2173-15J x40 hdd and cpu upgrading

[shimojimatto]

Just purchased this laptop used.

Here's the current specs:
x40 2371-15J (I assume the J is for Japan?)

Pentium M (Banias) 1000mhz
20GB Hitachi 1.8 inch IDE interface HDD
1280MB RAM (up from 256 factory spec)
802.11b/g adapter

running windows xp sp2

the maxed out RAM is great, except for the fact that it then takes up another 1.3 gigs of an already small hard drive that has almost 5 gigs stolen by the recovery partition and then another 1.5 gigs of driver files and ibm tools installed by default.

I notice that most of the 1.8inch HDDs out there intended for laptops and not portable music players seem to have a ZIF interface. Does anyone know of a way to adapt a ZIF interface hdd to the standard 2.5 inch IDE interface so I can put a larger drive in this thing? the zif drive seems just small enough to maybe fit some kind of adapter between it and the IDE plug inside the drive bay...

of course a 30 or 40 (or even 60) gig IDE interface 1.8 inch drive would be great. But for some reason they seem very hard to come by (in the US or in Japan). any advice on this? (all i can find are drive upgrades to 40 gigs or so that would cost like $250 to $300...)
another possible solution would be if a PCMCIA card slot drive would be bootable.... any clues to if that is possible? (since i can't think of anything else I'd use the slot for)

Also, if possible I'd like to upgrade the processor to something faster (or possibly just lower voltage) and normally logic would tell me that if they sold the x40 at the same time period as this one with an array of different processor speeds (up to 1.6ghz) that I should just be able to find a processor with the same socket and the same core and it should definately work...

but then i look at the online manual for this thing (http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/p ... 9t5972.pdf) and i see the part numbers for the heatsink and the system board (about page 130) seem to be different for each different processor...

so does that mean i can't upgrade the processor without replacing the whole system board and heatsink?? that doesn't seem like it would make manufacturing or financial sense on IBMs part...

any advice or experience with these types of upgrades?

sorry... lots of questions. lots of typing... and I did search before posting... but this forum just has too many threads that after searching for about 20 minutes I gave up... so sorry if this question has come up before.

[mfbernstein]

Just purchased this laptop used.

Here's the current specs:
x40 2371-15J (I assume the J is for Japan?)

Pentium M (Banias) 1000mhz
20GB Hitachi 1.8 inch IDE interface HDD
1280MB RAM (up from 256 factory spec)
802.11b/g adapter

running windows xp sp2

the maxed out RAM is great, except for the fact that it then takes up another 1.3 gigs of an already small hard drive that has almost 5 gigs stolen by the recovery partition and then another 1.5 gigs of driver files and ibm tools installed by default.

I notice that most of the 1.8inch HDDs out there intended for laptops and not portable music players seem to have a ZIF interface. Does anyone know of a way to adapt a ZIF interface hdd to the standard 2.5 inch IDE interface so I can put a larger drive in this thing? the zif drive seems just small enough to maybe fit some kind of adapter between it and the IDE plug inside the drive bay...

of course a 30 or 40 (or even 60) gig IDE interface 1.8 inch drive would be great. But for some reason they seem very hard to come by (in the US or in Japan). any advice on this? (all i can find are drive upgrades to 40 gigs or so that would cost like $250 to $300...)
another possible solution would be if a PCMCIA card slot drive would be bootable.... any clues to if that is possible? (since i can't think of anything else I'd use the slot for)

Also, if possible I'd like to upgrade the processor to something faster (or possibly just lower voltage) and normally logic would tell me that if they sold the x40 at the same time period as this one with an array of different processor speeds (up to 1.6ghz) that I should just be able to find a processor with the same socket and the same core and it should definately work...

but then i look at the online manual for this thing (http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/p ... 9t5972.pdf) and i see the part numbers for the heatsink and the system board (about page 130) seem to be different for each different processor...

so does that mean i can't upgrade the processor without replacing the whole system board and heatsink?? that doesn't seem like it would make manufacturing or financial sense on IBMs part...

any advice or experience with these types of upgrades?

sorry... lots of questions. lots of typing... and I did search before posting... but this forum just has too many threads that after searching for about 20 minutes I gave up... so sorry if this question has come up before.

The processor is soldered onto the motherboard. Replacing the motherboard is very expensive, unless you find a good deal on eBay (usually somebody who's destroyed their screen).

I don't know of any way to adapt the iPod-style 1.8" drives - there's really not much space inside the X40. Replacement 40GB and 60GB drives by IBM (now Hitachi) are indeed expensive. Ask on the buy-sell forum here, and if you're lucky, somebody may have one for a decent price. The PCMCIA slot is not, to my knowledge, bootable.

If 20GB is almost enough space, I'd create restore CDs from the recovery partition, and delete it. Possibly disable the page file under XP too.

[shimojimatto]

Thanks for the reply.

Good to know about the CPU being soldered... that saves my new laptop a few minutes under my knife. I guess I'll just leave the processor alone then. Its speedy enough for what I need it to do anyway.

I've made a Norton Ghost image of the IBM_SERVICE partition and just installed ubuntu in a small partition i crept inbetween the original windows partition and that recovery partition... and if all goes well with ubuntu and windows living in the same place and all the drivers can be installed ok then I'll probably just delete that service partition and expand the ubuntu partition onto it.

--------

If anyone wanders in here and has a solution for the ZIF to IDE problem please post... otherwise I guess I'll just have to without... or wait till I find a good deal...

I'm guessing that they just don't make 1.8 IDE disks anymore huh? Any idea what kind of interface newer ultra compact laptops are using nowdays?