Question About Old Laptop

PohTayToez

PohTayToez

Active Member
I recently acquired an IBM Thinkpad (Model Number: 2635-5AU). It's an old, crappy Laptop, but I'd like to use it to work on and expand my knowledge of laptops. I've looked on IBM's site and have found information on it, but I still have some questions.

I can't figure out what type of ram it takes. I know it takes 3.3v SDRAM up to 64MB, but I'm worried about the speed. I can't find anywhere where it will tell me the max speed that it is compatible with. I am bidding on a PC100 64MB on eBay, but I don't know it that is supported.

Also, I would like to upgrade the harddrive, to maybe 20-30GB. Could I put any notebook hard drive in this? Are there different kinds?

Thanks in advance.
 
Many older laptops have either processors that are soldered to the board, or use a special kind of processor specific to the brand/model. I know the old IBM laptop I have uses a special processor. If you looked REALLY hard, you might find another one, but it wouldn't be anything more than perhaps a 200MHz or something...

As for the RAM, some machines can be very picky. Technically, RAM should clock down if it's faster than the mobo supports, or the mobo will run slower if the RAM's slower than what it supports. However, I've seen many machines plain not work due to RAM issues.

The HD should be a standard IDE 2.5". The only real limitation would be the BIOS. Some older systems couldn't accept drives over a certain size. A 20-30GB should be ok...but with a laptop that age, it's probably not worth investing any money in.
 
I realize this won't ever be anything more than an outdated piece of crap. Mainly, I want to upgrade it because I have never done any laptop work before. Mostly, I would just like to be able to install Windows XP on it (hence 64MB RAM), and maybe do some word processing. This is only a little pet project to me.
 
Trust me, you don't want to run windows XP with less than 256MB RAM. And it's pretty bad on anything less than a 333MHz processor.

As for upgrading laptops, they aren't things that typically are upgraded beyond their RAM. Newer laptops are becoming more and more upgradable, but it's still less of a procedure than desktop upgrades. And, even so, desktop upgrades are being done less and less...
 
I think your just wasting your money on it...just stick linux on it and openoffice...i dunno what distro of linux runs on the least amount of ram but i think Linux would run better that xp on it.
How big is your hard drive currently?

Obviusly its up to you if you want to spend money on it but i wouldnt:D
 
If it's just for word processing, I don't think less than 256 RAM is a big disadvantage. I've seen a lot of Windows XP laptops/desktops running on the minimum of 128 RAM, and even my Dad's desktop runs XP at 96MB RAM :eek: The processor's P2 by the way.

I use that desktop sometimes and it can surf, run word, excel, IME etc just fine.. just DON'T EVER multitask.
 
I'm not saying you can't use XP with less than 256MB RAM; heck I installed it on my friends with 64MB. It was a PIII 400MHz. But believe me, that thing was SLOOOOW! The original plan was to upgrade the RAM and just get her by until she could afford a replacement, but of course the 256MB module we got didn't work in the machine...
 
Right now it has 32MB RAM, 133Mhz Pentium, and 2 GB HDD. I've bought stuff to upgrade it to 64MB RAM, 266Mhz Pentium, and 20GB HDD.
 
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