Take a look at our
ThinkPads.com HOME PAGE
For those who might want to contribute to the blog, start here: Editors Alley Topic
Then contact Bill with a Private Message

T42 CPU upgrade

T40/T41/T42/T43 Series
Post Reply
Message
Author
RolfThinkPad
Posts: 38
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2012 3:41 pm
Location: Glasgow, UK

T42 CPU upgrade

#1 Post by RolfThinkPad » Thu Dec 12, 2013 6:43 am

Hi,
ThinkPad T42 1.7GHz Pentium M

Does anyone know if the processor can be easily upgraded to 1.8 GHz, or even 2.0 GHz?

It must be a straightforward processor swap with zero other hardware issues.

RealBlackStuff
Admin Emeritus
Admin Emeritus
Posts: 23812
Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:17 am
Location: Loch Garman, Éire

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#2 Post by RealBlackStuff » Thu Dec 12, 2013 6:51 am

Anyone of these will work:
Pentium M 710 	SL7V5  	1400 MHz 
Pentium M 715 	SL7GL  	1500 MHz 
Pentium M 725 	SL7EG  	1600 MHz 
Pentium M 735 	SL7EP  	1700 MHz 
Pentium M 745 	SL7EN 	1800 MHz 
Pentium M 755 	SL7EM 	2000 MHz 
Pentium M 765 	SL7V3  	2100 MHz
Make sure you clean up/replace the thermal paste between CPU and fan.
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
.

Johan
Moderator Emeritus
Moderator Emeritus
Posts: 1998
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2005 2:00 pm
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#3 Post by Johan » Thu Dec 12, 2013 12:51 pm

Rolf:

If you seek to "speed up" your T42, then I suggest that you (if you haven't done it already?) rather upgrade your old, slow mechanical rotating harddrive to a fast SSD, in stead ... as this upgrade will give you a much more speedy T42, compared to upgrading the CPU. If you wish to read more about SSD's in T42's, I suggest you see the sticky GUIDE: Make your T4x *FAST* by replacing the HDD with a SSD! and the threads linked to therein... all you'll need to know is there!

The ultimate speed-upgrade of your T42 (unless upgrading the motherboard itself to one of the hopefully forthcoming nb51.com "T50" motherboards, which is beyond the scope of this thread to discuss) would be to both replace the (old, slow!) HDD with a SSD and upgrading the CPU at the same time! :-)

Good luck with the project! :thumbs-UP:

Johan
IBM T42p's (2373-Q1U & -Q2U): 2.1 GHz, 15" UXGA FlexView, 2 GB RAM, 128 MB FireGL T2, 128 GB 1.8" SATA SSD, IBM a/b/g, BT, Win 7 Ultimate
IBM T42 (2373-N1G): 1.8 GHz, 15" SXGA+ FlexView, 2 GB RAM, 64 MB Radeon 9600, 64 GB 1.8" SATA SSD, IBM a/b/g, BT, Win 7 Ultimate

sktn77a
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2055
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2004 9:44 am
Location: Chapel Hill, NC

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#4 Post by sktn77a » Thu Dec 12, 2013 8:52 pm

The 1.8Ghz upgrade isn't worthwhile. The 2.0GHz upgrade will yeild about 20% improvement in CPU intensive tasks. I upgraded my T42 from 1.6 to 2.0 and did notice a difference but I think the money is better spent on a bigger, faster HDD and 2Gb RAM. And by the time you have done that, you could have probably sold the T42 and bought a more modern laptop (the T4x was very good in its day but it is a 10 year old design now).
Keith
(Formerly 600E, T21, T30, T40, T41, 2xT42, 2xT61p, T420, 2x Ideapad K1)
(Currently 4xT430, 2xT460, H520S, M910q, M920q, M70q)

RolfThinkPad
Posts: 38
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2012 3:41 pm
Location: Glasgow, UK

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#5 Post by RolfThinkPad » Fri Dec 13, 2013 6:04 am

Thanks all.

I was only thinking about the CPU because I need to replace the fan soon, and so need to separate the heatsink from the CPU and GPU anyway.

I also see that my CPU has 2MB level 2 cache which makes a big difference over 512K cache versions.

My T42 has maximum RAM (2GB) with a good GPU and is fast, especially as I've tuned XP by getting rid of all the excess nonsense that drags systems down. Let's just say the T42 is "travelling light". Indeed I get comments even in 2013 that my laptop is so fast!

Re. hard disk, I replaced the standard disk with a brand new higher performance model, but still IDE, and noticed a big difference. The new disk has 4 times more cache plus other improvements. For me it is plenty fast.

Thanks for all the input.

Twiggy
Posts: 49
Joined: Wed Apr 15, 2020 1:54 pm
Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#6 Post by Twiggy » Tue Apr 21, 2020 1:57 pm

I realize I am resurrecting a dead post, but I found this while googling and I thought it'd be better to ask here than to start another thread.

I found a Penitum M 760 2.0ghz being sold on ebay for $9.99 Canadian from my country with free shipping, it's not quite as fast as the 765 which is 2.1ghz, but 100mhz doesn't make much difference in practice and the 765 seems to cost $45 Canadian, so the 760 to me seems to have much better price to performance, therefore make more sense.

However I do not see the 760 on the list that RealBlackStuff provided in a reply, so before I go ahead and buy the 760, will it work in the T42?
Last edited by Twiggy on Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ajkula66
SuperUserGeorge
SuperUserGeorge
Posts: 17303
Joined: Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:28 am
Location: Belgrade, Serbia

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#7 Post by ajkula66 » Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:12 pm

Twiggy wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 1:57 pm

However I do not see the 760 on the list that RealBlackStuff provided in a reply, so before I go ahead and buy the 760, will it work in the T42?
It will work, but at a lower-than-advertised speed given that it's 533Mhz and not 400Mhz as required by T42. In other words it won't be an upgrade.

My experience has been that 735 and 745 are optimal CPUs for these systems. Not knowing what you currently have I can't say much more, but unless your T42 is one of the very first models sporting a Banias CPU, I'd likely leave it "as-is".
...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.

Twiggy
Posts: 49
Joined: Wed Apr 15, 2020 1:54 pm
Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#8 Post by Twiggy » Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:17 pm

Mine has the 735, 1.7ghz.

So I guess it's either don't upgrade, or go for the 765 then.

Originally I was not planning on upgrading mine at all, however from a guide I watched removing the keyboard which is easy, gives you access to not just the ram, but the cpu as well, making upgrading both easy as well. I found affordable Kingston pc2700 333mhz 2x1gb ram on ebay and bought it, so I will be needing to remove the keyboard anyways, figured I might as well upgrade the processor in that case if I can find an affordable one to upgrade with.
Last edited by Twiggy on Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ajkula66
SuperUserGeorge
SuperUserGeorge
Posts: 17303
Joined: Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:28 am
Location: Belgrade, Serbia

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#9 Post by ajkula66 » Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:26 pm

Twiggy wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:17 pm
Mine has the 735, 1.7ghz.

So I guess it's either don't upgrade, or go for the 765 then.
I'd stay with 735. Performance upgrades are meaningless on a 15-year-old platform. Not to mention that 765 is a hot-running-beast when pushed hard enough.

My $0.02 only...
...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.

Twiggy
Posts: 49
Joined: Wed Apr 15, 2020 1:54 pm
Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#10 Post by Twiggy » Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:30 pm

ajkula66 wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:26 pm

I'd stay with 735. Performance upgrades are meaningless on a 15-year-old platform. Not to mention that 765 is a hot-running-beast when pushed hard enough.

My $0.02 only...


You're probably correct there, the 765 would cost me $46 so it doesn't seem worth it, however if the 760 would work at the advertised speed, I'd go for it for only $10.

kfzhu1229
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2484
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#11 Post by kfzhu1229 » Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:42 pm

Twiggy wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:17 pm
Originally I was not planning on upgrading mine at all, however from a guide I watched removing the keyboard which is easy, gives you access to not just the ram, but the cpu as well, making upgrading both easy as well. I found affordable Kingston pc2700 333mhz 2x1gb ram on ebay and bought it, so I will be needing to remove the keyboard anyways, figured I might as well upgrade the processor in that case if I can find an affordable one to upgrade with.
I need to give you a warning here, if you bought RAM from China for dirt cheap like I did, chances are they are fake Kingston. I bought a pair of 1gb pc2700 advertised as crucial ram but they have hynix chips - no genuine crucial ram have hynix chips. Opening up CPUz reveals they are from Adata. So they most likely will work fine, but dont really believe it is really from Kingston.
And again, Pentium M 735 is a perfectly good cpu for such a machine, upgrading to a Pentium M 765 wont be as good of an upgrade as you might think. Sure intel listed them as the same TDP, but intel is known to play around with the tdp numbers for their high end CPUs to look attractive. The 533Mhz Sonoma chips run even hotter (especially the 770 and 780, as I have the latter in my T43p) and at that point you might even need to replace the heatsink with a T43 one with extra RPM to cool it properly.
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)

Twiggy
Posts: 49
Joined: Wed Apr 15, 2020 1:54 pm
Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#12 Post by Twiggy » Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:58 pm

Fortunately, I have no reason to believe it is fake ram, as it's from a seller here within Canada, and not China. I try to avoid buying from China if at all possible.

Droider
Sophomore Member
Posts: 159
Joined: Sun May 08, 2016 3:47 pm
Location: Istanbul

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#13 Post by Droider » Tue Apr 21, 2020 3:25 pm

PM755 over PM735 was a worthy upgrade for my old T40. Running 3-5 degrees warmer, didn't really matter cause 1.7ghz werent running ice cold either. :D

X1 Yoga Gen6, i5-1145G7/16GB/1TB 970EVO+, 14" UHD+ HDR
X230 Tablet, i7-3520M/16GB/512GB 860EVO, 12.5" HD, LED IPS
T61p, Core2Duo T9500/4GB/256GB 860EVO,14" SXGA+

Looking for the T60P 15" :!:

Twiggy
Posts: 49
Joined: Wed Apr 15, 2020 1:54 pm
Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#14 Post by Twiggy » Tue Apr 21, 2020 3:49 pm

Thanks for mentioning the 755, I forgot that was on the list and 2,0ghz as well. I looked it up on ebay, and they are available for under $15 Canadian, so I am going to buy one.

w0qj
ThinkPadder
ThinkPadder
Posts: 1187
Joined: Fri Jun 11, 2004 9:53 pm
Location: Hong Kong

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#15 Post by w0qj » Fri May 01, 2020 1:11 pm

Should you choose to upgrade your T42 to SSD, just be sure that you order a Parallel ATA (PATA) interface SSD!

It's rather difficult to find nowadays. ymmv
Daily Driver: (X1E3) X1 Extreme 3rd Gen | mobile broadband (WWAN)
Current Thinkpads: X1E3 | X1E1 | X1C10 | X1C9 | X1C4 | X1C3 | X230
Retired Thinkpads: X250 | T410 | T42 | 560 (circa 1996)

dr_st
Admin
Admin
Posts: 9692
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:20 am
Location: Israel

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#16 Post by dr_st » Sat May 02, 2020 6:11 am

w0qj wrote:
Fri May 01, 2020 1:11 pm
Should you choose to upgrade your T42 to SSD, just be sure that you order a Parallel ATA (PATA) interface SSD!

It's rather difficult to find nowadays. ymmv
The more common approach is a SATA/M.2 SSD and an adapter to IDE.
Thinkpad 25 (20K7), T490 (20N3), Yoga 14 (20FY), T430s (IPS FHD + Classic Keyboard), X220 4291-4BG
X61 7673-V2V, T60 2007-QPG, T42 2373-F7G, X32 (IPS Screen), A31p w/ Ultrabay Numpad

Droider
Sophomore Member
Posts: 159
Joined: Sun May 08, 2016 3:47 pm
Location: Istanbul

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#17 Post by Droider » Sat May 02, 2020 6:26 am

My apprroach is to buy 5 usd msata to 44pin ide adapter and stick a 10 usd 32gb msata ssd on it. Costs next to nothing and 32gb is plenty for xp, 2000, 98 or small linux

X1 Yoga Gen6, i5-1145G7/16GB/1TB 970EVO+, 14" UHD+ HDR
X230 Tablet, i7-3520M/16GB/512GB 860EVO, 12.5" HD, LED IPS
T61p, Core2Duo T9500/4GB/256GB 860EVO,14" SXGA+

Looking for the T60P 15" :!:

hiero
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 5:00 am
Location: UK

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#18 Post by hiero » Sun Nov 15, 2020 11:09 pm

In process of a full makeover of my partner's T42 as she often needs 2x laptops when working on technical translations and XP GOOGLING becoming unworkable. So have installed Win7 pro, on an 80gb hdd, maxed out the ram to 2gb and tweaked the DNS to faster servers and is great, but as the upgrade cost so far is only £11 for these items new (!) I haved pushed the boat for a 128gb mSata and pata caddy interface and a 755 cpu for just another £23 the lot!

Looking forward to the new parts coming now.

cadillacmike68
ThinkPadder
ThinkPadder
Posts: 1494
Joined: Fri May 27, 2011 9:19 pm
Location: Florida

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#19 Post by cadillacmike68 » Mon Nov 16, 2020 12:26 am

What google won't run on an XP system now? What's wrong with those morons. Then use duck duck go.
600 600X
760LD FUBARd
T21 2647 T22 2647 1@ 1GHz SXGA+ 4 more; T23 2647 1@ 1.2GHz SXGA+ 3 more
T30 2366-88U 2GHz; 2366-83U 1.8G; 5@ 2366-LU0/66U; 2367-KU6 FUBARd
T41 T42 T43
T60 T61 8897 2.4GHz SXGA+; 8898 2.4Ghz; 6463 2@ WSXGA+; 7658 2.5GHz; T61p; 6 more T61s
T500 2
T530 W530

dr_st
Admin
Admin
Posts: 9692
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:20 am
Location: Israel

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#20 Post by dr_st » Mon Nov 16, 2020 2:54 am

Google (the core search engine) works even on Windows 98.
Thinkpad 25 (20K7), T490 (20N3), Yoga 14 (20FY), T430s (IPS FHD + Classic Keyboard), X220 4291-4BG
X61 7673-V2V, T60 2007-QPG, T42 2373-F7G, X32 (IPS Screen), A31p w/ Ultrabay Numpad

kfzhu1229
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2484
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#21 Post by kfzhu1229 » Mon Nov 16, 2020 11:58 am

In my opinion Pentium M 755 is a great upgrade. I got 3 of these CPU's for like C$2-3 each after postage and it was a pretty good deal for me.
But, locally I found a Pentium M 765 for C$20 and I think I had just burnt it on the spot when I was testing it! :oops:
Also, if you really wanted to, you can crank up the clock speed even more by using SetFSB if you don't have the ICS clock generator
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)

hiero
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 5:00 am
Location: UK

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#22 Post by hiero » Fri Nov 27, 2020 11:18 am

No, Chrome, not Google, is becoming more limited on XP. The BBC iPlayer no longer runs and several sites are scrambled or unreachable.

I have concluded my Upgrades and the results are in. Stats attached. The performance boost is marked, although as I did each in increments as the parts didn't come all at once, is less dramatic!. Overall, the machine is perfectly usable for everyday use except not having a built in cam of course. W7 routines run faster than my i7 Dell 1557 with 8Gb and mechanical HDD but it has 10 years of Bloat ie W7 upgrades, and Music Software/DAWS on it that cripple the registry.

48 hours continuous running - no crashes/lockups.

Meagre Costs:

755 CPU £7.50
2gb Ram £5.00
128Gb mSata £11.98
PATA mSata caddy/convertor £5.27


An added bonus may be that the T42's original M 735 1.7Ghz CPU may work on a Dell Inspiron 1200 I was given for free as is same class... That would be a 20% boost for that also. Downside is that the mSata is not seen by the Dell BIOS or I could have had a close runner to the T42 speed wise.

Image

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/22/27/4d ... 8447ce.jpg

kfzhu1229
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2484
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#23 Post by kfzhu1229 » Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:38 pm

hiero wrote:
Fri Nov 27, 2020 11:18 am
755 CPU £7.50
2gb Ram £5.00
128Gb mSata £11.98
PATA mSata caddy/convertor £5.27
An added bonus may be that the T42's original M 735 1.7Ghz CPU may work on a Dell Inspiron 1200 I was given for free as is same class... That would be a 20% boost for that also. Downside is that the mSata is not seen by the Dell BIOS or I could have had a close runner to the T42 speed wise.
How can you find a 128GB mSATA SSD for £12? In Canada I can't even find a 64GB mSATA SSD for £12 equivalents!
On the Inspiron 1200 though, maybe you should consider a regular 2.5" SATA SSD and load that SSD in the optical bay with a generic slim IDE to 2.5" SATA caddy.
But either way though, don't have your hopes too high for Inspiron 1200 as that laptop is a great laptop only because of its ridiculously cheap price tag, and that has not aged well these days when you can get a T42 for $50.
Also, news flash it is not the same generation as a ThinkPad T42. It uses the Sonoma Dothan platform and uses the CPUs from a T43. While you can put a Pentium M 735 in there and it will work just fine, you can shout out just a little more to get a Pentium M 770 on that thing which will outperform your Pentium M 755. Sure you can get the 780 too but those prices are marked up and are not worth their money these days.
If it were a higher end laptop like a Thinkpad T43 or a Latitude D610/D810, you can go ahead with FSB mod on the Pentium M 735 to make that run at 533Mhz FSB which the motherboard fully supports. But on such a cheap laptop I think it's gonna burn out the VRM.
Do keep in mind though the Inspiron 1200 costs like 1/4-1/5 as much as a T42 back in their days, so don't expect top of the line experience by 2005 standards even if you max out the upgrades.
And, keep in mind if a cheap and reliable daily driver is what you want, the Core 2 based laptops like a ThinkPad T400/T500 or a Dell Latitude E6400/E6500 will run circles around any of these laptops, even if you put a celeron in, and they cost no more than what you can sell a ThinkPad T42 for.
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)

hiero
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 5:00 am
Location: UK

Re: T42 CPU upgrade

#24 Post by hiero » Sat Nov 28, 2020 6:52 am

kfzhu1229 wrote:
Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:38 pm
hiero wrote:
Fri Nov 27, 2020 11:18 am
7
How can you find a 128GB mSATA SSD for £12? In Canada I can't even find a 64GB mSATA SSD for £12 equivalents!
I went to Aliexpress and used my Topcashback to get (at the time 3 weeks back) a 9.35% discount making it £11.98 at the listing price on the day.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001161 ... 4c4dk7i7DK

Thanks for your advice re the Inspiron. I was given it for free, so just adding 1Gb ram for £5 and utilising an unused 60Gb HDD and possibly the spare 735 cpu leftover from upgrading the T42 is not so big an investment!

In reality, the T42 is my partner's and she gets funny when she see's it connected up to all sorts of gear(!) and running extensive programs like (legacy) Cubase etc. BUT it has PCMCIA slots and I still have need to access to some ATA FLASH and SRAM cards for my XT DOS/Win3 palmtop and of course the Dell 1200 has 2x PCMCIA slots to. This means I can use the Dell if she throws a wobbly and stops me working!

The Inspiron is running W7pro perfectly fine although caching in Chrome for heavy Ad infested websites is a chore. I hoped the mSata would give it a boost... But, a 17 -20% CPU boost from the M735 would be a good alternative. Mind you, a M780 you say??? !

CPU data I referenced:
https://www.cpu-upgrade.com/CPUs/Intel/ ... _479).html

ebay:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Working-Inte ... SwPhdVSDZd

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “ThinkPad T40/T41/T42/T43 Series”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 40 guests