Thinkpads Forum

I'm a n00b around this parts, but I'm well established over on the [H]ard|Forum at hardforum.com (user svet-am) as well as eBay and Heatware (both as svet-am).

I just bought a ThinkPad T40 and I'm looking to upgrade the CPU with the 2.1GHz Dothan. I've check eBay as well as various tech sites and can't seem to find it. Since it's a relatively popular part for ThinkPads, I thought I'd ask around here. I can pay immediately with PayPal if you guys have one.

thanks a bunch!

they pop up occasionally on ebay, but they come mighty dear... i haven't seen one go for any less than 2 franklins...

1.8 is probably the sweet spot in terms of cost/benefit...

either way, good luck...

2.0GHz is much cheaper, usually just over $100US.

pianowizard wrote:2.0GHz is much cheaper, usually just above $100US.

for reasons too cumbersome to go into right now, the wife and I have a budget that allows me "one shot" at upgrading this laptop practically as much as I'll ever be able to afford to.

So, if I can get the 2.1GHz, I'll spring for it now as I likely won't be able to do so at all later. Anyone know where I can find some benchmarks comparing the 2.0 to 2.1GHz Dothans?

thanks!

pianowizard wrote:2.0GHz is much cheaper, usually just over $100US.

Wow, where do you shop? We're talking about 2.0GB 400MHz front side bus Dothans for a T40 right? I see a 'buy it now' for $150 shipped. There are no 2.1's on EBay
Dothans on EBay

svet-am wrote:

pianowizard wrote: Anyone know where I can find some benchmarks comparing the 2.0 to 2.1GHz Dothans?

thanks!

It should be about 5%, as only the clock speed is increasing. Not worth paying a lot of $$$ IMHO.

You may be better off upgrading RAM or HDD.

Harryc wrote:

pianowizard wrote:2.0GHz is much cheaper, usually just over $100US.

Wow, where do you shop? We're talking about 2.0GB 400MHz front side bus Dothans for a T40 right? I see a buy it now for $150 shipped. There are no 2.1's on EBay
Dothans on EBay

yea, i haven't come across any 2.0's that cheap either... otherwise i would have spent a few more bucks and gotten one instead of a 1.8...

to the op... i guess if you REALLY want to burn your money, go for it, but for what a 2.1 is gonna cost you, you could do a hdd, memory AND cpu upgrade (to a 1.8 )... however, far be it from me to tell someone how to spend their sheckles... i've spent mine in less than desirable ways before...

of course, if the memory and hdd are already done, then i guess the cpu is the only thing left...

Patience, Grasshopper! Play with the T40 for a couple of months and watch those dothan prices fall! I'm guessing by September, the 2.0 will be under $100 and the 2.1 will be under $150.

sktn77a wrote:Patience, Grasshopper! Play with the T40 for a couple of months and watch those dothan prices fall! I'm guessing by September, the 2.0 will be under $100 and the 2.1 will be under $150.

To the other posters, I've already purchased the upgrades for RAM (to 2.0GB) and HDD (to 120GB w/ 8MB cache @ 5400RPM). I've also purchased the upgrade for the WiFi card as well as the bluetooth CDC card. The only real upgrade I have left is the CPU.

The reason I am very interested in the 2.1 is because my wife and I have a budgetary "break" right now where I can afford to spend the extra cash on the 2.1 right now whereas in a few weeks or months I likely won't be able to upgrade it at all due to the natural ebb and flow of our finances (we run a business).

In theory, the 2.0GHz should only be marginally faster than the 2.1. but as someone who's been in this industry a while, I know that Intel likes to play with process changes even inside the same processor family. I remember seeing older Tualatin parts at 1.13GHz running circles around their 1.0GHz cousins because Intel varied their manufacturing process ever so slightly when they went to the 1.13 part.

Thanks for all the insight, though.

Harryc wrote:Wow, where do you shop? We're talking about 2.0GB 400MHz front side bus Dothans for a T40 right? I see a 'buy it now' for $150 shipped.

Yes, the cheapest one with BIN is currently $146 shipped, but if you are patient, you'll come across a few that are around $130 or even less. This guy bought one with a best offer of $105.

save yourself the $50 bux and get the 2.0. You wont even get 1% increase in performance but you'll get a lot of other issues such as heat especially if you don't already have a "long fan" If you had the short one you better start shopping for a long fan now otherwise that machine will be hotter than hell and fry. All that money down the drain.

Actually better idea, take that $50 and buy your wife a nice bouquet of flowers for her being all nice to "let" you do all this upgrading.

heck, he could probably get a decent price for that t40, take that and the 200 (or so) bucks he's gonna spend on the cpu and really upgrade...

but if his heart is set on a 2.1, just keep searching the flea... like i said before, i've seen them pop up there every now and then...

There is also some sick satisfaction about being able to say "this thing is completely maxed out!"

It's kind of an accomplishment, bettering what IBM created. It's like going the distance.

underclocker wrote:There is also some sick satisfaction about being able to say "this thing is completely maxed out!"

... guilty of that .

Very interesting stuff. How hard is it to swap the cpu out? Is there a manuel I can read "How to"?

yea, there's detailed instructions in the hardware maintenance manual...

i did it in about an hour (or so), carefully following the directions and reading them twice (after reading them all the way through twice beforehand)... counting the time it took to clean the new fan i was putting in... this is the first one i've done in a thinkpad... ymmv, but it's not hard if you are reasonably handy... i'm not what you would call mechanically inclined, but i was able to do it and still have the computer work afterwards...

i bet that some people here could do it in 15 minutes blindfolded...

When I think of replacing the cpu, it sounds tricky and difficult. One thing I would hate is to have a dead paperweight at the end of the day. What other materials will I need? Just the cpu? I have a 1.6 banias right now. Interested in going for 1.8 or 2.0 dothan.

FYI, I ran a 2.1GHz in a T4x as my last setup.

YOU MUST have a T4x LONG fan or it will not probably cool and will randomly restart on you.

You also want to use a top notch thermal paste like AS5. Not the cheap white stuff.



IMHO, the 2.1GHz is a complete waste of money (like my T7600 is now, versus say a T7200 or T7400).

But whatever makes you happy.

welcome back, Brent!

underclocker wrote:There is also some sick satisfaction about being able to say "this thing is completely maxed out!"

It's kind of an accomplishment, bettering what IBM created. It's like going the distance.

in all honesty, this is part of it. i guess that comes from my geek soul. but, the other part is like I said before. I dont know when or if I'll get the chance to upgrade like this again so maxing it out is my best bet for getting the most life out of the laptop.

gator wrote:welcome back, Brent!

Just stopping through.

Neuro is a BEAR right now.

And then I have 8wks of Surgery after that (ick).

svet-am wrote: so maxing it out is my best bet for getting the most life out of the laptop.

I guess what the others are saying is that perhaps you wont get much benefit from the additional 0.1 Ghz.
You wont notice it when running apps.

underclocker wrote:There is also some sick satisfaction about being able to say "this thing is completely maxed out!"

It's kind of an accomplishment, bettering what IBM created. It's like going the distance.

well as I see it, it's like buying a car, then buying every tiny little accessory offered, like embroidered floormats with the car model name on them, also winter ones, mudflaps, oem spoiler, moonroof wind deflector, the compass/autodim mirror, gold badging, etc.. --i.e. you make it look silly with lots of silly options, all for some weird satisfaction you might get from doing so.

it's way fun though! I was totally happy with my thinkpad (with the only upgrade being adding another 512MB stick) but because of this forum and finding out about cool alternative part numbers and stuff I caught the bug too.

went from 1.8 512 to 2.0 1.5GB, planning on getting a 160GB drive to replace the cdrom (for storage of music, which will complicate the process of ripping my cds but oh well), getting an extended battery, getting the palmrest without the touchpad, getting back to a keyboard like my original that didn't have shiny key syndrome, etc..

there's so much fun and money/time you can waste buying just slightly different parts for your thinkpad. If you can even find a 2.1 dothan, go for it! I had a 2.0 kinda fall into my lap (found it in an otherwise beat to hell junker dell d600 otherwise I would have done the 2.1 myself..

got one! found it on eBay, BRAND NEW. Had to pay a bit of a premium because it is brand new, but at least I got it. Thanks for the lively discussion that this thread generated, nonetheless. Now that my buying spree is over, I look forward to striking up other conversations with folks over in the T4x and T2x subforums (former T20 owner, here).

svet-am wrote:got one! found it on eBay, BRAND NEW.

Is this the $250 one? I saw it this morning.

How much was it for ??

pianowizard wrote:

svet-am wrote:got one! found it on eBay, BRAND NEW.

Is this the $250 one? I saw it this morning.

yeah, that was the one. I was most impressed to find one that was brand new. I had already accepted that I was probably going to get one that was used (or worse).

svet-am wrote:

pianowizard wrote: Is this the $250 one? I saw it this morning.

yeah, that was the one. I was most impressed to find one that was brand new. I had already accepted that I was probably going to get one that was used (or worse).

FYI, there is ABSOLUTELY no difference in a new or used CPU.

These things are designed for a lifetime of 25 years +. As long as it is not dead, you can NEVER tell the difference b/w new and used on chips.

brentpresley wrote: FYI, there is ABSOLUTELY no difference in a new or used CPU.

These things are designed for a lifetime of 25 years +. As long as it is not dead, you can NEVER tell the difference b/w new and used on chips.

I'm a computer engineer, I work with these electrical conditions every day. Your statement is NOT true. Static damage is not a "binary" condition. Transistors (particularly the CMOS variety we find in modern ICs) can be slightly damaged (via IC biasing or damaging the connections to the Gate port of the transistor) so that they are electrically unsound. This won't cause the IC to fail immediately, but it can drastically shorten the lifespan of the IC and make it less tolerant of voltages, current draws, and operating frequencies that it would normally be rated to perform well in.

This is why when your run MemTest to check for errors on RAM, it's possible the _some_ of the RAM in a particular chip is defective and produces errors while not the entire chip is bad. According to your logic, the RAM IC would either be totally fine or totally dead, which is obviously not the case.

svet-am wrote:

brentpresley wrote: FYI, there is ABSOLUTELY no difference in a new or used CPU.

These things are designed for a lifetime of 25 years +. As long as it is not dead, you can NEVER tell the difference b/w new and used on chips.

I'm a computer engineer, I work with these electrical conditions every day. Your statement is NOT true. Static damage is not a "binary" condition. Transistors (particularly the CMOS variety we find in modern ICs) can be slightly damaged (via IC biasing or damaging the connections to the Gate port of the transistor) so that they are electrically unsound. This won't cause the IC to fail immediately, but it can drastically shorten the lifespan of the IC and make it less tolerant of voltages, current draws, and operating frequencies that it would normally be rated to perform well in.

This is why when your run MemTest to check for errors on RAM, it's possible the _some_ of the RAM in a particular chip is defective and produces errors while not the entire chip is bad. According to your logic, the RAM IC would either be totally fine or totally dead, which is obviously not the case.

Sorry, degree or not, you are simply NOT GOING TO OUTLIVE THE USEFULL LIFE OF THAT CHIP.

Assuming there are no power spikes or surges, that chip will out live EVERY SINGLE component in your laptop. BAR NONE, EVEN IF IT WERE USED HEAVILY by the previous owner.


You may be an "engineer" but as most people on this forum will tell you, I see, test, sell, and use more chips in a week than most people on these forums see in 10 lifetimes (nothing personal gents, it's just the honest to goodness truth).



AND FYI, your RAM IC analogy is completely flawed: 99.9999% of the time what fails in RAM DIMMs is the PCB and soldered resistors, NOT the ICs. This is why several guys (some even on this forum) make an ABSOLUTE FORTUNE buying "bad" DIMMs, removing the chips, and soldering them on to new boards. Occasionally you get a bad chip, but most of the time it is either a PCB or solder problem. This is also why the failure rate of memory for large OEM companies like Micron is much lower than say Kingston - - - EVEN when both companies use the EXACT same chips. The OEM companies invariably have much better PCBs.