OS's on T42

[rckrchrdsn]

Just wondering what OS's people have on their T42. Thinking about giving to my grandson, but haven't worked with T42 in a couple of years.

[ajkula66]

Is your grandson interested in possibly running a *nix of some kind? That would be my first thought...

In the Windows world, XP reigns supreme on these machines, and W7 will run on them as well. How well depends on the exact specs of the system which we know nothing of at the moment...

[danikayser84]

My T42 (ATI Radeon 9600, SXGA+, upgraded to Pent M 2.0 GHz) is running a triple boot of Windows ME, 2000, and 7 on an OWC Mercury Legacy Pro SSD... all three OSes have working drivers (although the modem doesn't work on ME it doesn't matter for me since I never use it) and run just fine

7 will run fine on the higher CPUs (1.7GHz+), Radeon 9600, and 2GB RAM but is rather slow compared to even a T43 (if your T42 has either the Radeon 7500 or Intel graphics though, I'd only recommend going with XP as the 7500 isn't officially supported under Vista/7)

[Cigarguy]

Mine is running Linux Mint XFCE. It's upgraded with a 2.GHz PM processor, 2 GB ram and a SSD in the Ultrabay. I like it. Before that I was running Window 7 and various other Linux lightweight distro.

[TPFanatic]

I like XP. I think 7 can be manageable but Windows updates won't be fun.

If you do go for XP and you want Power Management software, get the latest IBM Battery MaxiMiser software @ http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/migr-44226

In my experience Lenovo Power Manager and its drivers caused me unpredictable, spontaneous, and very annoying freeze ups on Windows XP. It's what drove me out of my T42 since I couldn't figure out what was causing it. If I'd figured it out sooner I might very well be typing this from that T42. (Who am I kidding, I'd be bored out of my life without the gaming options a 2009 laptop provides) T42s are rugged, solid machines, just remember to always lift with two hands and don't put thermal paste between the thermal pad and the GPU's heat spreader surface.

Just bear in mind that prices have depreciated so much that for only a little more you can get a used T60, T61, or even T500 (or one from the R series) that will be more usable than a T42.

[Andrew479]

I actually got my retro-gaming T42 for twice the price of R60e
But it's worth it in my case as I'm running 98SE (on 1280MB RAM) and R60+ doesn't work with it.

PM me if any of you need old, still uncluttered and light version of Power Manager for WinXP (taken from R60's OEM set, mid-2006).
Last time I checked, it wasn't available anywhere.

[Kilkenny]

OpenBSD on everything for me. I will never run anything else.

[w0qj]

Just some sharing, I have personally used a T42 for 7+ years on a daily basis, and it was very stable.
Definitely no freeze-up on Win'XP Pro 32-bit on my T42.

T42 is a GREAT computer to settle on; I especially miss the 4:3 LCD screen ratio, since I do a lot of MS Excel work
Oh, and gaming? T42 is a great machine too

[kfzhu1229]

Just some sharing, I have personally used a T42 for 7+ years on a daily basis, and it was very stable.
Definitely no freeze-up on Win'XP Pro 32-bit on my T42.

T42 is a GREAT computer to settle on; I especially miss the 4:3 LCD screen ratio, since I do a lot of MS Excel work
Oh, and gaming? T42 is a great machine too

Great machine: yes (If you are not unlucky enough to dry the GPU)
Gaming machine: Yes only for 9600/FireGL machines
Modern machine: I prefer T43 which enables me to use a newer operating system (Windows 8 and up to today as of November 2016 all x86 versions work) but then T43 produces more heat
T42 in Windows 7 works great but with the compromise of unable to enable Windows Aero on 7500/9000 GPU. Finding 2GB RAM on T42 is harder and more expensive than T43 though.

[thinkpadcollection]

Ebay is your solution for finding OEM brand 2x 1GB module kits. I purchase micron and Elpida, but there's Samsung, Hynix and few others.

Search "DDR1 2GB 2x 1GB Micron" and they will be DDR 333 or 400 for average 13 to 15 dollars from HK or China and they are like new condition. I have purchased several over the time already. I also purchased several DDR2 as well.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[kfzhu1229]

Ebay is your solution for finding OEM brand 2x 1GB module kits. I purchase micron and Elpida, but there's Samsung, Hynix and few others.

Search "DDR1 2GB 2x 1GB Micron" and they will be DDR 333 or 400 for average 13 to 15 dollars from HK or China and they are like new condition. I have purchased several over the time already. I also purchased several DDR2 as well.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

Yes but it would be better if you can find them at a local computer store that isn't lame

[thinkpadcollection]

Will not find that way and quality is my priority, DDR2 2GB 2x 1GB and 4GB 2x 2GB is priced too high in local computer stores. Same with DDR which is almost non-existent. Ditto for DDR3 and DDR3L for 16GB 2x 8GB in 2Rx8 (16 chips per module) configuration; Tx20 and Tx30 requires that.

That is the reason I do the shopping on ebay as needed.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[max52]

I have IBM Thinkpad T42, Type 2373 - K1G - Intel Pentium Mobile M 735, 2GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM, Intel Pentium M processor Dothan 1,70 GHz, 40 GB Hitachi ATA HDD, ATI M Radeon 7500, from 2006. Original OS was Windows XP Pro, upgraded to Windows 7 Enterprise 32-bit SP1 at 2011. Runs OK, HDD is a little bit small, free space about 5 GB. Battery is upgraded/changed to new at 2011. Without complaints. For everyday work at home - Office 2010.

[shawross]

Welcome to the Forum

The T42 is a nice machine and with 2GB of ram it is capable of running Windows 7.

If you want to free up some more space then you can stop System Restore and you can switch off Hibernation if you haven't already. Hibernation space on your root directory will be a file of at least a Gig.


Enjoy

[RealBlackStuff]

More space can be freed up by deleting ONLY the contents of:
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download (possibly a few GB!)
C:\Windows\Temp
C:\Users\[yourname]\AppData\Local\Temp

Only a few files in Temp cannot be deleted, just press Skip for those.

[GomJabbar]

I pretty much agree with ajkula66 above. I have had (3) T42's. One with a top-of-the-line Radeon 9600 running Windows 7. One with a Radeon 9000 running Windows Vista that I just gave to my grandson. And one with a Radeon 7500 that I haven't fired up in awhile (I think it has XP).

When I decided to give the T42 with the Radeon 9000 to my grandson, I first used the Product Recovery Disks to install a fresh copy of XP, but I could not get Python to install and run on XP, so I tried a fresh copy of Vista Ultimate that I had laying around. Python runs fine on Vista. The reason for giving the T42 to my 8-year-old grandson was that he was interested in using Python to learn some programming. My daughter tells me he is really enjoying Python and his first laptop.

[max52]

More space can be freed up by deleting ONLY the contents of:
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download (possibly a few GB!)
C:\Windows\Temp
C:\Users\[yourname]\AppData\Local\Temp

Only a few files in Temp cannot be deleted, just press Skip for those.

All done - about 1 GB more free space now,

I would like to know - can I use for more space (as small pseudo-HDD) purposes a combination of Compact Flash card CF together with ATA adapter, on my system are 2 Type 2 Texas Instruments PCI - 4520 Cardbus controllers.
There are available at Aliexpress Chinese ATA adapter 68-pin together with 4 GB CF card - for total 15 USD. How much could be used CF in GB. ( with 8 GB CF card the total is 18 USD )

And if it works - do I need some special drivers?
I could use of course some cheap USB Stick, but internal memory source could be more convenient.

[dr_st]

If you do go for XP and you want Power Management software, get the latest IBM Battery MaxiMiser software @ http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/migr-44226

In my experience Lenovo Power Manager and its drivers caused me unpredictable, spontaneous, and very annoying freeze ups on Windows XP.

Older versions should be fine. I've experienced freezes with newer versions on X32, which started from 3.xx something, but early version 3 and versions 1.x should be fine.

I think I use 1.48 on my older Thinkpads, because AFAIR, from 1.51 the UI got more bloated.
PM me if any of you need old, still uncluttered and light version of Power Manager for WinXP (taken from R60's OEM set, mid-2006).
Last time I checked, it wasn't available anywhere.
[/quote]
It's still available just very hard to find:
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... u725ww.exe

And there no guarantee Lenovo will keep it there forever...

[RealBlackStuff]

Go to the Drivers link at the top of this page, then select e.g. A31M
Select Cat=Power mgmt and OS=XP.
Find V1.38

[GomJabbar]

If you do go for XP and you want Power Management software, get the latest IBM Battery MaxiMiser software @ http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/migr-44226

In my experience Lenovo Power Manager and its drivers caused me unpredictable, spontaneous, and very annoying freeze ups on Windows XP. It's what drove me out of my T42 since I couldn't figure out what was causing it. If I'd figured it out sooner I might very well be typing this from that T42.

My experience with Power Manager left me going back to IBM Battery MaxiMiser as well. I did prefer the features of Power Manager, but in the end the problems weren't worth it. Power Manager was never designed to work for the T42, only the T43 onward as I recall.