put in it, and they will be harder to come by down the road. I know I doubt I will ever see the difference between a 2.4 and 2.6, but I figured as well that it was a small price to pay, considering the upgrades I have done are the last that will ever be done to this laptop.

[tomh009]

On another note, a complaint about 2GB of ram.. When I had 768MB, and ran out of RAM, the computer would start swapping and slow to a crawl so I would know when I need to close a few applications/windows to get it going again. But with 2GB, it never starts swapping since it has no more address space than physical ram (I guess), so I just find that programs crash when they request ram and there isn't enough, or else they give weird errors. I suppose these must be programs that are badly designed, but it's mainstream software.. Outlook, stuff like this. Kind of disappointing. Otherwise maxing the ram is great.. it extended the life of my machine for a couple of years for pretty cheap.

That shouldn't be it -- Windows gives each app 2 GB of virtual memory, and then manages all the apps' memory requests within the available physical memory. Is it possible that your memory modules have some problems?

You can also increase the virtual memory available to apps to 3 GB by using the /3GB switch in the boot.ini file. See here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pl ... AEmem.mspx

[ramcelroy]

glad see someone else thinks that this is still an awesome computer. I just upgraded my DVD drive to the pioneer DVR-K16 (the poor quality of the M a t s u s h i t a is well documented). I had already bumped the memory and upgraded the HD to 100GB 7200. The interesting thing about upgrading the drive was finding an adapter kit that works with the pioneer. It turns out that the adapter for the cd-rw/dvd model gcc-4160N (Hitachi) p/n 08K9820 works great. Since I have two identical a31p computers does anyone know if you can buy the adapter by itself?

[k2jsv]

After doing a little bit of looking around on eBay I have found a few processors. Most of the are below 2.0 Ghz (already in my machine) but I found a few that are 3Ghz and above. Since they are all P4 mobiles "technically" they should work right?

[k2jsv]

Disregard... those are 533 FSB, my laptop is only 400 FSB

[Milos]

On another note, a complaint about 2GB of ram.. When I had 768MB, and ran out of RAM, the computer would start swapping and slow to a crawl so I would know when I need to close a few applications/windows to get it going again. But with 2GB, it never starts swapping since it has no more address space than physical ram (I guess), so I just find that programs crash when they request ram and there isn't enough, or else they give weird errors. I suppose these must be programs that are badly designed, but it's mainstream software.. Outlook, stuff like this. Kind of disappointing. Otherwise maxing the ram is great.. it extended the life of my machine for a couple of years for pretty cheap.

That shouldn't be it -- Windows gives each app 2 GB of virtual memory, and then manages all the apps' memory requests within the available physical memory. Is it possible that your memory modules have some problems?

You can also increase the virtual memory available to apps to 3 GB by using the /3GB switch in the boot.ini file. See here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pl ... AEmem.mspx

The memory seems ok under all tests.. never had issues. But when near full, I get funny behaviour on occasion as mentioned.

Isn't the total virtual address space 4GB in 32-bit OS (2^32), so that all applications summed together can't have more than that assigned, including all data located in physical ram and in page files? And in Win XP it seems 2GB is the limit for each app, with 2GB for the OS. I don't know this subject though - is this correct?

What is the maximum virtual memory (physical + page file) that *all* apps can take up in XP? Is it 2GB, 3GB, 4GB?

And, since I have 2GB physical ram, is there any reason to use the /3GB switch?

Thanks,

Milos

[k2jsv]

As far as I know it will address the RAM and VRAM separately... You are correct in saying that the maximum addressable space is 4GB for a 32 Bit system. A 64 bit system has virtually unlimited amount of addressing space for memory.