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R40 P-M upgrade

R30/R40, A30/A31, G40/G50 and Z60/Z61 Series. NOT for AMD-Ryzen.
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thinkpadcollection
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R40 P-M upgrade

#1 Post by thinkpadcollection » Sat Oct 18, 2014 11:16 pm

Chances there is modified bios to support dothan 400fsb 2MB P-M cpus? The voltages are same on banias and 400fsb dothan cpus. I use R40 for floppy work but XP starts up painfully slow on 768mb and 1.6 P-M plus intializing intel 2200 wireless takes long time. I had generic USB floppy drive that died, not again unless I must, get a brand name usb floppy otherwise tell me not to. :)

I had R52 that was sold to other owner who still enjoys it for video watching, but it is fussy with hard drive types, lucky I had one that worked. But not my taste, and I have a 15" R60/integrated GPU with dead board so need another board and heatsink if it is discrete GPU.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

ajkula66
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Re: R40 P-M upgrade

#2 Post by ajkula66 » Sat Oct 18, 2014 11:25 pm

thinkpadcollection wrote:Chances there is modified bios to support dothan 400fsb 2MB P-M cpus?
If there is one, nobody ever mentioned it on this forum, so I'd be willing to bet that there isn't.
I had R52 that was sold to other owner who still enjoys it for video watching, but it is fussy with hard drive types, lucky I had one that worked.
There is a modded BIOS that addresses this issue.
But not my taste, and I have a 15" R60/integrated GPU with dead board so need another board and heatsink if it is discrete GPU.
I lost you here...what type of board are you actually interested in? The only thing that I figured out is that it needs to be for a R60...
...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

Cheers,

George (your grouchy retired FlexView farmer)

One FlexView to rule them all: A31p

Abused daily: T520, X200s


PMs requesting personal tech support will be ignored.

thinkpadcollection
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Re: R40 P-M upgrade

#3 Post by thinkpadcollection » Sun Oct 19, 2014 10:51 pm

Sorry. I meant needs either R60 15" integrated motherboard or 15" board with discrete GPU but needs heatsink to go with it.

Back on topic:
Is there a different non-intel mini-PCI card that has driver that initalizes faster than the intel Pro/wireless 2200BG that is already in that R40 I have right now? This 2200 thing initalizing and finishing booting to XP and responsive takes about 3 minutes appox. Also bios with wireless whitelist removed for this R40? This is last most powerful computer to support floppy feature.

Note that Dell D600 was one that supports *both* banias and dothan 400fsb CPUs, and have done them since I sold that to same owner years ago and had to repair twice, one to replace shot regulator PWM controller and one power transistor burnt to a crisp then on few years later swapped whole board later on (unrelated problem). That why I am looking at you "IBM" why we can't just easily swap banias to dothan 400fsb CPUs for 2 benefits: 3 watts less and up to 2.1GHz? This also support floppy caddy like thinkpad R40 does. Funny thing I now have 2 dells: D810 (P-M 2.26) and D531 (amd) also can use same floppy caddy as well but they are huge and heavy.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

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Re: R40 P-M upgrade

#4 Post by RealBlackStuff » Mon Oct 20, 2014 5:13 am

The R40 was not even made by IBM!
It was another mass-product from Acer, with a 'false' IBM-badge on it.
Because of that, nobody ever made any special BIOS-versions or other modifications.

The Intel 2200 always was (and still is) a decent wifi B/G card.
Yours is probably faulty, replace it with the same one, or get a PCMCIA wifi-card.

As for floppies: buy an IBM USB floppy drive, it will work on ANY laptop!
See e.g. here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Lenovo-USB- ... 35de63908d
Once you have that, you could dump your R40, find a REAL IBM laptop and get on with your life...
Lovely day for a Guinness! (The Real Black Stuff)
Lenovo: X240, X250, T440p, T480, M900 Tiny.

PS: the old Boardroom website is still available on the Wayback Machine
.

ajkula66
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Re: R40 P-M upgrade

#5 Post by ajkula66 » Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:33 pm

thinkpadcollection wrote:Sorry. I meant needs either R60 15" integrated motherboard or 15" board with discrete GPU but needs heatsink to go with it.
I happen to have a R60 board with Intel graphics. PM me if interested.
Back on topic:
Is there a different non-intel mini-PCI card that has driver that initalizes faster than the intel Pro/wireless 2200BG that is already in that R40 I have right now? This 2200 thing initalizing and finishing booting to XP and responsive takes about 3 minutes appox. Also bios with wireless whitelist removed for this R40?
No modded BIOS, but there's a "no-1802" hack which I presume has already been applied to your machine since 2200BG was not a factory option on R40. The best wireless card that you can put in there is this one:

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WN861N ... B0035GV6FE
Note that Dell D600 was one that supports *both* banias and dothan 400fsb CPUs,
Well, the same holds true for R5x and T4x series. You have to understand that R40 started as a P4M model and was only "upgraded" to PM boards at the very end of model's life.
...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

Cheers,

George (your grouchy retired FlexView farmer)

One FlexView to rule them all: A31p

Abused daily: T520, X200s


PMs requesting personal tech support will be ignored.

aPanzerIV
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Re: R40 P-M upgrade

#6 Post by aPanzerIV » Thu Apr 02, 2015 8:34 pm

There are no modded bioses for the R40 to support 400fsb dothans, unfortunately. I did some extensive research when I had mine and came up empty handed.

I did however conclude that the system could handle the chips and the only thing in its way was the bios limitation.
I bet if you went on one of the bios modding sites and bugged someone enough, or made it yourself (probably easier, trust me) , you would have a dothan in your R40 stable.

I also ran mine with a gig and a half of ram, it should be able to support a full 2 gigs. Head over to www.tweakhound.com and see his tweaking guides for getting the most out of what you already have, I highly recommend it.

As for your R60, I haven't looked into it any time recently, but I believe the 14" R60, 14" and 15" T60 and T61's use the same board. 15" R60's use a different board, and I made the mistake of buying the wrong one. I still have it around, but I'm not sure if it works or not. Make sure you get the right one if you plan on replacing it.
Current: -R60 14" T-9945, R40 15" T-2897, 600 13.3" T-2645-45U-
Previous: -R40 15" T-2897, R40 P4-M 14", R50 14" T-1859, E425 T-1198-
Non-Thinkpad: HP Probook 6470B, Dell Latitude D610, Dell Dimension E520

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