worth upgrading hdd if laptop can only do udma-2

[NuttZ]

hey all

im really getting pissed off with my laptop at the moment. Its a IBM thinkpad T22 p3 900 394mb ram and IBM 30gig 4200rpm hdd

i had 128mb ram and upgraded it to try increase speed in windows xp but it didnt help much.

I think the motherboard on this can only do udma2 so its not going to take full advantage of the new drives available. But will changing the hdd to a faster(5400rpm with more cache) help at all?

[drrevenge]

Short Answer: Nope.

Longer Answer: Not really

To be honest, you really wouldn't notice a increase in speed by replacing the drive with a faster spindle speed drive.

Probably the best thing to suggest would be a recovery (if you havn't already) but to be honest, you'd be better off putting the money to better use getting a new laptop. (Even a second hand one would be a better bet.)

The thing also to remember is that the new HDD may not even be detected by the machine even if you go buy one, so be careful if you do.

Cheers
Dr. Revenge

[bYrd]

Originally Posted by drrevenge

The thing also to remember is that the new HDD may not even be detected by the machine even if you go buy one, so be careful if you do.

That's not true - have you any rationale why that would be the case?

You should have no issues installing an aftermarket HD into your machine, as with any recent notebook.

UDMA2 is fine and you'd notice a difference with a 5400RPM drive. But you'd probably find reinstalling WinXP (using a plain vanilla version, not the bogged down ones IBM supply) will also give everything a nice boost.

JB

[NuttZ]

yeah, i have reinstalled windows but when i start installing my apps on its starts to slow down.

[drrevenge]

That's not true - have you any rationale why that would be the case?

You should have no issues installing an aftermarket HD into your machine, as with any recent notebook.

UDMA2 is fine and you'd notice a difference with a 5400RPM drive. But you'd probably find reinstalling WinXP (using a plain vanilla version, not the bogged down ones IBM supply) will also give everything a nice boost.

Um, yes I do. The systemboards in the thinkpads can only detect up to a certain capacity drive. From memory the A series machines can only see up to about a 40gb drive as maximum.

I agree, installing a after market hdd into the machine should work, but a P3 machine is not a recent unit.

I'm yet to see any speed difference between a 4500 and a 5200 rpm drive. Going to 7200 you'd notice a speed increase, but the speed difference between the 4500 and the 5200 is increadably incremental only. You'd only really notice a difference if you were running tests on the drives. Besides, I'd be hesitant to install XP on a P3 machine anyway. The CPU spec's aren't strong enough, and I still say running XP with that minimal amount of ram isn't that good. Sure it'll load the OS like it's mentioned, but as soon as any applications installed, it'll slow right down.

Cheers
Dr. Revenge

[NuttZ]

i thought p3's were meant to be able to handle WinXp (wasnt the recomended spec p3 500 or something).

I hope this doesnt sound too much like newbie, but does a p3 900 desktop = p3 900 laptop? my guess is it should be close.

My old celeron 300a@450 with 256mb ram runs better than this laptop. I dont get it.

[fref99]

Hi,

I just upgraded my siemens amilo 1.6Ghz portable from a 40Gb 4500rpm to a 80Gb 7200rpm harddisk and I notice a difference starting large programs.

I did a Ghost from the old to the new harddisk so software config 100% same.

In day to day useage it makes a difference when you have heavy disk access.

Regards
FREF99

[drrevenge]

Originally Posted by fref99

Hi,

I just upgraded my siemens amilo 1.6Ghz portable from a 40Gb 4500rpm to a 80Gb 7200rpm harddisk and I notice a difference starting large programs.

In day to day useage it makes a difference when you have heavy disk access.

No arguments from me there, but the original question was from 4500 to 5200.

I still stand by my comment there would be no difference between the two.

Cheers
Dr. Revenge.

[drrevenge]

Originally Posted by NuttZ

i thought p3's were meant to be able to handle WinXp (wasnt the recomended spec p3 500 or something).

I actually had a look. According to Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...g/sysreqs.mspx)
that the base requirement is a 300mhz processor. However if you were able to get a machine running those specs to actually do anything other than take forever to boot, I'd be impressed. However, if you double those spec's you should get a better performance.

Originally Posted by NuttZ

I hope this doesnt sound too much like newbie, but does a p3 900 desktop = p3 900 laptop? my guess is it should be close.

My old celeron 300a@450 with 256mb ram runs better than this laptop. I dont get it.

Do you have the mt number from the underside of the unit, so I can get exact specs from the IBM website? But to begin, the CPU in the machine is a different type of CPU than what's installed in a desktop machine. If you think about it a laptop's system board is sometimes half what the size a regular mainboard is. If that's the case, you need to shrink the cpu as well. While the CPU may be able to run at those speeds, it's not a constant thing.

Also all the system bus speeds would be lower than what I would assume your desktop pc also has. IE. your desktop PC may have a FSB of 100 or even 133, but your thinkpad would probably only have 66 or maybe 100 if it was a really high A series, Also you've got different spec's of your ram, most likely the desktop ram had a higher clock speed.


And finally your IDE hdd's would have been running at least 5400, if not 7200. All these factors slow the machine down compared to a desktop machine.

If you ran system monitoring tools on this machine and identical configured desktop unit, I wouldn't be surprised if the desktop machine ran faster.

Hopefully these help answer some of your questions.

Cheers
Dr. Revenge

[NuttZ]

thanks for the replies drrevenge.
my laptop is a ibm thinkpad t22 2648 model. p3 900 with 394mb 100mhz ram and a 30gig ibm drive.

I understand that because they have shrunk everything to fit in there it may have some speed penalties. But come on, a celeron @450 (thats half of the laptop) runnig same fsb the speed cant be that bad. only the hdd is the slower part. Like I can play DVD in the laptop fine and i know that the celeron cant keep up with a dvd. so processor is not the issue here, its the hdd.

I dunno im thinking that this hdd is faulty. But no programs are reporting errors. Occasionally i hear a random click from the laptop. Its more louder than the hdd clicking.

[Zardoz]

I find it very hard to believe that a P3 900 notebook would only support UDMA2. What chipset does the machine use?

[Mitch01]

drrevenge: That is completely incorrect.

There are articles state that upgrading from a 4200RPM HDD to a 5400RPM HDD is about a 20% increase in speed.

Powerbook 4200rpm vs 5400rpm comparison

Performance increase replacing a Mac Mini's Hard Drive (4200rpm to other)

4200 vs 5400rpm direct comparison

See above.

In short ALWAYS go the faster drive.

Re the notebook being slow its by nature if the OS install is old or cluttered that it'll slow down. Are you using the IBM restore CD, as IBM's tend to come with alot of additional programs that run in the background and can slow the machine down a little.

Also re the IBM, they have an awesome Software update tool the released recently Check it out!

Just another thing I picked up on: The click on a 2.5" hard drive isnt unusual. Most notebook hard drives still park the heads when not in use (as far as I'm aware). That way if you drop the lappy and the hard drive isnt writing or reading, then it will survive.

[NuttZ]

thanks for the review links. It helps to have some sort of backup to an argument.

I have installed a generic Winxp Pro, and only a few apps, i do notice in the task manager there are a few things running in the background. trackpoint driver, about 4 svchost,ipod prog, avg antivirus. an those seem to be the only odd ones. Even having an mp3 playing in winamp and opening explorer makes the music skip.

the loud click isnt when im not doing anything.. its sometimes in the middle of reading/writing. thats why im worried. like i can even feel it on the keyboard when it does it.

[drrevenge]

Originally Posted by Mitch01

drrevenge: That is completely incorrect.

There are articles state that upgrading from a 4200RPM HDD to a 5400RPM HDD is about a 20% increase in speed.

4200 vs 5400rpm direct comparison

See above.

In short ALWAYS go the faster drive.

Re the notebook being slow its by nature if the OS install is old or cluttered that it'll slow down. Are you using the IBM restore CD, as IBM's tend to come with alot of additional programs that run in the background and can slow the machine down a little.

Also re the IBM, they have an awesome Software update tool the released recently Check it out!

Just another thing I picked up on: The click on a 2.5" hard drive isnt unusual. Most notebook hard drives still park the heads when not in use (as far as I'm aware). That way if you drop the lappy and the hard drive isnt writing or reading, then it will survive.

Those are some interesting links I do admit. The comparason is interesting as well. Again the difference i see is midly apparant in terms of speed (ie Mainconcept Version 1.3.1 is only having 7 seconds difference) if you're getting a new drive, then definatly the 5400 is the way to go. But to get a noticible speed increase, I really don't think that a new HDD is the way to go.

As mentioned though, the HDD will make a clicking noise every so often as this is the heads resyncronising. Sometimes updating the HDD firmware will resolve this issue by fixing the amounts of resynching that needs to take place. If you're worried about the drive failing, using the drive fitness test (downloadable from hgst.com) and test out the drive to see if there's any fault with the drive.

Cheers
Dr. Revenge

[Mitch01]

Agreed with everything there drrevenge..