Upgrading T410

[Alexan]

Hei everyone, Im a new thinkpad user.

I need your expert advice on upgrading my T410, currently mine has 2GB RAM and 7200RPM HDD.

What im thinking about is replacing my 7200RPM drive with G2 or G3 Intel SSD and adding aditional 2GB of RAM to install W7 PRO 64-bit.

It seems like a easy decision to make if it werent for Lenovo Enhanced Experience installed on the origianl HDD.

Now what do you guys think, do the 64-bit W7 and SSD add enough speed over Lenovo Enhanced Experience to be worth the extra cost?

[dr_st]

What does the Enhanced Experience even do?

[Alexan]

What does the Enhanced Experience even do?

http://www.lenovo.com/news/us/en/2009/0 ... debut.html

From what I can understand they "tune" the laptops, if or what the real performace boost is I cant tell... thats why I am here

[craigmontHunter]

I would get the ssd, put a stock windows 7x64 on it, and see how it compares. If it is fast eneough, then leave it, if you feel it is slower, then make the recovery disks (always a good idea anyway), and load them on the ssd - this gives you enhanced experience as well as the ssd performace boost. I have a feeling that it will blow the stock install out of the water, just for the enhancements offered by the ssd.

Or try to find the windows 7x64 recovery disks for the T410, and load that on the ssd - that will give you the enhanced experience, full access to the 4gb ram... That may be the best option if you want EE and can find the disks, otherwise I wouldn't worry about it, all the drivers are availble off the web, and they provide most of the enhancements anyway.

EE involves optimized drivers, delaying startup processes, minimal bloatware... about the only thing that you cannot really do on your own is delaying the processes - everything else you will get from a clean install.

[Alexan]

I would get the ssd, put a stock windows 7x64 on it, and see how it compares. If it is fast eneough, then leave it, if you feel it is slower, then make the recovery disks (always a good idea anyway), and load them on the ssd - this gives you enhanced experience as well as the ssd performace boost. I have a feeling that it will blow the stock install out of the water, just for the enhancements offered by the ssd.

Or try to find the windows 7x64 recovery disks for the T410, and load that on the ssd - that will give you the enhanced experience, full access to the 4gb ram... That may be the best option if you want EE and can find the disks, otherwise I wouldn't worry about it, all the drivers are availble off the web, and they provide most of the enhancements anyway.

EE involves optimized drivers, delaying startup processes, minimal bloatware... about the only thing that you cannot really do on your own is delaying the processes - everything else you will get from a clean install.

Alright, that sounds like good advice, I think I will try that. My main concern was if the SSD upgrade is worth it, considering how 1)T410 already has HDD protection vs SSD not being damaged from falls. 2)I dont think I have heard my HDD even once vs SSD being dead silent. 3)Enhanced Experience reducing boot time vs SSD reducing boot time. Though I will be gaining battery life, so that speaks for SSD.

[dr_st]

I'm a bit confused - the EE stuff seems to be a software-only thing (customization of Windows boot process). Is there anything that prevents you from keeping it by cloning your existing installation to the SSD you will purchase?

[craigmontHunter]

There is nothing keeping him from doing that, it is all software (or a clean install from the recovery disks). The issue (as I see it) is that he has the 32-bit preload, which cannot use 4gb ram that he wants to upgrade to. otherwise, I would have said to run the recovery media on the SSD and be done with it.

In response to your questions about the ssd, I have heard that it is the single best thing that you can do for your computer's performance - I don't have one personally because my t61 is still the fastest system I use regularly, and I don't want to get too spoiled

[Alexan]

Yes and after reading few topics I was led to beleive that once original Lenovo install is gone theres no way to recover the tweaks... then again knowing Windows I will be reinstalling it sooner or later. I guess SSD is the way to go, I can keep old Lenovo EE install on my old disk if I need it. Maybe once I have my upgrades done ill upload boot comparison to youtube.

[craigmontHunter]

Burn the recovery disks, then if you ever need to, you can go back to the enhanced experience. When EE was first released, there was a chart put up on Lenovo Blogs that outlined the diffrences (look for the chart lower down) - all you will miss is the 3rd party apps (which you should be able to find installres for on the original drive) and the enhancements, which should be completely outranked by the speed boost from the ssd.

I believe that the 3rd party apps (disk burning software...) should be in swtools folder, but I am not sure - all the thinkvantage tools are available for download, it is only extra software (which you may not want anyway )

[Alexan]

Burn the recovery disks, then if you ever need to, you can go back to the enhanced experience. When EE was first released, there was a chart put up on Lenovo Blogs that outlined the diffrences (look for the chart lower down) - all you will miss is the 3rd party apps (which you should be able to find installres for on the original drive) and the enhancements, which should be completely outranked by the speed boost from the ssd.

I believe that the 3rd party apps (disk burning software...) should be in swtools folder, but I am not sure - all the thinkvantage tools are available for download, it is only extra software (which you may not want anyway )

Yeah, Im sure there are better alternatives, if I need them, thanks for your advice!

[miscthree]

I agree that an ssd would give your machine a nice performance boost overall.

I have read that an ssd arguably does not improve battery life. But on the flipside, there is zero fragmentation of files by the very nature of ssd's when TRIM support is enabled.

I wont comment on EE as I know nearly nothing about it, but fresh installs are easy enough to do to and not miss EE(if that makes sense).