t30 "makeover" progress

[cparker]

2 gigs of ram installed replacing the original 512mb. No problems at all!

Replaced original 30gb hard drive with new 80gb wd Scorpio "blue". Picked up a knock off ultrabay "caddy" from China for 13 dollars. I wouldn't recommend the knock offs, although I got it to work. The alignment of the IDE connector was a bit off and the drive wouldn't seat. I had to take it apart and wiggle things to get it to work. But it worked!

I used Acronis True Image 7.0 (an old one) to clone the original hard drive. It worked flawlessly. Then, when it was done and the t30 was shut off, I removed the caddy, removed the original hard drive, then put the new one in the bracket that the old one was mounted in, and made a very big mistake. Instead of putting the mounting screws on the side of the bracket, I put them on the bottom of the bracket. This made it impossible to install it correctly as when the drive was put into the slot on the computer, the "locking" screw that secures the installation wouldn't screw in. So I tried to remove the drive but this time the external cover came out without the drive as the retainer clips are supposed to slip onto the screw heads that are supposed to be on the sides of the drive. Now to somehow get the drive out. But it's well seated and doesn't come out. Finally, with the help of fingernails and very careful placement of a screwdriver, I was able to get it loose and finally it came out. I replaced the screws on the sides of the drive/backet and all went well from that point on.

Everything works fine. Well worth the effort. We now have a t30 that's better than new. And we are very happy to have it still in our family for a long time to come.

Total cost was $113 for the "makeover": $50 for 2 gigs of ram (a rebate deal from PNY for 10 dollars back on each 1 gb module combined with a coupon code that gave 10 dollars off any memory purchase over 75 dollars -- the cost was 80 for two modules minus the 30 for rebates/coupon). The drive cost $50 and the caddy cost $13.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and encouragement. I also read the other recent experiences of members here doing similar upgrades, and they were very helpful.

[emeraldgirl08]

Sounds like you're new to disassembly

Don't worry. I was sweating bullets when it came time to do Thermal Compound!

Glad your Hard Drive came out and is still functional!

Enjoy that T30- they are something special

[cparker]

Thank you!!!!

Your posts about your own experiences were very helpful and inspiring. Someday I probably will try my hand with the fan/thermal compound myself. But for now I just want to relax.

Wonder how the thermal compound replacement you did worked. Did it result in lower temperatures?

One thing I hadn't mentioned is that if anyone is going to do this kind of thing it probably would be good for them to have a pozidriv screwdriver. I always thought that small phillips head screwdrivers were all you needed, but I read that for screws in many laptops you needed a pozidriv model, so I picked one up from Amazon a while ago. When I used that screwdriver everything went well. If I tried the phillips...well it didn't really fit and probably could strip the screw heads.

And very glad you decided to keep your t30.

[emeraldgirl08]

I'm just a little sentimental. It being my first laptop and all.

The screen is nice and as bright as it can be. It runs linux very well. The Hitachi Travelstar survived a direct impact on marble floor from four feet- and still works! I love the sturdiness of the keyboard. I could go on and on.

Oh. Lol. My old posts.... Some of them are a little painful to read now

But oh well eh???

[cparker]

Your old posts? They sometimes read like a novel!

Yes, it is a very classy machine. The fact that I can read a maintenance manual and actually replace modules is something new to me on a laptop. The aesthetics and ergonomics make me want to keep it alive and well. We don't use it that much, but every now and then it goes downtown into an office or is used as a spare for a desktop PC that's being worked on. Or I'll turn it on just because it's simply a pleasure to use.

At one point I was going to give up on it, but luckily I discovered what was causing it to overheat -- a bad internet adapter card. It still gets warm, but at least the cpu cycles aren't pinned to 100 % when I'm on the Internet as they were with the bad card.