Detailed Questions on Radical Upgrading? Please Help !

Hi Forum,

My personal laptop is Lenovo THINKPAD T500 2055, and its main specifications are as follows:

- Intel Core 2 Duo processor T9400 (2.53GHz 1066MHz 6MBL2)
- 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM Memory Module 4 GB (2 x 4 GB) 1066MHz DDR31066/PC38500 DDR3 SDRAM SoDIMM Kingston.
- 2 GB Intel Turbo Memory hard drive cache.
- ATI Mobility Radeon 3650 with 256MB.
- 160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm.
- Windows 7 Ultimate with the latest Service Pack (x64).

My problem precisely and concisely is that I am NOT happy nor satisfied with the performance of my laptop at all, and I need your assitance and advices to boost my laptop's performance.

I do NOT use my laptop for games at all. Also, I do NOT use my laptop for working with graphics nor 3D stuff at all.

I use my laptop for Software development purposes (Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, SharePoint 2010, Vmware), Besides, Surfing the Internet (Chatting, Reading, Watching Videos...etc).

I feel that my laptop is not fast enough especially when I run the virtual machine (VM) and do some programming work. I am not satisfied nor happy at all with the application load time nor the process response time.

BTW, there's no viruses or malicious software that are affecting my laptop or its memory.

Therefore, I want to improve the performance of my laptop and increase its speed, and I do have some questions:

Q1) Upgrading to Solid-State Drive (SSD):

a. Will SSD really make a great noticible difference in my laptop's performance?

b. What is the best SSD brand or model do you recommend for my laptop?

c. Are there any issues or problems with the SSD and T500?


Q2) Upgrading the CPU:

a. What is the fastest and the most powerful CPU model that is compatible with my laptop specifications?

b. Will the new CPU make a significant noticible difference in my laptop's performance?

c. Are there any issues or problems might occur if I upgraded the CPU?


Q3) Which one do you think has really more significant impact on the laptop's performance: CPU or SSD ? In other words, If I can afford to upgrade only one of them, Which one do you recommend me to upgrade: the CPU or SSD?


Q4) Are there any other suggestions or recommendations you would like to give me please in order to improve the performance of my laptop?


Thanks for your consideration of my request, and I very much look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience !

 

Q1)a)Yes,a SSD will make a noticable difference in performance,especially in a Virtual Machine mode.
c)No.
Q2)a)A Q9000 or Q9100 or QX9300 if you want a quad-core,or a T9900.
b)No,I don't think it will make THAT much of a difference,unless you get a quad core or the T9900,because it already is pretty good.
c)Maybe temperature issues,or voltage issues.
Q3)In your case,the SSD.
Q4)Maybe better cooling?I don't know how hot your laptop runs,though.
P.S.I'm not completely sure whether you can get any of the processors I've listed....although all of them should work.

BTW,when I run a virtual machine on my X200(Core 2 Duo P8600,4GB RAM,160GB 7200RPM,Win 7 32-bit),it's not that slow....only load times are high,apart from that everything is just as fast as normal XP.Maybe you keep too many apps open?Also,try defragmenting your hard disk.

 

I've the Lenovo T500 2082 almost identical to yours. I added 8GB RAM and Upgraded to an SSD (Intel X25-M 160GB) 3 years old.

I'm also a SharePoint Developer using VMWare Image to develop Aplications and controls for clients.
With my VMWare Setting, I allocate 5.8GB RAM to the image, but SharePoint 2010 & Visual Studio 2010 eats up all the 5.8GB RAM which in turn slow down my Laptop.

I couldn't upgrade the memory anymore, so I had to buy the Lenovo W520 and add 32GB RAM.

If I think the problem with your laptop slowing down during Software Development is RAM, but you can can't upgrade past the 8GB RAM.

Spending money Upgrading to SSD or CPU won't help your cause. Instead save up and buy a Workstation like W520 or wait for the W530 in few months time

 

Your T9400 CPU and 8GB RAM look OK to me. I'd recommend:

A. Upgrade your primary drive (mainly OS and applications) to a SSD. Intel, Samsung and Crucial are reliable brands. You can't go wrong with any one of them.

B. Buy an UltraBay HDD caddy and move your present HDD to the UltraBay. This is also your chance to upgrade to a much larger disk for your software project files and virtual machines.

C. Do a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate. I sometimes use CCleaner to "optimize" my systems, but after a few years of "accumulations," I find it's better to start afresh with a new installation.

However, if your work is memory-intensive, you should consider upgrading to a current ThinkPad model that allows 16GB RAM or more.

 

Hmm. I would suggest:
A quality tried and test ssd particularly one from Intel. If you need the extra storage than an ultra bay caddy would work.
The T500 will not support quad core because of: the bios and extreme thermal requirements.

I have a T9900 I upgraded and I do noticed a bit of improvement but do consider I upgraded from a P8600 which is slower than your current T9400.
Unless you can pickup a T9900 for <$80, I don't think it's worth the upgrade.

 

I would try disabling the Turbo Memory in the Turbo Memory Console, using option C below, which you would need to do anyway if you get an SSD. All your other specifications look fine, so this seems a good place to start. I would reboot after you make the changes.

Intel Turbo Memory Driver for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit) and Vista (32-bit, 64-bit)