Thinking about buying a T42

[Vespirah]

First id like to say hi to everyone ! So after looking up what the different alterations of the T42 "except P" comes with i'm still not quite sure which one haha so my only draw back is it must be Win98se because the games i intend on playing really need to run native 98se and hardware which the T42 seems to fit the bill but my only ordeal i'm having is the gpu which would be the mobility radeon 7500 /9600 idk which would better to serve my purpose which is why im here
i'm into racing games and the 4 i would love to play again is Powerslide "not wrc" ,Dirt Track Racing 1 & 2 and my hand picked favorite Leadfoot which has the requirements of
Windows 95/98/ME, PentiumII 266MHz, 32MB RAM, 250MB hard disk space, 4X or faster CD-ROM drive and mouse, 8MB Direct 3D compatible video card, DirectX 7.0 compatible sound card and video card .. and if anyone has tried to run these on modern hardware on compatibility mode xp to windows 10 or even in a virtual machine is a complete disaster and would know my frustrations so i guess my question is can the mobility radeon 7500 handle it or should i be looking for a T42 with the 9600 ?

[kfzhu1229]

If you want the best Windows 98 experience, get the A3x series or T2x/3x series.
T42 works in Windows 98, but not with optimal performance, since you would end up with some sketchy drivers for the mobility Radeon 7500 and 9000, and almost non-working drivers for 9600 or FireGL T2.

[fafler]

How about Windows 2000? I have a T42 with XP on it, but I never really used XP before, so it holds no nostalgia for me, and maybe Windows 2000 would make me use it more.

[Screamer]

it must be Win98se because the games i intend on playing really need to run native 98se and hardware which the T42 seems to fit the bill but my only ordeal i'm having is the gpu which would be the mobility radeon 7500/9600

so i guess my question is can the mobility radeon 7500 handle it or should i be looking for a T42 with the 9600 ?

Theoretically speaking, the Mobility Radeon 7500 should handle it just fine. A T42 with the Mobility Radeon 9600 is extremely hard to find based on my experience, and most of the T42 models seem to come equipped with the Mobility Radeon 7500. A T42 with a Mobility Radeon 9600 can handle 98SE just fine too, if you can even find a T42 equipped with that.

I fully understand your requirements, but whatever you do, please do not get a T2x. Those came with a S3 Savage IX8 or a S3 SuperSavage IX/C that normally does not perform well under general circumstances in most games, in terms of frame rate and possibly compatibility.

If you really want the most out of the T4x/R5x platform, I would suggest going with the T43 or the R52 with the Mobility Radeon X300. The Mobility Radeon X300 is essentially just a slightly modified version of the Mobility Radeon 9600 on a PCIE bus instead of the AGP bus, so there is not much of a difference between these 2 graphics chips.

Windows 98SE unofficially supports the 7500/9600/X300 with the ATI Catalyst 6.2 driver, there is no need to worry about it being incompatible. A small catch is that the .inf files needs to be modified to make them work, but that is all there is to it and it will work once that is done. I will help you out on the .inf modification if you choose this route, so let me know if you are interested.

[Vespirah]

@kfzhu1229 I appreciate the warning about those particular models.

@screamer I would love to know about the Inf modification, I think it might help me out. I found out the 7000/8000/9000 series has issues with Fog Table, 8-bit Paletted Textures and D3D 5.0 games. [https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=617606#p61760] so a simple reg fix seems to take care of that, but not clear if this is necessary or not for me.

[RealBlackStuff]

@Vespirah:
how about using some punctuation (like full stops or commas) and starting the next sentence(s) on a new line?
Sorry to say, but your posts are nearly impossible to read.

[Vespirah]

@RealBlackStuff
Okay thank you.

[kfzhu1229]

Also, I forgot to say that:
T/A20-22 suffer from some kind of chipset failure after prolonged use.
A3x suffer from the Radeon chip not heatsinked thus desolders after time, tucking thick thermal compound between the chip and the heatsink may help prolong the lifespan.
A31/T30 suffer from capacitor failures as Pentium 4 architecture really stresses the components on the motherboard much harder than the Pentium III - M and Pentium M.
T40 - T42 may suffer from the chassis flex that may break the solder of the Radeon chip - and this is more dramatic on the Radeon 9600 and FireGL T2. Late manufactured boards may be more resilient. My T42 was manufactured in 2006 so it had none of these.
T43 suffers from chassis flex that may break the solder of the southbridge. I haven't had any of severe consequences on my T43s just yet (one had its primary hard drive port not working, but ultrabay still works)

[Screamer]

I would love to know about the Inf modification, I think it might help me out. I found out the 7000/8000/9000 series has issues with Fog Table, 8-bit Paletted Textures and D3D 5.0 games. [https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=617606#p61760] so a simple reg fix seems to take care of that, but not clear if this is necessary or not for me.

The .inf modification is just a very weird way of adding 'support' for ATI's mobile graphics chips (ATI's official drivers did not support them), so it may not necessarily help you with the rendering issues that the driver itself has.

It may be necessary considering that ATI used to produce horrid drivers back in the old times, and I happen to have stumbled upon an ATI driver that did not need .inf modifications. This is the old-school Omega drivers based off Catalyst 4.10, so I think this might have some fixes for the Direct3D 5.0 fog table and the 8-bit palette textures.

The downside for this driver is that it lacks support for the Mobility Radeon X300 and the Mobility FireGL V3200. It only supports the Mobility Radeon 7500, Mobility FireGL 7800, Mobility Radeon 9000, Mobility FireGL 9000, Mobility Radeon 9600 and the Mobility FireGL T2. This means you are locked to the T40/T41/T42 or the R50/R51 models, just be aware that the R50/R51 could be configured with a Intel Extreme Graphics 2 (and that is something you will not like). Avoid those models and look for a Mobility Radeon 7500 equipped model, they should be easy to find.

EDIT: Found a newer version, but it unfortunately does not support the X300/V3200.

Also, I forgot to say that:
T/A20-22 suffer from some kind of chipset failure after prolonged use.

They definitely did not suffer from a chipset failure, but from a faulty voltage regulator. I am very sure that the Blink of Death was caused by a problematic voltage regulator that overcharged the capacitors, which causes the Blink of Death to occur.

[shawross]

I just pulled out my T42 and T41 from storage which are both in mint condition. They have the 7500 GPU and run amazingly cool.

The T41 has Tiny XP and the T42 has XP SP3. I have never had a problem with the 7500 and anything more demanding I would run on my T43s.

If you are going to buy something of this vintage search for something in mint condition would be my recommendation.

I might try to install Win 98 SE on the T41.

In great condition, the T4x series are very visually appealing even to this day and the keyboard never seems to date.

[ajkula66]

In great condition, the T4x series are very visually appealing even to this day and the keyboard never seems to date.

Truer words have not been spoken. T4x series is the pinnacle of IBM laptop design, IMO.

[TPFanatic]

T40 series are hecking sexy.

[kfzhu1229]

On the other hand, it seems like someone on eBay is valuing such a machine way too much...
https://imgur.com/a/IwkAMPa
I would like to say I have three of these machines at similar or better specs, as well as 2 ThinkPad T43p motherboards as spare.

[sdfox7]

I just pulled out my T42 and T41 from storage which are both in mint condition. They have the 7500 GPU and run amazingly cool.

The T41 has Tiny XP and the T42 has XP SP3. I have never had a problem with the 7500 and anything more demanding I would run on my T43s.

If you are going to buy something of this vintage search for something in mint condition would be my recommendation.

I might try to install Win 98 SE on the T41.

In great condition, the T4x series are very visually appealing even to this day and the keyboard never seems to date.

In great condition, the T4x series are very visually appealing even to this day and the keyboard never seems to date.

Truer words have not been spoken. T4x series is the pinnacle of IBM laptop design, IMO.

I agree with both of you. I own several older ThinkPads including the 600 and a T23 in addition to T4x. I've been pleased with all of them.

My ThinkPad T40 from manufactured in May 2003 failed in August 2017 after almost 15 years of reliable service. Unfortunately I was not aware of the chassis flex issue earlier in its life or I might have been able to mitigate the damage.

I ended up replacing it the same week with a pre-owned one-owner T41 in excellent condition, manufacture date April 2004. I am much more conscious of handling it properly to prevent the chassis flex issue.

Like my T40 before it, my T41 is running Windows XP SP3 which I'm still very satisfied with, and you can prolong XP's serviceable life by using a modern browser such as Google Chrome 49 or Mozilla Firefox 52.9.0.

[shawross]

With my T41 I managed to install Win 98 SE successfully and I basically got everything to work because Lenovo has most of the drivers on their website. It was still a struggle though at times but I won't connect it to the internet though.

Love the old welcome to windows sounds when it finishes booting though after 2 minutes LOL.

Saying all that I have already refitted my Tiny XP HD because XP is just so much more flexible as an older OS.

[sdfox7]

With my T41 I managed to install Win 98 SE successfully and I basically got everything to work because Lenovo has most of the drivers on their website. It was still a struggle though at times but I won't connect it to the internet though.

Love the old welcome to windows sounds when it finishes booting though after 2 minutes LOL.

Saying all that I have already refitted my Tiny XP HD because XP is just so much more flexible as an older OS.

The website I have always used to get drivers for older IBM products is the IBM/Lenovo Legacy End of Life (EOL) Product Archive portal. It even goes all the way back to the March 1994 drivers for the first ThinkPad 701:

https://download.lenovo.com/eol/index.h ... %20Archive

[matti157]

I have just bought one for about 50 €, I will install windows 98 with official drivers. has the pentium 1.8 ... from the serial can you understand the configuration?

[Cigarguy]

Click on the MTM link at the top of this page. Type in the 7 digit text after "Product ID:" This will tell you the config that the machine shipped from the factory.

[shawross]

have just bought one for about 50 €, I will install windows 98 with official drivers. has the pentium 1.8 ... from the serial can you understand the configuration?

You may already be aware but with the ATI software you can select the troubleshoot tab to adjust hardware acceleration which helps in some older games.

Have fun

[matti157]

have just bought one for about 50 €, I will install windows 98 with official drivers. has the pentium 1.8 ... from the serial can you understand the configuration?

You may already be aware but with the ATI software you can select the troubleshoot tab to adjust hardware acceleration which helps in some older games.

Have fun

Thank you! I did not know, I thought it was all already managed by default

[sdfox7]

Click on the MTM link at the top of this page. Type in the 7 digit text after "Product ID:" This will tell you the config that the machine shipped from the factory.

Do you know how far back this MTM lookup works? I tried looking up my ThinkPad 600E and got no results (2645 8AU)

http://sdfox7.com/600e.htm

[beko1987]

Do like a nice t4x series! I have a T40 which runs XP SP3. My daughter has a good game of the original Rollercoaster Tycoon running on it and plays with it alot, it handles it just fine, barely spins the fan up unless she zooms right in and it has to show lots of detail.

I've got a T43 which is very soon going to have an SSD upgrade (it came yesterday) although I'll be running MX Linux on that as it makes it useable in the modern day

Nothing to say about the condition that hasn't been said already, I can't talk as I've bought scrappers and spent far more than their worth upgrading them! 2gb of chinese ram and an upgraded CPU is literally pennies so buy on condition more than spec. I recommend upgrading the CPU just so it gives you something to do whilst your in there dismantling the heatsink to de-fluff it, and re-pasting the CPU which you must do because of the age. On both of mine I had to chip the paste off...

Good luck with what you choose!