More ram for my thinkpad?

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quantumgravity
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Iscritto: 04/22/2013

Hey guys,
i have a thinkpad t60 and i often encounter problems when i do stuff that requires a little bit more ram.
A webpage with a lot of images can slow the pc down in a way that it's effectively frozen;
also if i do some work with gimp.
I thought, maybe the ram is the bottleneck, because it's only 1g.

When it comes to hardware, i know nothing at all.
I'm really unskilled with this kind of things; once i tried to replace my wifi card and damaged my pc.
So, my question is: can a hardware noob also add a bit of ram to a thinkpad, yes or no?
I have so many old, broken laptops somewhere in my flat.... can i use some ram from those old ones?
What do i have to take care of?
Will any ram be suitable?

I don't even know if there is still space for more ram in my thinkpad. please help me out.

tomlukeywood
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Iscritto: 12/05/2014

here is a video showing how:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIzDyWLr-qY

"I thought, maybe the ram is the bottleneck, because it's only 1g."
its very likely that is the case i recommend at least 2GB of RAM for good performance

vita_cell
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Iscritto: 07/19/2015

I your processor supports 64 bits, why not 4gb?

For most tasks, 2gb will be fine, including gaming(free software games). If you buy ram, I recommend the same Mhz, both slots.

SuperTramp83

I am a translator!

Offline
Iscritto: 10/31/2014

I have yet to use full 2 gb on my laptop (or the previous one). Both lappys have/had 4 gb ram, I never saw the point in having more than 2 gb of ram. I have to say that I hate multitasking. I love to do one thing at the time, so maybe that is the reason why my ram usage rarely exceedes 1 gb of ram. But even with some heavy GIMP work or a heavy website like say Diaspora when you load a huge stream full of gifs and stuff I rarely saw my RAM usage come nearly to 2 gigs.

vita_cell
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Iscritto: 07/19/2015

+1

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

According to https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/docs/um909174 you can use up to 4GB of 667-MHz DDR2 SDRAM, also known as PC2-5300. You can use 533 MHz RAM (PC2-4200) but, then, the whole memory will work at that lower frequency (like vita_cell warned).

Gnash reads the video on this page: https://support.lenovo.com/videos/migr-63770

It shows how to add RAM in a T60 laptop.

vita_cell
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Iscritto: 07/19/2015

Right.

I think that more that 667mhz for t60, will be compatible, but useless.

So:

533mhz + 667mhz = 555mhz

quantumgravity
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Iscritto: 04/22/2013

Hello everybody,
thanks for your kind advice!
I'm proud to say that i successfully removed 1g of ram from an older notebook and put it into my thinkpad.
Now I have 2gig and it also shows up in htop.
which frequency they have, i sadly don't know.
Forgot to pay attention when inserting the chip.

But yeah it was really easy; i guess i just had bad experience when i tried to replace the wifi card in a laptop that was the complete opposite of hackable.
It was such a pain in the ass... i ended up breaking it, but looking back, i think it wasn't my fault actually.

So again, thanks everybody.

lembas
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Iscritto: 05/13/2010

Run memtest, it will tell you the memory clock if you're interested.

quantumgravity
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Iscritto: 04/22/2013

I heard that it takes ages to run memtest?

tomlukeywood
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Iscritto: 12/05/2014

it dose!

antiesnob
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Iscritto: 08/22/2013

Terrible spelling _._._._._._:::::::::::

antiesnob
Offline
Iscritto: 08/22/2013

No it doesn't. It depends on the transfer speed of your memory and your processor. It is 1:30 to 2:30 hours

lembas
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Iscritto: 05/13/2010

The scanning of the entire memory again and again does. But you will see the clock info immediately.

quantumgravity
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Iscritto: 04/22/2013

Can I terminate the process easily or will i have to do a hard-shutdown?

lembas
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Iscritto: 05/13/2010

Just hit esc and it will reboot.

SuperTramp83

I am a translator!

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Iscritto: 10/31/2014
quantumgravity
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Iscritto: 04/22/2013

The only one of those commands that gives info about the speed does not work for me;
it yields "speed unknown"

SuperTramp83

I am a translator!

Offline
Iscritto: 10/31/2014

I'm sorry that didn't help. It very late now. If tomorrow I see you didn't find a solution I'll try to research this a little bit. Maybe try the memtest thing leaving the lappy on while you sleep/work/etc ..
cheers

EDIT:

ha! I think I nailed it quantyy gravitis.

Try this:
sudo dmidecode -t memory

I get this output (speed 667 - ddr2) ->

# dmidecode 2.12
SMBIOS 2.5 present.

Handle 0x001A, DMI type 16, 15 bytes
Physical Memory Array
Location: System Board Or Motherboard
Use: System Memory
Error Correction Type: None
Maximum Capacity: 8 GB
Error Information Handle: Not Provided
Number Of Devices: 4

Handle 0x001B, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
Array Handle: 0x001A
Error Information Handle: No Error
Total Width: 128 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 2048 MB
Form Factor: DIMM
Set: 1
Locator: S1
Bank Locator: DIMM1
Type: DDR2
Type Detail: Synchronous
Speed: 667 MHz
Manufacturer: Not Specified
Serial Number: Not Specified
Asset Tag: Not Specified
Part Number: Not Specified

Handle 0x001C, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
Array Handle: 0x001A
Error Information Handle: No Error
Total Width: 128 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 2048 MB
Form Factor: DIMM
Set: 2
Locator: S2
Bank Locator: DIMM2
Type: DDR2
Type Detail: Synchronous
Speed: 667 MHz
Manufacturer: Not Specified
Serial Number: Not Specified
Asset Tag: Not Specified
Part Number: Not Specified

antiesnob
Offline
Iscritto: 08/22/2013

Tried with on a computer with DDR2 on purpose but I didn't get the DDR2 type, instead it says "unkown". It worked to know the working speed, though.

sudo demidecode -t 17

Is shorter in info for this case.

antiesnob
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Iscritto: 08/22/2013

Tell me something, maese. Do you have a swap partition?

SuperTramp83

I am a translator!

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Iscritto: 10/31/2014

Here quantumgravity -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEgxCg3pSyU

You have no excuses now, flash or install windows 10! :P

Gheorghe Zugravu
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Iscritto: 05/21/2013

Hi there,

as a thinkpad user (I have an Thinkpad X201) I can suggest you the next
website - http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:t60 - is a dedicated
thinkpad user website with a lot of information.
For RAM questions - have a look here -
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Unofficial_maximum_memory_specs.

Hope it will answer your questions!

regards,
/gheorghe

On 30.10.2015 19:22, name at domain wrote:
> Hey guys,
> i have a thinkpad t60 and i often encounter problems when i do stuff
> that requires a little bit more ram.
> A webpage with a lot of images can slow the pc down in a way that it's
> effectively frozen;
> also if i do some work with gimp.
> I thought, maybe the ram is the bottleneck, because it's only 1g.
>
> When it comes to hardware, i know nothing at all.
> I'm really unskilled with this kind of things; once i tried to replace
> my wifi card and damaged my pc.
> So, my question is: can a hardware noob also add a bit of ram to a
> thinkpad, yes or no?
> I have so many old, broken laptops somewhere in my flat.... can i use
> some ram from those old ones?
> What do i have to take care of?
> Will any ram be suitable?
>
> I don't even know if there is still space for more ram in my thinkpad.
> please help me out.