Is it time for me to change my T43 notebook to a new one???

[elazarus]

Hi,

If my IBM T-43 notebook which is almost 4 years old with a Intel Pentium M 1.86GHz, 1.5mb RAM, seems like it is slower than ever is it time to change?

I have pared down the hard drive, Cleaned all Temp, Cookies, spyware, lube, oil and filter. Updated all things IBM and drivers...Yet, when I take the laptop out to travel on business it just seems slow, slower...slow...

I know it will never be as fast as my desktop....but how do I determine if the time has come to change notebooks?

Thank you

Elliot

[aaa]

Reformat. The simple solution, and it *will* be faster (as fast as it was when you first got it, in fact )

The idea is, you're going to reinstall all your programs anyways either way you go (reformatting vs buying).

Ah, and there's the "get a faster hard drive" option as well.

[USSS]

Consider adding another 512MB RAM. It's cheap, and it sure won't hurt your system's responsiveness.

[elazarus]

Thank you for replying so fast.

I do not have the Original IBM disks with Windows XP Pro. So I would be hard pressed to re-format unless there is a way on the IBM Think Pad programs.

So a change of HD hardware without the Windows Software disk may be tough.

Any thoughts?

Thank you

Elliot

[sjthinkpader]

Reformat. The simple solution, and it *will* be faster (as fast as it was when you first got it, in fact )

....

I vote for that too.

It seems Microsoft has no incentive to have the OS cleanse itself of old junk. Then user simply go for a new machine. Everybody has more business and happy.

Consider adding another 512MB RAM. It's cheap, and it sure won't hurt your system's responsiveness.

Go for the max, 2GB. PC2-5300 RAM are dirt cheap.

Thank you for replying so fast.

I do not have the Original IBM disks with Windows XP Pro. So I would be hard pressed to re-format unless there is a way on the IBM Think Pad programs.
...

Don't you have the recovery partition on the drive? Clone a new drive then rebuild the new drive from the recovery partition.

[elazarus]

Ahhhh, that was the word I was looking for.....Last year I did a recovery from the Partition........so I know the computer is clean but it does not seem to be as fast as it should be.

Regards

Elliot

[ajkula66]

I don't know what applications you run on your laptop, but T43 is more than sufficient for most people as a "daily driver".

Reformat. Yes. Start clean. If you need restore disks I can burn you a set.

New HDD, preferably 7200rpm or a very large 5400rpm, like 250Gb WD.

Eliminate the bloat and choke from XP once you re-install it, run it in "classic" mode and you'll fall in love with your T43 once again.

[Robbyrobot]

If my IBM T-43 notebook which is almost 4 years old with a Intel Pentium M 1.86GHz, 1.5mb RAM, seems like it is slower than ever is it time to change?

Definitely old, useless junk... send it to me and I'll dispose of it for you. I'll even pay the shipping costs - you see, I'm very altruistic

P.S. The other comments are more serious...

[yak]

Is it slow if you're running on AC power with a "High System Performance" power scheme?

Keep in mind that some power schemes clock down the CPU when running on battery to make your notebook run longer without charging.

[EvilH]

I agree with the clean install of XP, maybe a faster hard disc and more ram. If you don't like that I will certainly buy it from you

[exTPfan]

Don't "upgrade" unless you have a good reason. The corresponding T61 is thicker, uglier, and has a worse keyboard (unless you want windows keys). Moreover, you might not find it much faster.

If, however, you have money that you wish to get rid of, there are probably people on this forum who can help.

[SteveS]

Are you running Client Security Solution by any chance?

I have had two experience with CSS software on my many T43s, and have came to the conclusion that it really slows the machine down. I installed and activated it to get access to the fingerprint password manager. While this is a nice feature, it is only available when running all the other baggage that comes with CSS. While I don’t have positive proof, the two times I installed and ran this, in two different T43 computers, I noticed them getting slower and slower and slower. Even waking up from stand by mode was requiring an ever increasing amount of time. In one case, I ended up reformatting and totally rebuilding the drive. After installing all the applications I had before except CSS, the machine ran much faster, and continues to do so today.

Now I suppose that the PC may have been infected with a virus or spyware that McAfee did not catch, and the process of rebuilding the drive eliminated it. But yet, I did have this same experience twice. I have not let CSS get close to my hard drive ever since.

[agarza]

If you don't have the recovery disks, doesn't matter, you can find a folder on your C drive called i386, that folder contains all the installation files for Windows XP, you'll have to burn all those files with Nero as a Boot CD, adding a .bin file that makes it bootable, a Google search will yield you the solution.

I'd say stick with your T43 until it completely fails on you, I bought a T42p on 2006 for about 900USD (in Mexico where I live) and I completely fall in love with it, much faster than my old T30.
Simply upgrade the HDD to a 7200 drive, reformat Windows the way I posted above, and install only the software you use, IMO most of IBM software that comes preloaded on their system is useless and drain your system RAM. Id say 1GB or RAM is enough if you follow the above route.

And another reason not to upgrade to the T60 series is that Vista sucks, IMO i wll buy my next Thinkpad if it comes with the new Vienna Windows which I hope is far more simple and functional, not having the eye candy look of Vista, which is useless. Stick with XP

[elazarus]

Thank you all for your great input.

I deleted some programs, ran "Defraggler from CCleaner", Freed up space and I think it is better.

Should I delete all the IBM Thinkpad Bloatware? Access IBM and all that stuff that probably runs in the background?

Would upgrading the HDD from 5400 to 7200 make that much of a difference since this is my travel machine and it is used for checking e-mail and using IE/FF for work when I am on the road.

Regards

Elliot

[ArtShapiro]

I'll offer the opinion that 1.5 Gigs oughta be enough for most reasonable uses. I wouldn't expect going to the full 2 gigs to result in any overall perception of a generally faster machine.

It's always useful to look at the startup programs using MSCONFIG and to zap some of the silly garbage like the Quick Time updater and Adobe updater; there's no reason those should be in the mix all the time.

Art

[EvilH]

I also recommend using Process Explorer and Autoruns from Sysinternals. Autoruns will tell you all sorts of information about what is being ran at boot, from drivers, to services and programs and allows you to search google for unknown ones, delete the entries or turn them off. Process Explorer shows you what is running on the computer and consuming resources in real time. Both extremely handy.

[bill bolton]

My advice is that YOU DO NOT SPEND ANY MONEY on upgrades etc for a 4 year old machine, it just doesn't make any real sense to do that. Save your $$$ for a new ThinkPad!

A reinstall of XP is probably a good move and just load it with the minimal set of software that you actually need to use, and it should be good for a while yet as a travel system.

Cheers,

Bill B.