best hard drive and memory?

[thinkpad1]

Sorry, I know the topic of hard drives has been done a lot and there's other posts but I wanted to separate a bit from the tangents towards what to do with T43s. The reason is I just wanted to know what PATA hard drive is preferred between the Samsung HM160HC and the Western Digital WD3200BEVE. I believe the WD does the best in benchmarks although not by much. I've read that you have to create more partitions or at least one with the WD. All this is assuming I have no issue with the 48-bit LBA.

Also, I had the impression the Samsung drive might do better in the way of less power consumption and heat. Not sure about that but perhaps?

I'm leaning towards the Samsung since it's about the same price per gigabyte but overall, it's around $50 and the WD is about $100 so I only spend $50.

As for the notebook memory, I am not sure if it matters whether you stay with brand names. I think my main choices are Corsair and Kingston, both these are Value Ram. Other than that, I'd have to look on ebay. The ones I just mentioned (i.e. Value Ram) is from online vendors. I looked at the 'MarketPlace' section here but couldn't find very many 'for sale' posts for memory. I'd like to get a 1GB stick, maybe two. Currently, I have two 512 sticks and I think I would like to optimize the memory ('might as well). I'd like to sell the 512 sticks for cheap before NO ONE wants them. Which one should I get? Someone on ebay informed me he sells generic RAM, AUM and TA? I think I'd like to stick with Corsair or Kingston even if it's $20 more. What do you think?

Lastly, I have a sticky keyboard. Would that bother anyone? It kinda irritates me a little but not sure I should replace it. I think I might buy a spare one though in case it gets worse. A few keys stick. I got ripped off by the guy who sold me the keyboard and also the upgraded HDD in my Thinkpad. The current HDD is among the SLOWEST PATA drives, 4200 rpm, Seagate 120GB. I suppose one could live with it but I have read more than once here, that the Hard Drive is among the best components to upgrade and the memory also being mentioned.

[ajkula66]

I've had Samsung 160GB drives in several machines, and was very pleased with them, and personally prefer them to WD unless size is the most important factor.

As for the RAM, I've had debatable experiences with "value RAM" versions from the famous manufacturers, and AFAIK I'm not the only one. My personal preference would be Elpida with heatsinks, but any standard Hynix, Samsung, Micron or Moses Vitalic would likely do as well. Going rate would be around $30-35 for a 1GB stick.

My experiences only.

Hope this helps.

[thinkpad1]

I've had Samsung 160GB drives in several machines, and was very pleased with them, and personally prefer them to WD unless size is the most important factor.

As for the RAM, I've had debatable experiences with "value RAM" versions from the famous manufacturers, and AFAIK I'm not the only one. My personal preference would be Elpida with heatsinks, but any standard Hynix, Samsung, Micron or Moses Vitalic would likely do as well. Going rate would be around $30-35 for a 1GB stick.

My experiences only.

Hope this helps.

Yes, that helps a lot! Very quick reply, too! Yeah, for my Thinkpad, 160 GB might be enough and the Samsung is a good drive so I might budget $50 for the HD.

I am not sure where to get Elpida... Are they available on ebay or someplace that would ship to Canada?

The ones in my Thinkpad right now, is one stick of Hynix and one Epida but they are 512 sticks.

[ajkula66]

I've seen (and bought) Elpida DIMMs on eBay in the past, but as with everything else there, it's a hit or miss. Patience usually pays off...

[thinkpad1]

I found hynix ones but the sellers want around $40 a stick. Maybe that is okay if Value Ram sticks are going for over $50 from vendors?

[rkawakami]

<snip>... but any standard Hynix, Samsung, Micron or Moses Vitalic would likely do as well.

That's "Mosel Vitelic". A merger of two companies named "Vitelic" and "Mosel" (what else ). I used to work for them. For 23 1/2 years. Don't expect to get any factory support as the doors closed this past February. My understanding is that the parent corporation, ProMOS, is still in business but possibly not for long. Rumors are that it may be absorbed into the newly formed Taiwan Memory Co.

If you stick with any of the major players, even the defunct ones like MV or Infineon, chances are good that the memory will outlive the laptop.

[georgelam]

Hard drive I am also using the Samsung HM160HC in a T41 and a T42 and absolutely love them. You should be aware, however, that some people have reported issues with them. For instance, see the thread "T41: Which HDD to buy? .. and Samsung HM160HC issues."

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... it=hm160hc

Sometimes you would hear a 'super click' from the drive when it parks after some inactivity, but there are easy fixes for it. But the bottom line is, if you don't think you'll ever come close to using more than 160GB, then by all means go for the Samsung drive.

Memory I thought you have a T43, but reading your post again I realized that's not the case. Anyway I usually buy my memory from reputable online vendors when there's rebates going on since that tends to be cheaper.

Keyboard You can try to find a keyboard here or look for one on eBay. Just make sure you get the right one though - the 14" and 15" T4x's have different keyboards and they are non-interchangeable. From what I have read here, the Thai-made NMB keyboards are kind of the Holy Grail of this series of ThinkPads, but I don't know very much about this. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can chime in?

[sjthinkpader]

...
That's "Mosel Vitelic". A merger of two companies named "Vitelic" and "Mosel" (what else ). I used to work for them. For 23 1/2 years. Don't expect to get any factory support as the doors closed this past February. My understanding is that the parent corporation, ProMOS, is still in business but possibly not for long. Rumors are that it may be absorbed into the newly formed Taiwan Memory Co.

If you stick with any of the major players, even the defunct ones like MV or Infineon, chances are good that the memory will outlive the laptop.

Sorry to hear that.

Infineon became Qimonda and now in receivership also. A friend was let go there after chapter 11. Powerchip's production goes to Elpida and other brands such as Corsair, Kingston etc. Nanya is losing money but they have strong parent backing from Formosa Plastics. With 32 bit OS stuck at 2GB limit even for Windows7, the world is still glutted with DRAM.

...But the bottom line is, if you don't think you'll ever come close to using more than 160GB, then by all means go for the Samsung drive.
...

Go for a larger drive whether you need the space or not just for the speed. A 320GB is twice as fast as a 160GB at the same rotational speed due to doubling of the areal density. A 7200rpm drive is only 33% faster than a 5400rpm drive of the same capacity.

[georgelam]

Go for a larger drive whether you need the space or not just for the speed. A 320GB is twice as fast as a 160GB at the same rotational speed due to doubling of the areal density.

The WD3200BEVE has a double platter design, 160GB on each platter. So this would be true if the HM160HC were also a double platter drive, but in fact all 160GB of it is on a single platter, so the two drives actually have the same areal density. I did a quick search and found some HDTune benchmark results for them:

WD3200BEVE: http://tweakers.net/ext/i/productsurvey/12349/10112.png
HM160HC: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=264209

You can see that the read speeds of both drives top out at the mid-60 MB/s and averages just over 50 MB/s. The WD2500BEVE is a bigger drive, but with 125GB on each platter, it is actually slower than the Samsung:

http://p7.p.pixnet.net/albums/userpics/ ... 056c3a.jpg

I think the single platter design of the HM160HC is part of the reason why it is supposed to be quieter and consumes less power, but I personally haven't noticed any differences when compared to some of the other (non SSD, of course) drives I have.

[sjthinkpader]

Yes, in that case it would be a nice small capacity drive.

I have a single platter 1.8 inch Samsung 80GB 4200rpm and it is faster than the two platter 80GB 5400rpm drive.

Larger drives still have some advantage since the average seek for same capacity usage will be shorter than a smaller drive but that only become prominent after the drive become full.

[sojourner]

Just wanted to comment on the WD 320GB. I have a few of them and although the 320GB capacity is nice the excessively loud clicking and overly agressive head parking scheme (which causes the drive to click) drives me NUTS

Found a way to circumvent this in XP but the drive runs continuously and about 5degC hotter.

Also own many 250GB WD HDDs and they are the nicest between the two. They're FAST, quiet and reliable.

[Tsuioku]

I would advise on Samsung as well... I have had 4/5 WD drives die on me so I avoid them now (although those were 3.5").

If you plan on buying anything from Newegg.ca, they have a pretty good price for a 2GB stick of Kingston HyperX PC2-4200 for $31 which I hear are pretty good (fellow forumers feel free to provide additional comments)... the $10 shipping kinda kills it though if you don't buy anything else.

That's "Mosel Vitelic". A merger of two companies named "Vitelic" and "Mosel" (what else ). I used to work for them. For 23 1/2 years.

Seeing that you're from the industry, what is your view on the prospect of DRAM prices increasing for the next year? Sorry for threadjacking but just thought this information would be useful to the OP as well in case he decides to take RAM buying slowly. In the past month, I've noticed DDR2 RAM prices increasing by as much as 40%!

[rkawakami]

Seeing that you're from the industry, what is your view on the prospect of DRAM prices increasing for the next year?

I'm still sort of in the industry (the company that I'm now at does not design or manufacture DRAM) but I was never all that close to the marketing department. That said, I personally think that the prices for commodity DRAM, currently that mostly means DDR2, will probably remain stable for the time being and then start falling again when the Taiwanese DRAM industry shake-up finally settles out.

[OMNIBUS]

i red all post of this thread...but at last i didn't understand (maybe for my ignorance) if the WD3200BEVE of Western Digital is compatible with a T43?
just because i know that i could have many rocognizement problem with NON ibm/lenovo hd options!
so my question is :
can i buy a Wd3200BEVE without 2010 hd bios error on my T43 or other problems?
every software will work fine? (such as thinkvantage active protection system, system migration and all other thinkvantage applications)
i don't care about little difference about the data access time ...i care that the hd will work fine with all software and applications, that i don't have trouble or problems with bios that doesn't recognize it, that it will not die after few mounths, that will not become hot, that will not have a high electrical consumtion.
my T43 is 2668-KTU and 1871-CTO
can somebody help me to solve this problem and to let me to buy an 320 hd with the condition explained before at a reasonable price? (i found WD3200BEVE for 70€ (100$)+12€ship(17$)
thankyou to all

[ajkula66]

ANY WD drive will throw the boot error on a T43/p and R52, as will Samsung and most Seagates.

The last drives produced that would not trigger the error were Fujitsu MHV2100AH and 2120AH which were 100GB/5400rpm and 120GB/5400rpm respectively.

[sjthinkpader]

We upgraded a recently purchased X200s to SSD. The 160GB HDD removed was a WD drive. Of course it is a SATA drive, but they are now qualified in Thinkpads. It was a blue version similar to WD1600BEVE you can buy in stores.

.....I personally think that the prices for commodity DRAM, currently that mostly means DDR2, will probably remain stable for the time being and then start falling again when the Taiwanese DRAM industry shake-up finally settles out.

I agree with Ray that there are little drivers for prices going up. Volume of WW PCs are not going up. New Win7 (32bit) is still stuck at 2GB limit. More volume are shifting to lower tier units such as netbooks. I met our pilot yesterday on ONT-SJC flight. He just switched from a Toshiba to Acer netbook bought at Walmart.

Although there are no major wafer production capacity increase this year, there should be still die shrink happening and production should still edge up. Samsung had not invested in wafer fabs this year where they had invested in all major downturns in the past. Major producers are trying to shift production to NAND Flash. But the WW demand is still not increasing upward rapidly enough even for flash. I just bought a 32GB SD and my DSLR already had 4 2-4GB cards. There are producers such as Qimonda, Elpida, PSC that has no NAND to shift to. Especially Qimonda will try to produce DDR2 to raise money.

DDR3 are still demanding premium, just bought a 2GB for $50. But these will drop in price gradually.

[Kaervak]

I'm running two 1GB DDR2 modules made by Kingston PC5300 IIRC. They're their ValueRam line and they've been in here for nearly three months without issue. My opinion, RAM is RAM. I bought them as opened returns from MicroCenter. Ram memtest on them and they both passed. Ultra high quality memory for overclocking or crazy performance isn't really needed for laptops. Just buy whatever brand that has an acceptable price tag to you.

Forgot to mention, it's a T43.

[OMNIBUS]

thankyou aikula for the clear as bad news! so i'm comdanned to get at max 100 or 120 gb hd?! or i have to get the annoying beeps and allert on boot?!i did not update the bios maybe that could accept the drives if i don't do it?
i have some hitachi travelstar 160gb of other ibm model, even them could give the 2010 error? even if they are for ibm ?
the memory end is that the T43 can accept max 2 x 1gb 5300 any brand stick? or i misunderstanding it too?
thankyou

[Tsuioku]

Don't know my IBM FRUs but as long as the Hitachi is PATA and an actual IBM FRU, it should be ok.

I'm running the latest BIOS (v1.29) and there is a setting to continue booting after the 2010 Error screen. The laptop will still pause and beep (unless you set it on mute prior to shutting down) but you no longer have to press a key to continue booting.

RAM speed for a T43 is 4200 max but 5300 will also work... you just won't be able to benefit from its speed. In my case, I just picked up some 5300 modules because they tend to be more common (and cheaper) than 4200 RAM from my research.

[ajkula66]

Tsuioku wrote:

Don't know my IBM FRUs but as long as the Hitachi is PATA and an actual IBM FRU, it should be ok.

Not really. If you throw a pre-T43 era drive with the FRU in the machine, in many cases it will still trigger the error due to outdated firmware, I've seen this more than once with IBM/Hitachi drives. Funny enough, never had that problem with older Fujitsu drives, but have read that other people did...

Problem here being, there's no 160GB Hitachi PATA drive with an IBM FRU, at least not to my knowledge...

[OMNIBUS]

i tried some new blank hd: samsung 160 gb 5400rpm, hitachi (no ibm fru)160 gb 5400rpm ,western digital 80gb scorpio, does not give me the 2010 error ; the system tried to boot and at last said no operating system, obviously.
fujitsu 100gb no new with o.s. for other machine gave me the 2010 error and with pressing esc tried to boot; obviously black screen with cursor lighting.
the bios version is 1.17 of 15/07/2005 for T43 1871-cto
i'm little bit afraid to update the bios version now, i mean after reading some post here, just to avoid that after update 2010 error appears; could happen? or i can serenely update to last version(1.29 i think)?

[krayzie]

On my T43 I run 2x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC5300 ram with Elpida Hyper chips and the timing set by the Thinkpad is 3-4-4-10 so I think running fast page PC5300 ram on a machine designed for PC4200 does gain the benefit of faster timing.

On my T43 I also tried running 1x 2GB Mushkin DDR2 PC5300 ram with Nanya chips and the timing is at 4-4-4-10 whereas the same stick on my previous X60 can only do 4-4-4-12 (which is what the factory rating is @ 667Mhz).

The WD 320GB 5400rpm drive blows my old Hitachi 80GB 7200rpm drive out of the water in terms of performance.

[sjthinkpader]

Any CL reduction is good. But one cycle reduction at 400Mhz is only 5nSec in the whole CAS access of thousands of cycles during consecutive page reads. It will not be noticeable in actual use. If you blink an eye waiting on the computer, that will be thousand times of that 5nSec.

[CallDon]

The WD 320GB 5400rpm drive blows my old Hitachi 80GB 7200rpm drive out of the water in terms of performance.

Is this WD drive on the T43? Do you still get the beep and error?

Would you mind telling the model of the WD drive? Is it the Western Digital WD3200BEVE Scorpio Blue 320GB Mobile PATA Hard Drive?

Thanks,
Don

[Harryc]

You didn't pay attention to my advice in your other thread. The largest hard drive that you can install in a T43 without getting the 2010 error on boot is a Fujitsu mhv2120ah. There are no different answers out there .

[underclocker]

Regarding the OP's sticky keyboard, you can remove it and completely submerse it in warm tap water, then let tap water continue to run across and under all the keys while you press each key repeatedly. After a thorough washing, you can shake it out and let it dry for 24 hours. If the stickiness was due to coffee, soda, etc., this should help quite a bit.

I haven't destroyed a keyboard yet with this method, but I improved several.

[emeraldgirl08]

Regarding the OP's sticky keyboard, you can remove it and completely submerse it in warm tap water, then let tap water continue to run across and under all the keys while you press each key repeatedly. After a thorough washing, you can shake it out and let it dry for 24 hours. If the stickiness was due to coffee, soda, etc., this should help quite a bit.

I haven't destroyed a keyboard yet with this method, but I improved several.

Good tip! I don't have a sticky keyboard but I often wondered how I would get under the keys clean w/o having to remove each key!

Thanks for sharing

[Tasurinchi]

Regarding the OP's sticky keyboard, you can remove it and completely submerse it in warm tap water, then let tap water continue to run across and under all the keys while you press each key repeatedly. After a thorough washing, you can shake it out and let it dry for 24 hours. If the stickiness was due to coffee, soda, etc., this should help quite a bit.

Great tip indeed!

Some of the keys of my X31 stick as well. I may try your method in the near future...

[Tony.Yarwood]

Regarding the OP's sticky keyboard, you can remove it and completely submerse it in warm tap water, then let tap water continue to run across and under all the keys while you press each key repeatedly. After a thorough washing, you can shake it out and let it dry for 24 hours. If the stickiness was due to coffee, soda, etc., this should help quite a bit.

I haven't destroyed a keyboard yet with this method, but I improved several.

Hi all

I like the dishwasher method, very thorough and very easy!

Best regards

Tony

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