Compaq Evo N610c hard drive upgrade- Max size?

[Maxxarcade]

Now that my laptop is working better, I am wanting to upgrade to a bigger hard drive.

Will this laptop support a 160GB hard drive, or should I stick to 120GB? I know some older systems did not support over 137GB.

Also I want to upgrade the RAM, which is PC2100. PC2700 memory is cheaper, and it should work fine, but I wanted to double check that as well. I know the CAS latency is the same for the PC2100 and PC2700 that I looked at.

[WNG]

Re: Compaq Evo N610c hard drive upgrade- Max size?

If it can take DDRAM, it should be a safe bet the BIOS can handle >137 Gig drives.
That limit was circa 2000.

The PC2700 should work, my t40 thinkpad specs 2100, but 2700 is error free.

You just can't pop in PC133 SODIMMs into PC100 spec-ed laptops, of days of old.

[Mustang]

Re: Compaq Evo N610c hard drive upgrade- Max size?

This should help once you find out which chipset you're running.Intel chart

[willawake]

Re: Compaq Evo N610c hard drive upgrade- Max size?

i think it will be 82845 845 (Brookdale)

[Maxxarcade]

Re: Compaq Evo N610c hard drive upgrade- Max size?

Will is correct. Chipset is 845MP /MZ, Memory Controller is 82845, and I/O controller is 82801CAM (ICH3-M).

So what does that tell me? Will the 160GB hard drive I just shelled out $90 for work with this old thing?

I also bought a Logitech V200 wireless mouse, and a gig of RAM

So now I've spent about $400 total on this laptop... Though it seems to have more than enough power for what I need.

Plus I can probably sell the old RAM and hard drive on ebay and get back a few bucks

[bgavin]

Re: Compaq Evo N610c hard drive upgrade- Max size?

FTR, I don't do laptop repairs. That aside, the drives for laptops are pretty standard, so it should drop in. You might have to move mounting hardware to the new drive from the old one.

If there is a BIOS problem, it will manifest itself at the 137gb line. The drive will work, but won't size above 137gb.

Same problem for Windows. There is a registry tweak for Win2000, but I don't remember if WinXP has the same problem. Search for 48-bit LBA to find it.

[willawake]

Re: Compaq Evo N610c hard drive upgrade- Max size?

you need sp3 for win2k or registry tweak (recommend anyway sp4)
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q305098
you need sp1 for xp (recommend anyway sp2)
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q303013

imho i think it will work but there is usually some (bad) surprise with laptops.
personally i would slipstream the sp for the install.

lucky it isnt one of the old compaq laptops with bios on the bloody hard disk

[Per Hansson]

Re: Compaq Evo N610c hard drive upgrade- Max size?

For Win2K you also need the reg key

EnableBigLba or whatever it is

[Maxxarcade]

Re: Compaq Evo N610c hard drive upgrade- Max size?

The laptop uses WinXP Pro SP2, so I've got that covered. I just need to know if the BIOS supports it. If not, I guess I'll just send back the 160 and get a 120.

It would save me $25 anyhow, but I really could use the extra 40 gigs, since I use the laptop for video capture, and also the video clips from my digital camera can hit 1GB each.

I guess I'll find out in a day or two when the drive gets here. It's actually a Samsung Spinpoint 5400rpm. I would have gone for 7200, but I don't think it's worth the smaller size, higher price and higher heat.

[Maxxarcade]

Re: Compaq Evo N610c hard drive upgrade- Max size?

Well, Windows sees the whole 160GB during setup, so I can only hope that all is well. I'm waiting for it to format right now (takes forever to format 160GB)