Speeding up/ making better my new- old tablet.

ojrules

ojrules

ojrules

Associate
Joined
18 Nov 2007
Posts
1,747
I brought a tablet off a friend who works as a technitian.

It's an RM-wacom tablet, it's got a 900mhz processor, 30gb hard drive, 512mb ram. I got it for £70, seemed a reasonable price, maybe should have asked for £60 but hey, came with external CD drive, and 2 batteries.
(some may remember i had a thread askign about tablets for uni a while back)

My question is, is there any way of making the tablet any better?. It boots to useable in under a minute, and handles basic programs fine. I only really wanted it for note making in lectures. My 2 main gripes about it are heat and battery life. I have a 5400mah(?) battery and a 9400mah(?) or there about battery. The latter seems to last a lot longer than the first , but neither looks like they will last for more than 3 hours.- So any tips/hardware to increase battery life?

Also, since i plan on using it in lectures, it could do with being silent. After prolonged use, and it being on my lap, the fan does start to whirr, and while its not that loud, it is reasonably noticeable.

- Also what are your thoughts on whacking in a 8/16 gb compact flash card in the tablet to run programs off?- could this increase speed/decrease heat?...
 
from the specs it's probably rather old - the batteries are probably ruined.

your best bet would be to replace/repair the batteries if possible.

a big CF card would probably work quite well to speed up the loading (but not execution) of programs, although i suspect the majority of the noise to be due to the CPU and northbridge and not the Hard Disk.

anyway, loads of people use laptops in lectures - fan noise really isn't an issue unless it's VERY loud for a portable.
 
mkay.. thanks for the advice.. do batteries tend to be model specific? - also how could i "repair" the batteries?..

- just googled it and foudn out how to replace the Li batteries- inside the battery- looks a fairly simple jobby-- cant seem to find anywhere that sells suitable batteries....

here is the tablet : http://www.rm.com/Support/ProductIn...errer=KLSearch&Search=&recordno=3&cluster=All

processor is actually 887ish, rather than the stated 800 . not that it make that much difference :P
 
Last edited:
yes, batteries are almost always model specific.

unfortunately, it uses lithium-polymer batteries which are usually custom made/shaped, which might make repairs pretty difficult.

it's still possible that spare batteries are available - try eBay :)
 
mkay, thans for the advice.. I'm going to see how the batteries hold their charge - ( the larger capacity one seems to do ok) , also the laptop has a "hot swap" thing, whereby you can put the laptop into standby, change the batteries then turn it back on again, and all your programs stay loaded. If i feel the batteries arent up to much, il ask the guy for another battery, for like a tenner or something.
 
sounds good. of course, there's no harm in at least checking if there are any on fleabay.
 
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Tatung-RTAB-1...cessories_LaptopBatteries&hash=item35a927442c hmm £50 for 5400mah , cba at that price for the moment, i'l see how these go..

Aswell as installing programs on a flash card, could i just install the whole OS - judging by the fact that i have everything i need on it at the moment, and it only takes up 5-6gb..?...

there is a 16gb version of this on a competitors for £30.. you recon that would be ok to run and OS and programs on?...http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FL-014-KS&groupid=701&catid=1593&subcat=222
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom