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X30 mods...?

X20/X21, X30/X31, X40/X41 Series
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ElecCham
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Joined: Sat Sep 18, 2010 12:17 am
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X30 mods...?

#1 Post by ElecCham » Sun Sep 19, 2010 10:24 pm

So I'm working on breathing some new life into our old X30. I've just maxed out the RAM and put in a wireless card (and am awaiting the arrival of the antenna assembly). The main impediment I've run into with it is the lack of video acceleration.

Initially I was hoping to find that some clever person had created an "OpenGL accelerator" card, along the same concept as the MPEG-2 accelerator cards from a few years ago, that I could put in the PCMCIA slot. Alas, no such luck.

I imagine that it would be too much to hope that I could get a newer mini-PCI video card and put it in, wouldn't it... :-P

Okay, setting that aside for the moment... I've seen several posts describing putting in a higher-resolution screen. What about the touchscreen overlays? The descriptions I've seen describe using an internal USB port on an Eee, and I don't believe the X30 has such a beast; how about routing the cable to the rear USB port? Am I out of my gourd for even considering it?

Any other useful mods people can suggest for this critter? It's served us faithfully for nearly a decade now, even withstanding having been dropped once and a friend pouring a drink into it! Everything old is new again, with netbooks being the rage now...

sjthinkpader
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Re: X30 mods...?

#2 Post by sjthinkpader » Mon Sep 20, 2010 2:01 am

The easiest is adding a SSD. I have a Transcend SSD in my X30. The X30 is one of the lowest power in the X series. SSD is a good compliment to a X30.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ng#p544000
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godling
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Re: X30 mods...?

#3 Post by godling » Tue Sep 21, 2010 11:12 am

Second sjthinkpader ... my Transcend 32GB MLC SSD has made my old X31 like new again. The SSDs will slow down over time (if they do not handle TRIM, and to be honest, I haven't found a PATA SSD that does), but the performance can be refreshed.

I've been extremely happy with mine, and even when it's performance dwindled (I just refreshed it) it was far and away faster, quieter, and cooler than the 4200 rpm drive the x31 came with.

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