Hardware Upgrades - maxing out your tm2

I love tinkering with my devices to get the maximum of power and comfort out of them. The tm2 is no exception.

I've changed the RAM to 2x 4GB G.Skill DDR3-1066 (PC3-8500) CL7-6-6-15 with sunbeamtech copper heat spreader, the HDD to a Seagate Momentus XT 500GB and the WLAN module to a Intel Advanced-N 6200.

AddOns were the EXiM UltraClear screen protector, a Transcend SDHC Card 32 GB (Class 10) as permanent resident in the SD slot, a Razer Orochi BT mouse and a Elecom Zeroshock IV case.

How do you increase the power and usability of your tm2?

 

Uh wow, thats a lot of stuff. I just wanted to throw out that the RAM might be hindered because I believe I read that the tm2 only clocks to 800MHz because of the bios, not so sure about that, but I remember reading how it was almost useless to buy super fast ram because of this.

 

As said, the ram will be limited to 800mhz (a limitation in the ultra low power Intel i series).

How does the momentus XT go? I've been tempted to convert to an SSD but my TM2 cops a lot of writes and needs a lot of space. Similarly, have you noticed any increase in performance with the G.Skill ram? Even though the clockrate is the same, the ram timings might be better.

As for addons for mine:
-Exim anti-glare screen protector
-Axiotron studio pen (WAYYYYYY better than the default, but doesn't dock)
-Razer Orochi mouse (had this with my old laptop, now for my TM2 )
-8GB class 10 SD card (will probably go for a 16/32GB when they get a bit cheaper and more reliable). I install portable versions of most of my apps onto the SD card + documents for when I jump around computers.
-Arctic Silver for heatsinks

Considering:
-3G/HSPA card for the second mini-PCIE slot. I would go for a mini-PCIE SSD but they never got out of the prototype stages (the EEEPCs technically do this but run a special controller over the PCIE interface which is not do-able on other laptops). It could be possible to use a USB mini-PCIE card then integrate the internals of a couple of quick USB sticks for more SS drive space.
-If there is a benefit to the quicker timings, I'd get new ram.
-Possible find a way of creating a more efficient cooling system (copper heatsink + more efficient fan). Would make a higher GPU overclock possible to keep all the time.

 

an ssd is the best upgrade you can make on this machine bar none; recommend a Kingston v2 64/96gb. I also dumped 8gigs in there, too. cost/benefit wise i think most would agree that these are the steps you should take first; besides a clean install, of course...

 

@Stewge, this is a hybrid HDD I believe, has 4 GB of SLC NAND and 500 GB of platter. If the NAND did die though, it would work as a regular HDD. I've read reviews that it works really well with reads, but writes it isn't that amazing and almost on par with a 7200RPM HDD. This is expected since the NAND can only be read off of from the OS I believe. Upon first usage things are normal, but repeated use increases their performance. For instance, firing up Photoshop the first time is going to be normal, but the second time you should see a considerable difference. I've seen times in OSX of Final Cut Pro, and the difference was substantially noticable. However, I've also read that this draws a bit more power, approxmately 0.6 watts (from what I remember reading), so I'm not sure how much that will affect battery life. Another con I read is the platters have considerable park and starts because when NAND is in use, the platters stop. So this might offset the power consumption due to the platters powering down, but this might be awfully noisy and annoying. I'm still trying to convince myself if this will be worth it, maybe if they made the NAND bigger I woulda have tried it by now.

 

I managed to put an i7 in my tm2, which made everything much faster I'm looking for a GPU now, but it's very hard to find one that fits and is actually faster.

 

I know that the RAM is limited to 800MHz, but try to find a 4GB 800MHz DDR3 SO-DIMM module - there is none. I took the G.Skill RAM because of it good timings which get further reduced when working with 800MHz.

I'd like to use a pure SSD in my build, but I need around 500GB of space in my rig and I'm not willing to pay 800€ or more so I took the Momentus XT which works really well.

Isn't the CPU and GPU soldered to the mainboard? Plus isn't the HP BIOS very restrictive about HW changes (as seen with the WLAN module)? Where did you get the part itself?

 

darn - shouldn't ask that kind of questions on this day

 

I just installed Android on my tm2 as well as a 3G card. The Touchscreen can actually detach from the main unit and draw power from your body when you hold your finger to the fingerprint sensor. So it's like an iPad, but waaaay better!

 

Hell yeah