[Thinkpad] Re: Silent Thinkpad

> From: Boris Nienke <nospam@nsonic.de>
> Subject: [Thinkpad] Intodruce myself
>
> My name is Boris and i'm looking for a new notebook to replace my
> "old" Dell Inspiron 8200.
>
> While looking around i found out, that maybe a small notebook is
> enough for me (i'm using it for surfen, mailing, chatting and a bit
> software devolping and some graphic stuff and maybe a very little
> playing games). For intensive working i have a desktop machine.
>
> The top priority is SILENCE! I won't hear any fan while just surfing
> the internet or running the notebook to scan for mails etc.
>
Boris
If you really can live with a small notebook you might consider setting
up a solid state drive. You replace the internal hard drive with an IDE
flashdrive (PC card memory packaged to plug into IDE cable) of a CF
memory card with a CF-IDE adapter.

The advantage is that you have no hard drive noise at all as well as
significantly reduced power consumption.

The disadvantage is that you will end up with a smaller more expensive
C: drive. The largest IDE flash drive I've heard of is a 4Gb model from
Sandisk which costs over $3K USD. Your other option would be as big a CF
card as you can find with a $40 USD adapter.

My primary computer is a 560x with an 800 Mb IDE flash drive for c: and
a 1Gb CF card for date. With Win98 Lite I can manage web surfing, e-mail
and light graphics (AutoCAD, IrfanView).
Since you mentioned wanting a DVD drive I expect you need a higher level
of performance.
I suppose there's no reason any IDE drive couldn't be replaced with a
flash drive although a more modern OS is going to require more "disk"
space.
The other problem is that a higher performance computer is likely to
have a cooling fan which will make noise.
I'm not sure what the most powerful Thinkpad without a fan is but
someone here probably knows.

Links:
Vicky's Solid State 560:
<http://www.sunshinesista.me.uk/index2.htm>

SanDisk IDE flash drives:
<http://www.sandisk.com/industrial/flash-drive.asp>

Lite PC (reduced installer for Windows):
<www.litepc.com>

-- 
Andrew in Ann Arbor
technology is the answer, what was the question?
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