ThinkPad T43 to T43p - MASSIVE GPU capability difference

[kfzhu1229]

I have bought 3 T43p motherboards from China and tried one of them to replace my current T43 struggling in UXGA LCD. In Windows 7 and later you can see if you maximize a window and try to minimize/restore it, you will see HUGE lags. Also the same thing happens if you try to use Windows key (From a keyboard of course since it doesn't have one) + tab. That laptop was almost fully stock frankenpaded (no unofficial mods) aside from the slower GPU.
When I was trying to install the motherboard I learnt something the hard way. After everything being installed (with Windows 7 upgrading to Windows 10 to get license which took a whole day), I realized that the system turns off whenever I apply force to the palmrest and then I thought I have southbridge/micro-crack issue so I spent another hour to replace with another one; then the same thing happens. And then I checked the palmrest only to find out one piece of metal on the palmrest that is supposed to rest on the GPU went down and touch the capacitors instead and left a burn mark. At that point I have to go to the previous motherboard or else I have to spend another day trying to do the same thing so I spent another hour on that!
After all these, the palmrest is now in a worse condition...
Anyways now with the T43p motherboard, the fluidity experience in UXGA LCD is just as smooth as Radeon X300 on a SXGA! It is so smooth that I cannot tell the difference between my T43 and T530 anymore!
Try this swap if you can get that motherboard (and read Chinese too).
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1 ... dmg8j26111
You have to ask the seller to change the price as that price is only for the Intel GMA T43/R52 motherboard! I have spent 2 hours just to find this link as all other posts about this motherboard are out of stock!
You have ABSOLUTELY NO LUCK on eBay for this as I had already tried before!!

[dr_st]

Thank you for sharing this interesting information.

There is absolutely no reason for there to be such a difference doing basic UI stuff with X300 vs X600/V3200. As long as the Aero is supported, it should work equally good. Even weaker integrated GPUs can often run Aero. And certainly, whatever hardware differences there may be should not explain how it goes from 100% smooth on SXGA+ to terribly laggy on UXGA. It's only 30% more pixels. I suspect there may be some bug in the driver that would cause this terrible user experience.

[kfzhu1229]

Sorry I should make it more clear. I am talking about SXGA on a computer monitor (1280x1024), NOT SXGA+ (1400x1050)
Also as provided by notebook hardware control, the default clock speed for V3200 is 1/3 faster than X300 (400mhz vs. 300mhz). Remember, the V3200 is basically X600. I guess that was why IBM NEVER equipped a X300 model with UXGA.
EDIT: I should also make it clear that I have used the EXACT same driver for both the T43 and T43p (Lenovo provided only one universal driver that works with only X300 and FireGL V3200 which is for both of these machines and R52 for Windows Vista)
In fact I managed to swap the hard drive with my Windows 10 copy from my T43 directly to the new motherboard (and did the accessibility upgrade program on another hard drive to get the license for the new motherboard to register on Microsoft's server) and it didn't even ask me or windows update for driver to install the driver for the V3200 (Remember that Windows 10 carries NO video drivers at all except for the generic Microsoft Display Adapter on default to save space!)

[dr_st]

EDIT: I should also make it clear that I have used the EXACT same driver for both the T43 and T43p (Lenovo provided only one universal driver that works with only X300 and FireGL V3200 which is for both of these machines and R52 for Windows Vista)

Yes, I am aware of that. It does not necessarily mean it's exactly the same driver, though. A single package can contain multiple driver binaries, and a different one may be loaded depending on which hardware is found. You can examine the driver details to check the .sys file to be sure.

Nevertheless, I do believe that the same driver binary would be used due to the proximity of the devices. It still does not mean there is not some strange bug that only manifests for one of the devices. With my limited experience developing Windows drivers (not graphics drivers, though), I have seen some strange and ridiculous things.