PC consulting needed

[RCBH928]

Hello,

I am just looking for some advice.
I got an IBM thinkpad R40e with pentium 4 I think it is 2.2 GHZ and 240 kb ram. Thats what it says.

Although it runs XP just fine, its getting old with lots of hiccups and it seems like flash is a lot of work for it.
I am not sure if I should add RAM, I am afraid it is a complex process. I don't even know how much RAM it can take.

I was wondering , years ago I heard linux makes old spec. pc's run fast(make better use of resources)...is that still true today? Or should I just get rid of this laptop all together? The battery is dead any way it has to be connected to electricity and I am waiting for the screen to die too.

Any suggestions?

[Metalcrack]

Hello,

I am just looking for some advice.
I got an IBM thinkpad R40e with pentium 4 I think it is 2.2 GHZ and 240 kb ram. Thats what it says.

Although it runs XP just fine, its getting old with lots of hiccups and it seems like flash is a lot of work for it.
I am not sure if I should add RAM, I am afraid it is a complex process. I don't even know how much RAM it can take.

I was wondering , years ago I heard linux makes old spec. pc's run fast(make better use of resources)...is that still true today? Or should I just get rid of this laptop all together? The battery is dead any way it has to be connected to electricity and I am waiting for the screen to die too.

Any suggestions?

Go here http://www.crucial.com/ and enter your system, and it will tell you the amount of RAM your system shipped with, and the max it can take. I took the liberty of checking, and it looks like it can hold 1 gig of ram. Crucial offers memory for sale, or you can check Newegg, Tigerdirect, Microcenter etc. for their best deals.
Upgrade the RAM, and use Crap Cleaner http://www.ccleaner.com, and that should keep you going for awhile.

[MrPopo]

It honestly sounds like the laptop is on its last legs anyway. It's not worth the time or energy, just start saving for a new one.

[puke_face]

if you are a linux user, these are some very stripped down distros you could load on it no problem

http://www.slitaz.org/

or

http://www.puppylinux.com/

both of those can be loaded onto a flash drive and be deployed on any pc, and it dosen't require you to format the hard disk, you have that option, but its not necessary. they both run off the systems ram, so if you upgraded your memory, you'd be good to go off of one of these. i always end up putting ubuntu, pclinux OS, or openSUSE on it, because these (puppy and slitaz) require alot of program loading to get them where you want them.

p.s.- the installer on slitaz is all in french, but is pretty easy to go through

[Ziggy]

Replacing/upgrading the RAM is usually easy as pie. On most laptops, there should be a compartment that you can open on the bottom of it to access the RAM. If 1GB of RAM is the max you can put in there, then that's what I would put in there.

I guess you can weight the pros and cons of it. If the RAM is too expensive, you might not want to do it. However, most older RAM is pretty cheap now and, in my opinion, worth upgrading. One thing to know, you'll have to take out the RAM that's already in your laptop (and leave it out) and replace it with the new RAM. The reason, the laptop can (99.9% sure here) only hold two sticks of RAM, and you'll probably be getting two sticks of 512MB to put in there. I doubt you'll put 1 stick of 1GB in there, but you'd have to remove the other RAM stick any way since it can only handle 1GB.

If the laptop has just 1 stick that's 256MB in there, you could just add another stick at 512MB so you wouldn't have to take any sticks out, but if its cheap enough just go for the 1GB of RAM. There's also the possibility that there's two stick of 128MB in there, at which point you'd have to remove at least one, but if that's the case I would highly recommend just replacing both.

2.2GHz CPU can still kick it, depending on what you're using it for. A 2.2GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM is still a pretty decent computer to have, which is why I say it's worth upgrading (barring the price of the RAM, of course).

edit: Forgot to mention... XP Home/Pro with SP3 will run just fine on a computer with those specs. If you wanna try out a Linux OS that uses less system resources than XP does, that's cool. But you may also want to consider Linux often isn't as easy as XP is to use. A lot of times you have to do things manual, by lines of code. Some times it's a straight up pain in the ass to get a driver, or a piece of hardware to work. I'm also not a Linux guy (I've only messed around with Ubuntu a little), if you know Linux, then go for it!

But if you're gonna stick with XP, and upgrade the RAM, I recommend reformatting the hard drive and doing a fresh install of XP.

[Jayson]

I agree with Ziggy

RAM is just so cheap right now you should upgrade that 1st. XP is very usable with even 512MB of memory, you just wont be multitasking as much, but I would just go for the full 1GB. I would stick with XP as it's going to open up a lot of gaming options for you just cant have on Linux.

Run the little program on Crucial's website and just buy what it tells you to.

[puke_face]

I agree with Ziggy

RAM is just so cheap right now you should upgrade that 1st. XP is very usable with even 512MB of memory, you just wont be multitasking as much, but I would just go for the full 1GB. I would stick with XP as it's going to open up a lot of gaming options for you just cant have on Linux.

Run the little program on Crucial's website and just buy what it tells you to.

just run this software on linux, and your home free (as far as gaming is concerned)

http://www.winehq.org/

[Ziggy]

newegg.com is my favorite website for parts.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

The T/R 40's can only hold 1gb of ram. Your laptop is on its last legs though dude. It may be time to get a Lenovo T60 or at least a T43p. Keep in mind though, the T4x's and earlier were easy ram upgrades that are just under a plastic plate on the bottom of the computer, w/ the T6x and T4/500's you have to remove the entire palm rest which isnt bad just a little more time consuming and you have to be careful not to loose screws. These apply to the R series notebooks as well. If you ever need help with your IBM/Lenovo thinkpads.com is a great site. Im a frequent poster there as well. You can also get some great deals on computers.

[marurun]

Unless there are some Windows-specific programs or games you just need to use, or Windows-centric tasks you need to perform, I would encourage you to try Linux. You could learn a lot in experimenting with it and you might just get to like it. A good distribution for your system might be Zenwalk. It's low profile, runs well on old hardware or on low memory systems. It also contains a complete set of core programs and developer tools, so you can do what you need to do (including word processing and media viewing/listening) and learn to program, too, if you want.

Just click the Zenwalk and check it out.