SL 500 upgrade Vista Home Basic to windows 7 or windows 8

[Si14]

Hi,

I have SL500 with the following specs:

-Intel Core(TM)2 Duo T5870 @ 2GHz

-Memory (RAM): 3GB

-Vista Home Basic (SP2) 32 bit 

-Mobile Intel(R) GMA 4500MHD

--Total Available Graphics Memory: 1293 MB (Dedicated Video Memory: 32 MB)

1- Is possible to upgrade my vista (which is very slow) to windows 7 or maybe windows 8.

2- Can I upgrade from 32-bit to 64-bit?

3- What is the maximum amount of RAM I can put on this?

Thanks.

[hausman · Accepted solution]

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Si14 wrote:

1- Is possible to upgrade my vista (which is very slow) to windows 7 or maybe windows 8.

2- Can I upgrade from 32-bit to 64-bit?

3- What is the maximum amount of RAM I can put on this?

Thanks.

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1. Yes.

2. Yes.

3. At least 8GB.

If your system is very slow then before you upgrade it I'd suggest doing some basic cleaning and housekeeping, e.g. deleting temp files, defragging the HD, etc. There are lots of web pages that describe what to do and how to do it using free utilities.

As for upgrading, if you can wait another couple of months for Win8 to become generally available, Microsoft will sell you the upgrade for $40. Upgrades to Win7 are much more expensive.

[Si14]

Thanks.

How can I find out about the model of my motherboard? To find out the exact max RAM capacity?

With my laptop specs, is it practical to upgrade to windows 8 (which I assume needs good graphic processor)?

[hausman]

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Si14 wrote:

Thanks.

How can I find out about the model of my motherboard? To find out the exact max RAM capacity?

With my laptop specs, is it practical to upgrade to windows 8 (which I assume needs good graphic processor)?

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You don't really need to look up the motherboard for your system, but if you want to you'll need the model number of your SL500, e.g. 2746-CTO. This is on a label on the bottom of the unit.

I found the datasheet for the SL500/SL400 in my files. It seems the maximum amount of RAM you can install is 4GB. However, the processor has 64-bit capability so I don't see why it wouldn't work with 8GB or more.

You also need to find out whether the existing RAM chip(s) or SODIMMs occupy one or two slots. I suspect your 2GB is comprised of two chips that occupy both slots. If it's on one chip then you could just add another 2GB or even 4GB to bring total RAM to 4GB or 6GB. If both slots are occupied then you'll probably want to replace them both with 2GB or 4GB chips.

Note that the RAM your SL500 takes is an earlier technology DDR2, not the current DDR3. That makes SODIMMs a bit harder to find and more expensive.

As for Win8, I see no reason why your SL500 won't run it with good performance, especially if you upgrade RAM to at least 4GB. I'm not familiar with all the new stuff in Win8 but I suspect you can disable most/all of it if you need to squeeze some more out of the processor. That was certainly the case with Vista and Win7 where you can disable things like Aero.

[octaviancosmin]

Well, I upgraded recently my sl 500 2746 AMG laptop from vista 32 to win 8 32 bit and now the blue buton from left corner and volume butons don t work . I tried to install the ATK driver for win 7 but still not working. It is a chance that lenovo update the software and driver for this model or is too old for that?  

[hausman]

According to Windows 8 Upgrade Capable Systems, ("ThinkPad L/SL Series: SL410, L410, SL510. L510, L412, L512, L420, L421, L520, L430, L530"), the SL500 isn't officially supported for upgrade to Win8. That doesn't mean it won't work, but rather that:

1. There may be some hardware limitation in the SL500 that prevents it from fully working on Win8.

2. Some software functions may not work.

3. Lenovo isn't going to develop Win8 drivers that explicitly support the SL500.

4. Lenovo won't provide any other support for running Win8 on an SL500.

[octaviancosmin]

Well, I am litle sad to hear that( no longer support for sl 500 laptop). That means in the future I won t use the four buttons (volume up and down, mute and the blue one). But why on lenovo site it is available the update system  software( 5.0 version) including for this model? What to update if no support for this model in the future? I am very dissapointed because i can t use those buttons and I think I will return to vista( not happy at all).

[femi_k85]

I also have a lease, and I have the same problem, but when I install windows xp graphics card has 256 mb, but when I install Windows 7 (64 MB of dedicated video memory) and for this reason many works slowly. how can I make pC-in graphical boot the card of 256 mb
Lenovo SL500, 2gb ram, cpu 2-GHz, 32-bit