Increase memory in trusted Thinkpad?

cattie

I have a trusty IBM Thinkpad T30 laptop. Specs are P4 2ghz, 54gb HD & only 256 ram. It just seems to chug along lately & seems to take ages for it to load up. I'm running XP home by the way.

I use the laptop mostly for surfing the internet & have been toying with the idea of replacing the laptop, but want to check whether it would be the right thing to do or perhaps if a better idea would be to have more memory installed for it to provide me with a machine that's a bit more lively? I'd be grateful for any informed advice.

I would be confident enough to tackle such a job myself if I had instructions & I think IBM do give instructions for increasing memory on their website, so this could be a much cheaper option for me if the advice is that the machine can give me better service with such an upgrade.

closed

Before spending money, trim your startup applications, there is no reason it can't be fast again, without buying ram.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2436849

cattie

Thanks closed, a lot to digest there so will try to tackle them over next few days. Not sure I'd be confident enought to tackle all suggestions on link, but done the malware check & the machine is clean

closed

run startuplite, then post a hijackthis log, and commit figures.

Donnie

Buy more RAM. 256MB is just not enough, despite closed's protestations.

Of course you can do a clean up, but if the RAM is cheap, buy it.

closed

It's more than enough for me.

Donnie

closed wrote: »

It's enough for me.

You are not a normal user. You are frugal.
Most people just want it to work and not to be slow.

closed

Boots in 36 seconds.:D, with a slower processor than the OP.

rdpro

2 sticks of 512mb should get you zooming along, but take the advice above re: cleaning up your startup programs.

A fresh install will work wonders too, but can be a headache.

debitcardmayhem

Someone will come along and suggest Linux (UUUUbuntu) so I was first but another bit of ram will help mine flies with the original 256 + 512 addon. Mind you XP is like me limited life span.

fwor

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

Someone will come along and suggest Linux (UUUUbuntu) so I was first

That's not a bad suggestion if you want fast bootup time on older hardware. I have both the latest version of Ubuntu (10.04) and WinXP (recent install, so it should be quick) installed to dual boot on my ancient laptop - which is 1.2Ghz PIII based with 512MB of RAM.

From bootloader to login prompt: WinXP = 40s, Ubuntu Lucid = 24s.

If the laptop really is mainly used for surfing and you don't have other applications that depend on Windows, it may be worth trying out to see if you like it. A trial of it as a LiveCD is a good place to start, though you won't get anywhere near the performance of an install to hard disk as the I/O speed on a CD drive is very slow.