The most powerful memory for my Lenovo T60

[dy_james]

So I have an old Lenovo T60:
https://support.lenovo.com/ca/en/documents/migr-62722#mem

Recommended for memory expansion are:
2 GB PC2-4200 DDR2 SDRAM 533 MHz SO DIMM
or
256 MB, 512 MB, and 1 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667 MHz SO DIMM.

I wanted to buy the second choice, which is this:
http://www.ncix.com/detail/corsair-2gb-1x2gb-ddr2-667mhz-54-22540.htm

I was wondering if I used 2 of this (to make 4GB), would I be able to use the whole 4GB? Or less than that (around 3GB)? I'm know the CPU (Intel Core Duo T5500 soon to be upgrading to a T7xxx) can only for 4GB, but I don't know about the chipset.

 

[voltoid27]

The T60 has the 945GM chipset which supports 4GB of physical RAM. However, you'll only be able to use ~3.5GB even on a 64-bit OS for reasons I don't fully understand. Something about PCIe address mapping.

Personally I'd buy this RAM because of the tighter timings: http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_326_328_615&item_id=075957

 

[dy_james]

The T60 has the 945GM chipset which supports 4GB of physical RAM. However, you'll only be able to use ~3.5GB even on a 64-bit OS for reasons I don't fully understand. Something about PCIe address mapping.

Personally I'd buy this RAM because of the tighter timings: http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_326_328_615&item_id=075957

I don't know if the motherboard allows it, but I want to overclock the memory to 800MHz. Just in case the RAM isn't stable, would buying a PC-6400 help? The specs say motherboard can only run a DDR2 of PC2-5300, but it should take in a PC-6400, no problem, right?

 

[voltoid27]

It'll most likely accept a stick of DDR2-800 and automatically downclock it to DDR2-667 since that's the highest that's officially supported. Then, say you apply a 10% FSB overclock, it will become DDR2-733 😛 Any particular reason you want to overclock the RAM? I can almost guarantee it's more trouble than it's worth.

 

[dy_james]

I just need a faster laptop. As I've had just about enough of javascript-intensive websites making a simple scroll through the page just painful. I'm just a software guy trying to converge with the hardware world.

 

[dy_james]

What's the main problem? Instability? Heat dissipation? If it's the latter, won't adding copper shims be enough? I can even go for knocking off the trackpad for more space and exhaust. I hate using those things and this antique has a pointing stick anyways.

 

[voltoid27]

Honestly, overclocking a laptop is more trouble than it's worth, unless perhaps you're overclocking the GPU. Speaking of which, give this program a try:

http://www.gmabooster.com/download_win.htm

It'll clock up your GMA 950 to up to 400MHz, which can give you a small boost in performance without increasing voltage. That combined with a CPU/RAM/SSD upgrade will be as good as it gets.

 

[dy_james]

Ahh... That's a problem. I strictly don't use Windows. I thought using a Linux would be quite secure but people are still getting through that too.

I'm sticking with Linux, though, more secure of the two.

 

[dy_james]

Oh, crap, There's also this...
http://www.gmabooster.com/download_linux.htm
I probably shouldn't have posted that last message.

Alright... worth checking out.

 

[voltoid27]

Fair enough. Main problem with OC'ing a laptop is instability as their components generally don't do well when running outside of their intended parameters. If you're using an Ubuntu derivative, I'd recommending setting up Oibaf's PPA for better graphics drivers; on my GMA 900 it helps quite a bit. https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/ubuntu/graphics-drivers

 

[dy_james]

Also have to look into making my browser use hardware acceleration in Linux. One of the evils in Linux, there's no standard library for hardware acceleration (such as DirectX). Also the X-window system has too much overhead... So make that two.

 

[voltoid27]

There's OpenGL ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ As far as Linux goes, I've given about all the advice I can give; hardware is my specialty. I'm positive the T7600 will be a big improvement over your current CPU.

 

[dy_james]

There's OpenGL ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, I should've stated that more carefully (OK, to be clear, Windows comes bundled with DirectX and if you're using a Linux with desktop environment then you most likely have Mesa, the most common OpenGL implementation).

But OpenGL is too application specific to producing vector graphics, while DirectX has always been very broad (even if we are talking about GPU-assisted functions). I may have my timelines wrong, but even the Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI), which COULD be used for hardware acceleration, was just backwardly made open as a separate library after it is written as support for Mesa and up to this day still hasn't been expanded well. There are other attempts as well for standard hardware acceleration libraries (mostly raster graphics, but not shaders either... I forgot), so that actually holds Linux back.

Historically, it roots from the GPU manufacturers not being cooperative with the whole open source society.