Windows 8 on T43

[urphonesux]

I just wanted you guys to know that I have been running windows 8 on my thinkpad for about a month now with no problems. I have lost the use of my hot keys but other than that everything works fine. I can even throw/swipe my screens from the edges of the touchpad. Overall, the system is very snappy and highly responsive.

[Neil]

Hi urphonesux, welcome to thinkpads.com!

Just curious what you are using for a graphics driver on that T43? And which GPU does it have?

[urphonesux]

Thanks for the welcome Neil!

As of now I am running the default Microsoft Basic Display Adapter on a Radeon X600

[600X]

I've been watching some T43 auctions recently, maybe I'll get lucky soon and get my hands on a good deal. I'll probably use Win 8 as well, so it's good to hear that it works so well.

[Neil]

While Win8 will work on a T43...I don't think it accurate to say "works so well".

Without a proper graphic driver, there will be absolutely no graphics acceleration and the T43 CPU is fairly weak by today's standards especially if it has to do all the graphics decoding all by itself. Flash video, for example, simply won't work. Other types of video playback may be possible, but it won't be smooth. Suspend to RAM won't work either, which is a deal breaker for me on a laptop.

[skinnie]

Ati mobility modder doesn't work in windows 8?
I don't use it for some years but there are some tutorials :
http://windows-now.com/blogs/robert/get ... 8-x64.aspx

[urphonesux]

youtube works fine on my t43

[ajkula66]

youtube works fine on my t43

HTML 5 or Flash?

[urphonesux]

on a side note I have reenabled my hotkeys using the windows 7 driver 87vu38ww.exe found here
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... MIGR-74261

On html5test.com I scored 463 and 13 bonus points out of 500 possible.
Using chrome I have no issues on the flash test sites either

I should also add that I always use chrome unless a windows site specifically asks for IE

[smashkenazi]

I just spent a Sunday upgrading a T42
Oiled the fan with sewing machine oil as per the forum wisdom.
SSD on an MSATA -> IDE board.

CPU upgrade for $35:
Banias 1.5GHz/1Mb cache -> Dothan 780 2.26/2Mb cache (I know the bus speed reduces it).
The point of this was to get the PAE support for Windows 8 installation.

I ran the Windows 8 Compatibility software and it told me the machine is not compatible because the processor speed is < 1 GHz.

The system seems snappier, but right-clicking on System Properties shows a processor at 2.26Ghz, but under it
"598 Mhz, 2 GB RAM".

I thought others had installed Windows 8 on T42's using this processor. What's going on?

[AnakiMana]

I used to see that a lot because of SpeedStep in the BIOS reducing the CPU power for energy savings. Can you check your BIOS and see if disabling that (or whatever it's called in there) brings your reported CPU speed to the right value?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[smashkenazi]

I just tried turning off Speedstep in BIOS, but I'm still seeing the 598 MHz.

An old thread from 2006 mentioned this problem. At the time, it had something to do with the Embedded Controller software for the T42 being too old.

It seems replacing the Banias 1.5 GHz with the Dothan Pentium M 780 in a T42 is a step backwards.

RBS warned me.

[smashkenazi]

Notebook Hardware Control brings the speed back up to 1.7MHz and acceptable (for me) performance, but the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant still isn't happy.

[ajkula66]

There is no PAE support on 400 MHz CPUs.

You need to hack a 533MHz CPU to install W8 on a T42, such as PM 750/760/770/780.

[Xenomorph]

I went from Windows XP to Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and now Windows 8.1 on my T43.

It works better than expected. Windows 7 seemed zippier than Windows Vista, and Windows 8 and even 8.1 seem faster than Windows 7!

Everything works - WiFi controls and LED, all hotkeys, fingerprint login, etc.

I'm using the same ATI X300 drivers from Vista, modded to install.

[FrankL]

There is no PAE support on 400 MHz CPUs.

You need to hack a 533MHz CPU to install W8 on a T42, such as PM 750/760/770/780.

actually, the 400 Mhz Dothan CPUs do support PAE/NX, but lack the CPU feature flag(s) for it.

Since not too long ago, the Ubuntu 12.04 PAE kernel boots happily off these old CPUs by ignoring the lack of advertised features. I'll assume that Microsoft will never implement a hack like that though for Windows 8.x.

[DRobinson]

Since not too long ago, the Ubuntu 12.04 PAE kernel boots happily off these old CPUs by ignoring the lack of advertised features. I'll assume that Microsoft will never implement a hack like that though for Windows 8.x.

Really? I may have to d-load a new install iso and give it a whirl. I have been using Xubuntu on this era machine because the regular distro's installer would crash.

[Johan]

There is no PAE support on 400 MHz CPUs.
You need to hack a 533MHz CPU to install W8 on a T42, such as PM 750/760/770/780.

Can you provide a trustworthy reference supporting this postulate?

I just downloaded Sysinternals' CoreInfo (found it mentioned in the thread How To Check If Your Processor Supports PAE, NX And SSE2 For Windows 8 Installation), ran it on my T42p having a 2.1 GHz Pentium-M 765, the SL7V3; I'm running Windows 7 on this T42p).

This is (everything!) that CoreInfo reported for this T42p:

Code: Select all

Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 2.10GHz
x86 Family 6 Model 13 Stepping 6, GenuineIntel
HTT       	-	Hyperthreading enabled
HYPERVISOR	-	Hypervisor is present
VMX       	-	Supports Intel hardware-assisted virtualization
SVM       	-	Supports AMD hardware-assisted virtualization
EM64T     	-	Supports 64-bit mode

SMX       	-	Supports Intel trusted execution
SKINIT    	-	Supports AMD SKINIT

NX        	-	Supports no-execute page protection
SMEP      	*	Supports Supervisor Mode Execution Prevention
SMAP      	-	Supports Supervisor Mode Access Prevention
PAGE1GB   	-	Supports 1 GB large pages
PAE       	-	Supports > 32-bit physical addresses
PAT       	*	Supports Page Attribute Table
PSE       	*	Supports 4 MB pages
PSE36     	-	Supports > 32-bit address 4 MB pages
PGE       	*	Supports global bit in page tables
SS        	*	Supports bus snooping for cache operations
VME       	*	Supports Virtual-8086 mode
RDWRFSGSBASE	-	Supports direct GS/FS base access

FPU       	*	Implements i387 floating point instructions
MMX       	*	Supports MMX instruction set
MMXEXT    	-	Implements AMD MMX extensions
3DNOW     	-	Supports 3DNow! instructions
3DNOWEXT  	-	Supports 3DNow! extension instructions
SSE       	*	Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions
SSE2      	*	Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 2
SSE3      	-	Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
SSSE3     	-	Supports Supplemental SIMD Extensions 3
SSE4.1    	-	Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.1
SSE4.2    	-	Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.2

AES       	-	Supports AES extensions
AVX       	-	Supports AVX intruction extensions
FMA       	-	Supports FMA extensions using YMM state
MSR       	*	Implements RDMSR/WRMSR instructions
MTRR      	*	Supports Memory Type Range Registers
XSAVE     	-	Supports XSAVE/XRSTOR instructions
OSXSAVE   	-	Supports XSETBV/XGETBV instructions
RDRAND    	-	Supports RDRAND instruction
RDSEED    	-	Supports RDSEED instruction

CMOV      	*	Supports CMOVcc instruction
CLFSH     	*	Supports CLFLUSH instruction
CX8       	*	Supports compare and exchange 8-byte instructions
CX16      	-	Supports CMPXCHG16B instruction
BMI1      	-	Supports bit manipulation extensions 1
BMI2      	-	Supports bit maniuplation extensions 2
ADX       	-	Supports ADCX/ADOX instructions
DCA       	-	Supports prefetch from memory-mapped device
F16C      	-	Supports half-precision instruction
FXSR      	*	Supports FXSAVE/FXSTOR instructions
FFXSR     	-	Supports optimized FXSAVE/FSRSTOR instruction
MONITOR   	-	Supports MONITOR and MWAIT instructions
MOVBE     	-	Supports MOVBE instruction
ERMSB     	-	Supports Enhanced REP MOVSB/STOSB
PCLULDQ   	-	Supports PCLMULDQ instruction
POPCNT    	-	Supports POPCNT instruction
SEP       	*	Supports fast system call instructions
LAHF-SAHF 	-	Supports LAHF/SAHF instructions in 64-bit mode
HLE       	*	Supports Hardware Lock Elision instructions
RTM       	-	Supports Restricted Transactional Memory instructions

DE        	*	Supports I/O breakpoints including CR4.DE
DTES64    	-	Can write history of 64-bit branch addresses
DS        	*	Implements memory-resident debug buffer
DS-CPL    	-	Supports Debug Store feature with CPL
PCID      	-	Supports PCIDs and settable CR4.PCIDE
INVPCID   	-	Supports INVPCID instruction
PDCM      	-	Supports Performance Capabilities MSR
RDTSCP    	-	Supports RDTSCP instruction
TSC       	*	Supports RDTSC instruction
TSC-DEADLINE	-	Local APIC supports one-shot deadline timer
TSC-INVARIANT	-	TSC runs at constant rate
xTPR      	-	Supports disabling task priority messages

EIST      	*	Supports Enhanced Intel Speedstep
ACPI      	*	Implements MSR for power management
TM        	*	Implements thermal monitor circuitry
TM2       	*	Implements Thermal Monitor 2 control
APIC      	-	Implements software-accessible local APIC
x2APIC    	-	Supports x2APIC

CNXT-ID   	-	L1 data cache mode adaptive or BIOS

MCE       	*	Supports Machine Check, INT18 and CR4.MCE
MCA       	*	Implements Machine Check Architecture
PBE       	*	Supports use of FERR#/PBE# pin

PSN       	-	Implements 96-bit processor serial number

PREFETCHW 	-	Supports PREFETCHW instruction

Logical to Physical Processor Map:
*  Physical Processor 0

Logical Processor to Socket Map:
*  Socket 0

Logical Processor to NUMA Node Map:
*  NUMA Node 0

Logical Processor to Cache Map:

Logical Processor to Group Map:
*  Group 0

... and you will note that this list included:

NX - Supports no-execute page protection
PAE - Supports > 32-bit physical addresses
SSE2 * Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 2

I then did an additional experiment; I ran the Windows 8.1 Upgrade Assistant (still on this same T42p with the PM765) to see if that utility would report whether this T42p can be "upgraded" to Windows 8, or not? Upon completion, the Windows 8.1 Upgrade Assistant however reported: "You cannot install Windows 8.1, because your processor does not support NX".

I would be very interested to hear if anybody has nevertheless attempted a Windows 8 installation on a T42/p with the SL7V3, and in such case how, and with what results (e.g. compared to Windows 7) with respect to boot time, performance, problems etc.? Thanks very much in advance for anybody who have any actual experience (!) to share (and no postulates with complete lack of references, please!).

Thanks!

Johan

[ajkula66]

@Johan:

Check the post bu DaKKS here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=105184

I still stand by what I said, but have no T42p with PM765 to test.

You've got two.

Why don't you prove me wrong by actually installing W8 and I'll admit my mistake happily?

[Cigarguy]

My T41 and T42 have no PAE support. The CPU in both machine is a PM 755. Currently, it is running Win 7 just fine. Before that I was searching and searching and searching for a relatively current Linux distro that supports a non-PAE CPU. The newer Ubuntu flavour won't support non-PAE. Ended up with LMDE. In the end however I switched back to Win 7. Have not tried to load Win 8.

[FrankL]

My T41 and T42 have no PAE support. The CPU in both machine is a PM 755. Currently, it is running Win 7 just fine. Before that I was searching and searching and searching for a relatively current Linux distro that supports a non-PAE CPU. The newer Ubuntu flavour won't support non-PAE. Ended up with LMDE. In the end however I switched back to Win 7. Have not tried to load Win 8.

Again, all Dothan processors have PAE and NX support (T42 1.6GHz and up), but do not advertise these this capabilities.

You can boot an upgraded installation of Ubuntu 12.04 with PAE kernel just fine off these CPUs in case you wish to confirm this. The bootloader of Ubuntu has been patched to ignore the lack of advertised NX and PAE on 400 Mhz Dothan CPUs in order to do this.

If you'd want to run Windows 8.x on a 400 Mhz Dothan CPU, you will need to hack Windows to ignore the lack of NX and PAE cpu features too. I think there have been people attempting that, but it might not be a very good idea (as it's 1. an ugly hack 2. unsupported by Microsoft, 3. any Windows Update patches any of the files involved in the hack, you will end up with an unbootable system). For adventurous users, look here. I'm not guaranteeing anything in there, as I've neither tested it nor have the intentions to do so.

More info here. Note that the information in this wiki might be outdated; I can confirm that I can boot a fully upgraded Ubuntu 12.04 PAE install just fine on a notebook with 400 Mhz Dothan, without applying any kind of hack.

Edit: after a bit more reading, I'm not 100% convinced that the 400 Mhz Dothan has non-advertised NX in addition to non-advertised PAE capabilities. Apparently there's the ability to do NX emulation in the Linux kernel, and I'm not sure if that's used for the 400 Mhz Dothan or not.

[IbmPad]

I just made some testing on my T42 (Pentium M 755, 400 MHz FSB). According to the CPUID instruction, PAE and NX are not supported. Patching my Windows 7 kernel and loader to force them to enable PAE seems to work. However patching them to force NX on seems to triple-fault the CPU...

[FrankL]

I just made some testing on my T42 (Pentium M 755, 400 MHz FSB). According to the CPUID instruction, PAE and NX are not supported. Patching my Windows 7 kernel and loader to force them to enable PAE seems to work. However patching them to force NX on seems to triple-fault the CPU...

Merci de l'expliciter!

So unfortunately that does not bring Windows 8 nearer to 400 Mhz FSB Dothan users...

However, they can switch to Ubuntu if they wish to

[IbmPad]

According to Intel documentation, PAE is enabled when bit 5 is set in the CR4 register. NX is enabled when PAE is enabled and bit 11 is set in the CPU MSR 0xC0000080.

I'm not sure but it seems Windows assumes PAE is present if and only if NX is present.

There are 2 kernel versions shipped with Windows 7 : Standard (NTOSKRNL.EXE) and PAE (NTKRNLPA.EXE).
If I try to load the PAE kernel, the loader (WINLOAD.EXE) gives me an error message. WINLOAD checks whether NX is present (bit 20 set in EDX when executing CPUID with EAX=1) before enabling PAE, so I first patched it to make it believe NX is present. Then I was able to load the PAE kernel.

After that I wanted to try enabling NX. The NTKRNLPA kernel also checks whether NX is present before enabling it. So I also patched it to force it enable NX, but this time the computer would reboot when loading the kernel which suggests a CPU triple-fault.

Furthermore the simple fact of reading CPU MSR 0xC0000080 generates a bluescreen which suggests this MSR (needed to enable NX) is not even implemented.

[FrankL]

According to Intel documentation, PAE is enabled when bit 5 is set in the CR4 register. NX is enabled when PAE is enabled and bit 11 is set in the CPU MSR 0xC0000080.

I'm not sure but it seems Windows assumes PAE is present if and only if NX is present.

There are 2 kernel versions shipped with Windows 7 : Standard (NTOSKRNL.EXE) and PAE (NTKRNLPA.EXE).
If I try to load the PAE kernel, the loader (WINLOAD.EXE) gives me an error message. WINLOAD checks whether NX is present (bit 20 set in EDX when executing CPUID with EAX=1) before enabling PAE, so I first patched it to make it believe NX is present. Then I was able to load the PAE kernel.

After that I wanted to try enabling NX. The NTKRNLPA kernel also checks whether NX is present before enabling it. So I also patched it to force it enable NX, but this time the computer would reboot when loading the kernel which suggests a CPU triple-fault.

Furthermore the simple fact of reading CPU MSR 0xC0000080 generates a bluescreen which suggests this MSR (needed to enable NX) is not even implemented.

Sorry I think I should have said more correctly "merci de l'avoir explicité".

Your explanation makes a lot of sense, because consumer versions of Windows only activate PAE in order to use NX. In fact, 36-bit memory addressing remains unavailable for programs/windows even when NX is exposed.

The only way to use 36-bit memory addressing is to run Windows 2000/2003/2003R2/2008 x86 data center edition. It used to be available in consumer Windows versions using the NT kernel, but got disabled somewhere between XP RTM and XP SP2 if I recall correctly, mostly due to vendors writing drivers that handled 36-bit addressing poorly...

[martinlink]

Hey guys,

I just got my hands on my very first laptop, and it's a T43! Loving it so far.
I installed Windows 8.1 on it and everything works flawlessly, except for the hotkeys (also fn+space for zoom) and OSD.
I tried the newest (3.87) and the previous (3.86) releases, but all of them say ""This program does not support this system" when running the extracted setup.exe.

Please advise on what to try to make the hotkeys and OSD work.
Thanks in advance!

[Norway Pad]

I went from Windows XP to Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and now Windows 8.1 on my T43.

I'm using the same ATI X300 drivers from Vista, modded to install.

Is this an official mod, or is it something you have done? Depending on what happens with the T50 project, I might be looking into Win8 on a T43. And is this also the case for the graphics driver for the T43P? I will look more into it when the time comes, but good to know beforehand what is needed, and what might and might not work.

Edit: I did a bot of searching, and came up with this post, written by you earlier:

I know this is an old post, but there are two things to get the Radeon X300 working:

1) Download the Legacy/Vista 10.2 drivers for Desktop cards.

2) Run Mobility Modder (http://www.hardwareheaven.com/modtool.php) to patch the Desktop drivers to work on Mobile chipsets.

I assume this is the mod you mention?

[FrankL]

I went from Windows XP to Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and now Windows 8.1 on my T43.

I'm using the same ATI X300 drivers from Vista, modded to install.

Is this an official mod, or is it something you have done? Depending on what happens with the T50 project, I might be looking into Win8 on a T43. And is this also the case for the graphics driver for the T43P? I will look more into it when the time comes, but good to know beforehand what is needed, and what might and might not work.

Edit: I did a bot of searching, and came up with this post, written by you earlier:

I know this is an old post, but there are two things to get the Radeon X300 working:

1) Download the Legacy/Vista 10.2 drivers for Desktop cards.

2) Run Mobility Modder (http://www.hardwareheaven.com/modtool.php) to patch the Desktop drivers to work on Mobile chipsets.

I assume this is the mod you mention?

That's the mod in question. Make sure you download the 'legacy' (WinXP/Vista) version of the 10.2 Catalysts, as the Vista/Win7 version will not work with this mod.

[Johan]

Readers of this thread, who are interested in whether or not Windows 8 can be installed on a T42 might want to have a look in the thread Windows 8 installed on a T42!

I kindly suggest to keep this thread ("Windows 8 on T43") related to running Win 8 on T43/p's, and to keep the above-mentioned thread related to installing and running Win 8 on T42/p's.

Johan

[vpreda2003]

Hi! Have a look at this thread, http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 96#p735596 , #14 post. Thank you!