The Thinkpad affair

I own a good old IBM X40 laptop, bought for me by Verint when I was working there.

This laptop had 40GB drive, centrino processor, and 1GB of RAM.

It has a great keyboard and screen, but was really, really slow due to a very (4500 rpm) slow hard disk. Booting XP took ~3 minutes, and the 6 cell battery was dead after 6 years, and was only good for an hour or so of very weak performance.

But I wasn't prepared to get a new one.

So I've decided to upgrade it.

First, I got a 64GB HD from ebay (140$, incl. shipping) and a new 6 cell battery (48$).

Then, I installed windows 7.

There's a problem with windows 7 and centrino drivers, so I couldn't get the laptop to enter standby mode.

This was solved by following the exact directions found here.

So, what did I get?

for less than 200$, my laptop is better than anything at that price.

It will be usable for a couple more years, and it's still one of the lightest/ comfortable laptops around.

The SSD is quiet, and takes less power - Along with the new battery, it now runs over wifi for 4.5 hours! 2.5 was the most I had with the old HD.

Great deal.