Thinkpad Advanced Dock and not only questions!

[dtakias]

Hi

I managed to get hold of a new T60 2007-FVG with 15" 1400x1050 IPS Flexview for my Thinkpad collection. I've upgraded the RAM to 4GB to take advantage of the dual channel interface since I will only have 3GB available.
Also I am getting a Crucial M225 64GB for it just to speed things up a bit!

After done a lot of reading I have a few questions and would appreciate any help please:

1. Anyone having any objections against this SSD on the T60? It looks like one of the best for its money atm.

2. I've read here(2nd review) http://www.hawkee.com/shop/prod/406984/reviews/ that you need the Advanced Dock to use the Thinkpad more efficiently as a mobile device?! Any comments?

3. Also the T60 will get connected to a Dell 2209WA. Will the Advanced mini Dock able to handle the resolution(1680x1050) from the DVI pass-through port or I need the Advanced Dock with a X1300 ot 7600GT card?

4. Some websites are listing the Advanced Dock as having an Expresscard/34 slot?!!
http://www.buy.com/prod/lenovo-thinkpad ... 92242.html Am I missing something over here??

5. I've read that the ultrabay is capped to about 34MB/s . Is it the same with the PCI express slot as well?

thanks for reading and hopefully replying!
Nick

[yak]

1. T60 is limited to SATA-I speeds which wont allow you to utilize the full potential of some better SSDs.

2. I would say you rather get the dock to use an already mobile ThinkPad as a stationery device.

3. No problems with WSXGA+ on DVI, no matter what graphics chip the T60 has.

4. I tend to refer to the manufacturers site for technical details. In this case the ThinkWiki is also a good idea:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkPad_Advanced_Dock
As you see, the Advanced Dock has a PCI-Express slot and no Expresscard/34.

5. UltraBay in T60 uses the ATA-133 interface which means it is limited to about 100MB/s. If you're asking about the UltraBay in the Advanced Dock, I'm not sure but I guess it's the same.

[dtakias]

cool, thank you.

Yeah, the Sata-1 speeds aren't ideal but there's no other way. Now I am looking at the OCZ Solid 2 Series as well since it's based on Indilinx chipset and will probably have trim support as well.
If I go the SSD way then I will use the ultrabay in the advanced dock with a big hard drive for extra storage. I guess I can always swap the DVDRW on the dock's ultrabay in case the thinkpad's ultrabay is indeed faster?

Has anybody used the PCI express slot on the dock with video tv cards? How about e-sata(sil3132) cards?

[tporter]

5. UltraBay in T60 uses the ATA-133 interface which means it is limited to about 100MB/s. If you're asking about the UltraBay in the Advanced Dock, I'm not sure but I guess it's the same.

UltraBay in Advanced dock is built using ATA-USB bridge and that's why we have 34mb/s max...

Video cards in PCI-e slot work fine (but remember of 50W max power consumption), but 3D performance is bad (PCI-e 1x only)
E-sata card is OK.

[yak]

UltraBay in Advanced dock is built using ATA-USB bridge and that's why we have 34mb/s max...

Ah, didn't know that. Thanks.

[dtakias]

In that case am I better off putting the DVDRW on the dock's ultrabay and the SATA hard drive to the thinkpad's ultra bay slim ?

Is the laptop's ultrabay slim connected direct to the chipset with no speed restrictions? Am I likely to get full speed of the hard drive?

[dtakias]

And a final question. Has anyone used the T60 with the X1400 for Blu-Ray playback?

I am thinking of getting the Buffalo BR-H1016SU2 http://www.itechnews.net/2009/08/20/buf ... y-burners/ once it gets released...

[tporter]

In that case am I better off putting the DVDRW on the dock's ultrabay and the SATA hard drive to the thinkpad's ultra bay slim ?

Yes.

Is the laptop's ultrabay slim connected direct to the chipset with no speed restrictions? Am I likely to get full speed of the hard drive?

Directly to chipset ATA100 controller. In SATA HDD adapter SATA-ATA bridge is present. Read speed (from drive cache) has to be close to 90-100mb/s.

[ZaZ]

And a final question. Has anyone used the T60 with the X1400 for Blu-Ray playback?

The X1400 does not support offloading of decoding from the CPU. I would suggest getting the best CPU you can because CPU usage can get quite high during playback. The X1600, which is similar to the V5200, does support Blu-ray playback, but I'm not sure if it's the same as it uses difference drivers. I've found playback works better in XP than Vista or Seven.