Re: Upgrading a 701C IBM Thinkpad

[epbrown@enteract.com (epbrown)]

On Mon, 11 Nov 1996 12:50:16 EST, you wrote:
"I have a IBM 701C  Thinkpad.  It has an 80486 DX, 50 MHz with 4MB of RAM
"on the Mother Board.  I'm sure the following questions have been asked
"but here I go. 
"
"1.	I am going to order a 16MB SO DIMM (3.3v) Chip, but would a
"32MB SO-DIMM chip work in this machine?
	It will if one exists; I was told by CDW today that there is no 32MB
chip for the 701, despite my hearing the contrary from a vendor who offered
me one for $675 (I was hoping CDW's price was lower so I could argue the
guy down).
"
"2.	I would like to upgrade the CPU to the fastest CPU that would
"work in this machine.  I do not want to do anything more then plug the
"new CPU in the existing socket  Any ideas or input?
	The CPU is soldered on, like most laptops, and even a skilled tech could
have trouble replacing it.  The maximum speed is a 586-133MHz from one of
the upgrade companies, and it's running about $450 or so from what I've
seen, with a 3-day turnaround.  I'm trying to find out what sort of speed
improvement this results in, as I'm considering it (Christmas bonus time is
almost upon us, ya know ;)  
"3.	I have 4MB of motherboard memory, it is my understanding that
"some 701Cs come with 8MB or more of motherboard ram.  Is it possible to
"increase my existing 4MB of motherboard ram to 8MB or more?  Again I am
"only interested in doing this if the increase can be installed by
"replacing or adding the chips in existing sockets without any soldering.
	Ditto for the DX-2.  The RAM is soldered into place and the can't be
upgraded on board.  I had one but I never checked to see if there was even
room for more RAM onboard; I doubt it, though.
	Sorry, but between the $450 for a chip and probably anoher $400 for the
32MB RAM chip (I'm hoping), you might want to consider selling the 701 for
about $1300 (from what I've seen on the AOL classifieds and the net) and
the cash and buying a Pentium system and some RAM, like the AST J-series or
a IBM 365.  If you still want to stay in the subnotebook category, I've
seen the Toshiba 610/620 Porteges in the low $2k range.  The 560 dual scan
with extra RAM is a few hundred too high.
	epbrown 
	
epbrown@enteract.com
Laptop Central, home of the Portable Computing FAQ
http://www.enteract.com/~epbrown