Solved! Lenovo T400: Upgrade HDD and RAM

[sarson]

Hi everyone!

I have a Lenovo T400 and I'm looking to upgrade the HDD and RAM. I currently have ~160GB drive that is no longer sufficient for my file storage needs. I also have 4GB RAM and am looking to upgrade to 8GB. (I run lots of imaging experiments that often require GBs worth of data be loaded in memory.)

I've never upgraded laptop hardware before, so I was hoping someone could give me a few pointers. How do you know what hardware to buy and that it will be compatible with your laptop? For example, this is the HDD that I was looking at:

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148599

Can anyone confirm that this would work in my Levovo T400 or point me to documentation where I could find that information?

Also, does anyone have recommendations as to what kind of RAM to purchase?

Thanks!

 

[Mu33rto]

http/lenovo.com/us/en/PDFs/Thinkpad_t400_and_t500_datasheet.html

Up to 8GB of PC2-8500 1066MHz DDR3. I would just flip youre laptop over and unscrew the cover for the ram that way you can see what model those are just to be sure..

 

[starzty]

It;s very easy to upgrade a t400. You wont be able to use more than 3gb without a 64 bit OS. Just pop off the touchpad casing and put in your memory, see mu33rto's post for the memory you need

 

[sarson]

Thanks guys! I'm running Windows 7 64, so it should be able to handle the additional RAM.

Is upgrading the HDD similarly easy?

 

[starzty]

The hard drive just requires removing one cover. then switching the hard drive plate and vibration guards to the new drive. The cover is on the bottom side where the fingerprint reader is.