Best way to breathe new life into my X220

Hi Guys,

So I'll be sending my X220 in for repairs at Lenovo within the next few days, where they'll be fixing up some hardware issues (trackpad not working, loose ports etc). Seeing as component costs have come down in certain areas since I bought the machine, I was hoping to make some upgrades to make my laptop a tad more comparable to 2014 models, since I still think the machine has a few good years.

I was hoping you all could provide me with some ideas to get the best bang for my buck in terms of improving the performance.

The current configuration is as follows:

Processor: Intel Core i5-2410 CPU @ 2.3GHz
RAM: 6GB ( 2GB + 4GB)
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics Family
Gaming Graphics: 1696 MB Total available graphics memory
Primary Hard Disk: 240GB Mechanical Drive
mSATA: Empty

Primarily I use the machine for general use, browsing/ media/ excel.

I'm leaning towards getting an SSD, either swapping out the mechanical, or getting mSATA to use as a boot drive. With that being the case I would aim to maximize speed/ memory size while minimizing cost, whether that's through a single larger SSD or mSATA + Mechanical, I'm unsure and am looking to you for advice.

Additionally, I'm hoping Lenovo will resolve the heating of the machine, but if they don't, would you expect a fresh application of thermal paste to perhaps help the situation?

If you had any other ideas it would really be appreciated.

 

Welcome to the forum!

I'd definitely recommend installing a mSATA SSD. Have it in my X220T and love the boot times and responsiveness. You could then use the existing spinning drive for data storage or something along those lines.

Swapping the existing 2GB stick for a 4GB one wouldn't be a bad idea either, but if you're not running out of RAM with your current usage patterns, you may as well leave it alone.

Happy upgrading.

 

I echo what he said about the mSATA SSD.

6GB of RAM is good, you might see a small increase in performance if you went to 8GB - but I doubt it.

Regarding the temps of your machine:

1. Yes re-applying a new layer of thermal paste as well as cleaning out the fans and vents will help
2. If you ditch the mechanical HDD for a full SSD vs mSATA, you might notice a few degress difference as well.
3. If you are running Windows on this computer, you could install tpfancontrol for better thermal management of the fan system.

That's a nice machine you have there. I hope Lenovo does a good job on the repairs.

 

Thanks for all the guidance everyone. I'll be sending it off tomorrow so I'll make sure to let you know how it goes.

 

Yes, that and cleaning out the air intake and exhaust vents as well as the caked on dust on the fan blades would help. If you've never applied thermal compound before, I would recommend viewing some YouTube tutorials on how. It's one of those seemingly counter-intuitive things, but a little thermal compound goes a long way. Too much results in higher temps.