Ram upgrade question (Will X ram work in Y laptop)

[Customguitar]

I've been using a Lenovo Thinkpad t410i laptop with an i3 that I bought with 2 GB of ram and was thinking of upgrading the ram to 4 GB. As far as I can tell this ram http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-CT2KIT25664BC1067-204-PIN-PC3-8500-SODIMM/dp/B001KUL012/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313391873&sr=8-1 should work, but I honestly don't know enough about this stuff so I wanted to check with more knowledgeable people before putting in an order.

According to Crucial's site it needs:
Memory Type: DDR3 PC3-8500, DDR3 PC3-10600, DDR3 (non-ECC)
http://www.crucial.com/upgrade/compatib ... /list.html

[aww-de-oh]

the Technical spec's i could obtain from Levono's site were absolutely useless.
It can either take a total of 6g (4g in one slot 2gig in the other) or 8 gig (4x2)
It doesn't say which particular model does what or which capacity, it kinda mixes in a half dozen models on it's spec page, with a garbled amount if different info.

So, from what i could find, i'd say a qualified yes...it should work.

Got a few questions though.
Are you using the stock hard drive? (it's a 5200rpm i believe)
Can you open the bottom of your case (first unplug it, and remove your battery before ever opening up a laptop)
Is it easily discernable how many RAM slots you have? (the ram should look similar to the link you gave, except it probably won't say crucial on it)
What OS are you using? and is it a 32bit or 64bit OS?

[Customguitar]

Alright, I opened it up and checked stuff out.

It does have the stock hard drive. It's a WD Caviar Blue 5400rpm, but I have been using an external Caviar Black 7200rpm for the read/write of actual audio files. Would upgrading that to 7200 be a bigger help?
It has two ram slots. On another note, could I just get a 4GB stick and use it with the existing 2GB stick for a total of 6GB instead of the 4GB I mentioned or is that a bad idea?
I'm using windows 7 64 bit.

Thanks for your help!

[aww-de-oh]

Whenever maxxing out the RAM, it's always a good idea to get approved sticks.. especially since you'll have two different brands, of two different sizes (for stability's sake). Since you have a 64bit OS, you may as well grab the 4gig stick BUT:
First: contact Levono. (have your model number / serial number handy)
Ask if yours is capable of 8 gigs or is it 6 gigs. (and if it is indeed the 6gig max, ask Which of the two slots the 4gig stick should reside)
Ask if you should use matching RAM, (ie, can you just drop in another brand/speed of RAM, or should you replace both sticks)
and ask for a specific model number, if they can.

Most of my PC tinkering is on desktops, and it's usually best to use a kit of [matched] ram.. though, i have had luck doing what you're considering for your laptop on one of mine... if you can wait a day or two to confirm either way [from Levono], it's probably the wise thing to do. THat's what i would suggest for the best chance of a stable system.
If you don't want to wait, i'd say buy from somewhere that has a return policy, so if it doesn't turn out right, you can return for something that will.

As far as the Hard Drive goes, as long as your Audio Project drive is 7200rpm, you should be fine there. Although getting a 7200rpm Internal will make things a little bit snappier, it's generally a PITA to transfer everything over to the new disk... if you were to buy an SSD drive, the performance gain may warrant the hastle though!