Adding RAM to my ThinkPad T40

[jaguarskx]

I have an old IBM ThinkPad T40 (bought in 2002) I am taking out of mothball status for a few months. I haven't used it since late 2006. It has 512MB of RAM; for some reason I thought it had 1GB installed. Anywaste... This laptop is caching to the HDD at little too frequently; guess it didn't bother me much back then. I figure I'll spend a little bit of $ to get rid of that annoyance. So how much RAM should I add?

Gonna be using it watch movies / videos, MS Office, some light gaming and some web surfing (using it right now).

In case anyone is interested, specs are as follows:

- Pentium M 1.5HGz (grand daddy to the Conroe architecture)
- Mobility Radeon 7500
- 512MB DDR333 RAM CAS2.5
- 40GB HDD
- Win XP Pro

 

[jaguarskx]

Okay, I suppose no one has an opinion...

 

[jaguarskx]

Well, I replaced one of two 256MB RAM modules with a 1GB module for a total of 1.25GB of RAM. The extra 768MB actually makes a difference with less hard drive caching and a little bit more smoothness. Not a bad upgrade for $42.

Now if I can only figure out how to upgrade that damn Radeon Mobility 7500...

 

[MarkW4CHL]

I too have a model T40 and several of the memory vendor sites state that I should be able to add two DDR PC2700 modules. This motherboard only has one accessible memory slot. Is there a 2GB PC2700 or is this one stuck at 1GB additional memory for 1.25GB max?

It did take Windows 8 upgrade (from 32 bit CD, online upgrade didn't work) and runs surprisingly well! XP was flaky, the restore image didn't restore, and I had no way to install a new XP image. But XP held up long enough to start the Windows 8 upgrade process from CD.

So I must say that Windows 8 is not my ideal for an old T40, and I'd like to add an additional 1GB memory, but the apps all work decently and restart from Standby is actually surprisingly fast! Just have to make sure you aren't running much.

This has been our audio file editing laptop for church sermons for a few years and continues to run that set of apps (Total Recorder + Pogoplug Cloud file sharing application) well. I would like to go to Linux, but that would leave me as the only user. Moving folks forward to Windows 8 is doable!

I think it is so funny that most folks I've seen using Windows 8 on laptops without touch screens just go straight to the desktop icon. They do as little as possible from the funky Start screen and Metro UI!

 

[pishta]

T40 as well as other in the T line have 2 slots for memory: one under the memory cover on the bottom and one under the keyboard itself. The keyboard is removed by unscrewing the screws marked with a keyboard pic (very smart of Lenovo!) and pushing the keyboard forward toward the monitor, then pulling the bottom lip up with your fingers. You dont have to remove the keyboard plug but it is very easy to do so and it goes back in just as easily. Can be done in 5 minutes. Max memory is 2X1GB PC2700