T40 Upgrades?

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murray1 · #1 Post by **murray1** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 3:52 pm

I own a T40. It has the 1.3 banias processor. I believe it is the 40 gb hard drive says 37.2 when you click on c drive. I have also bumped up the ram to 1.25 gigs, 1 pc2700 gig and 1 pc2100 256. I was just wondering what would be best to upgrade on it so that it runs faster. Also for hard drive and processor what are the best bang for the buck.

#2 Post by **tomh009** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 4:08 pm

All depends on what you do with your T40, but in most cases a nice 7200 rpm disk (e.g. Hitachi 7K100) will make a much bigger difference than bumping the CPU.

Do you run a lot of applications that max out the CPU?

murray1 · #3 Post by **murray1** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:25 pm

According to task manager I do easily max out my CPU. Especially when I start up, I use norton and with it and windows updates and svchost i am often stuck waiting for a few minutes untill computer can work on other things. When I do scans I also have to pretty much walk away or else is too slow and internet often freezes.

murray1 · #4 Post by **murray1** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 7:19 pm

I ran hd tach and my results were random acces:17.5 ms, cpu utilization:4%, average read:28.8 MB/s, burst speed:92.8 MB/s

How good/bad are these values? If I upgrade my hard drive how much of a difference would I notice? And doing what kind of things do you notice the difference from a faster hard drive the most?

I mainly use my computer for internet/programs for university. Am in engineering and use it for some c++ programming and possibly some design programs in the future.

#5 Post by **tomh009** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:34 pm

Which HD model is it? Device Manager will tell you the exact model number.

Unfortunately the evil svchost (Windows updates) will suck dry any CPU you care to throw at it. But on the other hand you may be able to find a 1.7 GHz Banias quite inexpensively, and if you do, that can still be money well spent.

But most likely the disk will make the biggest difference. You will see big improvements in startup, starting applications, reading/writing large files (photos etc). A greatly improved computing experience overall!

murray1 · #6 Post by **murray1** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:04 pm

It is a HTS541040G9AT00 according to device manager.

I don't know too much about hard drives, what kinds of things do you look for when purchasing one? Are there any restrictions on my computer to how big or fast etc?

#7 Post by **tomh009** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:12 pm

That's a Hitachi 5K100. Not the slowest drive out there, but you can still improve a lot.

You need a 2.5" PATA (or ATA, which is the same thing) drive. The largest ones are 160 GB, but those only come in 5400 rpm. The drive of choice on these forums is generally the Hitachi 7K100, which is the fastest 7200 rpm drive currently available, as well as being quiet and modest power consumption. You can find it at newegg.com or any other number of online or local retailers. Just don't buy the E7K100, which is the version designed for blade servers!

#8 Post by **tomh009** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:17 pm

Sorry, just noticed that you are in Canada ... TigerDirect has them for C$159:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... CatId=2680

Insight says $129, but has no stock:
http://www.insight.ca/apps/productprese ... =HT3998834

murray1 · #9 Post by **murray1** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 11:36 am

Ok, so it sounds like I should get a hard drvie like one of those. If I was to do this what has to be done to swap the old one for the new one?

How do you get all your old information onto your new one? I am pretty good at working with things so unless it takes some kind of fancy equipment I don't have, I think I could do it myself.

I quickly tried to search for this info but I never can find what I want in forums.

#10 Post by **tomh009** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 6:09 pm

Normally the thing to do is to clone the old drive to the new one, unless you want to do a fresh Windows install anyway. You can use Ghost if you have it, or download a trial copy of Acronis TrueImage. Both will resize your current disk partitions to the new disk size.

But the tricky thing is that the T40 and T41 use IBM's old HPA technology for the recovery area, and since it's not a proper partition, it won't get cloned by either Acronis or Ghost.

The simplest way to do it is probably to get an external USB 2.0 disk housing (about C$20 for an inexpensive one -- and you can, after you finish your upgrade, use it with your old disk). Follow the directions in this thread to get the HPA area copied over to the new disk:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=13814

Some more detailed info here:
http://www-csl.csres.utexas.edu/users/b ... epaper.pdf

You should then be able to use either Acronis, or even simpler, XXClone, to copy your Windows partition over. XXClone is here:
http://xxclone.com/index.htm

After this, power off, swap the original disk with the one in the USB housing, and you should be off to the races. The good thing here is that your old disk continues to be operational -- if, for some reason, your new disk is not bootable, simply swap the old one back for the time being.

Caveat: I have never done a disk upgrade on a T40/T41 myself. Hopefully someone else in the T4x forum can confirm my instructions ...

murray1 · #11 Post by **murray1** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 7:21 pm

Thanks a lot for your help, ill wait and hopefully a couple more people confirm that and I can also do a little bit of research on the web.

marvel · #12 Post by **marvel** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 4:22 pm

Cheers!

What kind of Dothan can I use to a T40p? Only ones with 400 mhz fsb? Thinking of getting a INTEL PENTIUM M 760 (SL7SM) 2.0 GHz DOTHAN of the bay.

bigwormie · #13 Post by **bigwormie** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 8:13 pm

You would do well with a chip manufactured in 2003 rather than 2004. I just went from 1.5 banias to 2.0 dothan pentium 755 with no issues. Some of the 2004+ chips have an issue in t4x machines because they are some times not in the most recent controller 2004 release.

Better to get a 1.8 or 2.0 dothan released in 2003.

T40 Upgrades?

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