Wife's A31 - which upgrade is best?

[Zombeezy]

Hi guys!

I've lurked here before and was amazed at the information provided and the dedication to this forum and the amazing Thinkpads, but this is my first post.

Am original owner of this Thinkpad A31 2652-M5U s/n 78-xxxxx 9/02. Scrubbed XP Pro off immediately and been using Win 2K Pro until Win 7 beta came out, and now have been using Win 7 Home Premium since its release. My wife uses it for browsing, emails and youtube, and it has been fine despite the hinges starting to feel loose and a couple of keys that clack. Along the years, I managed to change out one 256MB SO-DIMM for a 512MB and have 768MB PC2100 CL 2.5 RAM. With the P4 1.8GHz CPU and 40GB drive, my WEI is a sad 1.0 (2.4; 3.9; 1.0;1.0; 3.4), but even that was OK with my wife until the USB ports started shorting out when used and she is stuck without an external mouse.

On the left side I have a 1.44 Teac floppy drive. On the right side, I have a Teac CD-RW/DVD drive. In the top card slot is a Dlink DWA-652 Xtreme B Notebook Adaptor. I have the original Hitachi 4200 RPM 40GB drive in two partitions, a 25GB (C) and 15GB (D), each with about 6GB free space.

My wife is thinking maybe we need a new laptop, but I have been looking at the upgrades talked about here.

SL6VC CPU - $35
1GB DDR 266 or 333 - $50 would bring me up to 1.5GB
Spinpoint HM160HC - $65
Apricorn Ez USB2 CB Cardbus PCCard - $10 (hopefully fits below D-Link adapter)

I suspect she might see more gains either going from 768MB RAM to 1.5GB or getting the Spinpoint than she might if I upgrade the CPU, so that is where I am leaning towards. If taken as a whole at maybe around $100 or so depending on where and when I get them, that could be seen as tossing money into an aging but faithful laptop that could go towards a newer el-cheapo laptop. So I am thinking - fix the USB with $10 so she can use external mouse, and then get either the Spinpoint or the 1GB RAM So-DIMM to add. If she sees a good enough improvement, I'll be good to toss money towards the other item, and maybe even a CPU upgrade in a month or so.

Am I off-base here, lol?

Thanks in advance!!

Admin edit: Removed serial number from description

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

If I were looking to upgrade an A31, I'd start with the Samsung which I've had excellent experiences with, and can be found brand new on feebay for $55 or so.

1GB RAM DIMM can be located in this forum's Marketplace for $35 or so.

Ninety bucks will re-juvenate the machine, but in a long run, you should consider moving on. Any A31/p is only as good as its LCD, and that component won't last forever.

My $0.02 only...

[Zombeezy]

Great, thanks for the quick response. I will put it to She Who Must Be Obeyed and see what she wants to do. I think she'll go along with either of those shots in the arm and take it from there. I'll look at both of those this weekend.

Storage-wise, we are fine with the 40GB size we have, but that Spinpoint seems to get some nice raves on it and if that improves her A31/Win 7 happiness enough due to a responsiveness perception, I'll sneak in RAM a VISA bill later. I probably should have just gotten the HD when rebuilding my son's PC last weekend as it would have been "hidden" amongst those costs, ha-ha.

The LCD is nice enough to stave off getting something else as long as possible.

Much obliged!

~Z

[mediasponge]

The USB card has a dongle. I dislike dongles, but that's just me. They're always wandering off and hiding somewhere. Another option might be to replace the motherboard, which you can probably get from a list member at a reasonable price. If you stick with the low-buck approach, I would put in the RAM, a 320GB drive (that's what I did), and the USB. Also consider that most of the consumer-grade new laptops will barely last a year these days. If you really love the A31 screen, keep it going.

[jronald]

Ditch the wireless B card and go with an internal card and antennas. Installing the antennas is a breeze, and should take a novice under an hour. That will free up the slot for the USB card.
This is a universal but it will work
http://cgi.ebay.com/Atheros-SuperG-Wire ... 519021d6c3
This will fit inside the laptop slot
http://cgi.ebay.com/PCMCIA-2-Port-USB-2 ... 27b5bfd5b8


Ron

[Zombeezy]

mediasponge - I hear you on the dongles, but this baby pretty much sits on the breakfast table and rarely leaves, lol.

jronald - brilliant suggestion - I took your link and bought the "PCMCIA To 2 Port USB 2.0 Card Bus Inside Hide 4 Laptop". It looks to me like it will fit under my wireless G/N card, which is interfacing to my Fios Actionec MI424WR Rev. E 802.11g router. Because the laptop sits around, we have been happy enough with the bulge of the wireless card, but if the "PCMCIA To 2 Port USB 2.0 Card Bus Inside Hide 4 Laptop" won't fit under it, then I will probably go with your other suggestion as well.

Meanwhile, now that I am $7.98 into this minor project, I'm looking at the drive replacement, and it seems to be a pretty constant $55 to $60 for a new one shipped and doesn't look like that will change much more than $5. Therefore, I am in no hurry if I don't see any deal to snag, so I'm thinking of heading down to a local PC shop which unfortunately is going out of business and see if they have any used PC2100 or PC2700 SO-DIMM.

Thanks again for helping me out here, including Admin removing my provided serial number.