what hardware mods can you do to the 7405gx?

So far I've come up with:
-add a 60gb 7200rpm Hitachi hard drive
-add more ram (looking at 2 gigs of that 'Premium' stuff from Outpost)

Anything else that would be good to dump in? It'd be cool to have an A/B/G + Bluetooth mini-pci card, but I don't know if anyone makes them. Does the wireless still have issues like it did on some of the eMachines laptops, or is that fixed? No more dropped connections and all?

I saw some pics of the Arctic Silver application, what's the deal with that? I won't be doing ANY overclocking at all. None. It will also be on AC power most of the time. I use AS3 and AS5 on my PCs at home, would it be worth it to tear apart the laptop, lube it up, and void the warranty?

Can you buy a second battery? Do they sell them at Best Buy, and anyone know how much they are? Will the eMachines m68xx or Voodoo PC M:860 batteries fit it?

I'm also going to add a mouse, either a Logitech MX510 or MX1000. I hate touchpads, probably because I grew up with a Thinkpad that had a trackpoing. I'll probably go with the MX510 because it doesn't need to be recharged and I can use Logigamer with it.

What's a good laptop/travel mousepad? I've been using Xtrac mousepads, which are *great*, but the website says they have issues with the newer Logitech models. Will any old thing be fine? I might go with a round cloth pad just for kicks

The new Creative Labs PCMCIA Audigy card looks pretty neat, but I don't know if I'd ever really use it. How good is the stock headphone port? I have the 2.1 Logitech z-2200 200-watt computer speakers on my desktop, which I will be using with the laptop at home - will the stock plug work fine? I have an Audigy 2 ZS in my desktop, if that's any comparison.

I also want to upgrade it to Windows XP Pro, but I started another thread about that. Any hardware-compatibility issues there?

Are there any cool PCMCIA cards to put in? I haven't had a laptop since my 366mhz celeron Thinkpad, lol.

I'm setting a budget of $2,000. I'm still debating the 3-year BB warranty. I definately want the 2 gigs of ram and 60gb/7200rpm hard drive. I'll also get the mouse.

Right now I'm thinking of getting the Ogio Metro backpack. I have a messenger bag that I use at my college, but it can be a pain with more than one large book (yay for shoulderaches). I have a 40 minute round trip for school, so it's pointless to come home between classes because I don't have enough time to play/work on the computer. Here's a link to the bag:

http://www.ogio.com/products/display...411109&color=1

That way I can hold my books, laptop, mouse, cords, etc.

What's the difference between between the Hitach 7k60 and the e7k60 hard drives? I've seen on some laptop-seller sites that they offer a 24/7 extended -life-whatever hard drive, is that the e7k60? Here's the link to the e7k60:

http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/sit...a0466460e4f0a0

and here's a link to the regular 7k60:

http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/sit...a0466460e4f0a0

I've seen the 8x/dual-layer slimline drive on some laptop-seller sites as well, but I don't think it's worth it just for 2.4x. I might as well buy an NEC 3500a and put it in a Firewire enclosure.

Is the 4-pin Firewire jack the same as a 6-pin, except without power? I have a digital camcorder I use a lot...would I just need to buy a 4-pin cable to have it work?

that's all for now TIA

Update #1:

I got a RatPadz GS mousepad and a blue Logitech MX510 mouse. The mouse, of course, is great. I love Logitech mice. If you haven't heard of Logigamer, check it out:

http://www.logigamer.com/

It lets you create multiple mouse setting profiles and you can set it to automatically switch depending on the application in use. For example, if you are using it in Half-Life, you can set the buttons to change and reload weapons, and in MS Word, you can set the buttons to copy and paste.

The RatPadz GS mousepad is nice. It's basically a textured piece of hard plastic. I wanted something I could throw in my backpack and not have to worry about bending. It's a little loud when the mouse moves on it, since it's plastic. I've also read reviews that it eats mouse feet pretty quickly. It has some nice rubber pads on the bottom to prevent it from moving around on the desk, which is nice. I like it.


I still need a good USB hub. I've been looking at a couple Belkin hubs. There's a 7-port that looks really nice for about $40. A little pricey but it would definately be useful. It also has two top-mounted ports so that you can stick a USB keychain on top easily. The other hub is the Belkin Tetrahub. Its a 4-port hub that's supposed to let you use full USB 2.0 bandwidth on every port, instead of having it shared. Nice concept, same price as the 7-port.

I've decided to wait on the hard drive upgrade until Seagate releases their 100gb 7200rpm hard drives and I read some reviews on them.