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IBM R51E: First time laptop owner that wants to upgrade a few things

Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by DangerDave, Feb 27, 2006.

DangerDave Newbie

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So I pulled the trigger on the R51E Buy.com deal last week, and for my first laptop I'm really impressed. But there are two thinigs that I'd like to upgrade, the memory and dvd/cdrom.

With laptop memory is it better to have it in pairs? As in, two 512MB sticks as opposed to one 1GB stick? Is there any speed difference?

Are there any aftermarket DVD-RW drives that will fit this laptop? Or am I stuck having to buy one of the IBM Multiburner's that I see going for $$$ on eBay?

Thanks for any info.

DangerDave, Feb 27, 2006

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ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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Depending on which CPU you have, the chipset may or may not support dual channel memory. The important thing is to get more memory as dual channel only offers a slight performance advantage.

Does your R51e have the fixed bay? I can't remember.

ZaZ, Feb 28, 2006

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dr_st Notebook Deity

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Dual channel is not a major advantage, as zazonz says. The more RAM the better, and a single 1GB stick may be preferred if you want to upgrade to 2GB later on.

R51e does have the fixed bay, so you cannot upgrade the optical drive (not even to the IBM drives) without some sawing and cutting and pasting...

dr_st, Feb 28, 2006

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