I just received my new T43 !

[cooleye]

Hi Guys,

I have just got my new T43 yesterday, which is my first Thinkpad T-series. I used to hava a Thinkpad X40 for my study, which is ultra portable and ulta stable, however is NOT powerful. (Mine is only PM ULV 1.0G)

Now I want to do more stuff with my notebook, like photo editing, scientifical calculating, doing multimedia presentaiotn and so on. The X40's little 1.0G chip is HORRIBLILY SLOW for these new tasks... Then I ordered T43. Before ordering I read a lot posts here and I WAS afraid of the well-know issue: HEAT AND FAN NOISE! I thought about two weeks and finally I still ordered T43, the reason behind is quite simple: I searched from the web and it seems other caomparable models have the same issue. I once thought about Toshiba TecraA5 or TecraM3 , but their reviews are no better than T43 in Heat and Fan issue. Since X40 gives me a good impression of IBM, I still choose IBM.

Well, I tested my T43 last night for the Heat and Fan, not surprising, the fan seems always on and the temp is around 50C idle with full speed. But I do not feel noisy, and the sound is just as normal, no high pitch and far from LOUD.

I ran the 3dmark 2001 and 2003, the scores are the average, with 2001 at 7783 and 2003 at 2015. When running the test and playing some games, the unit got very hot, and temp goes to 76C... The noise level seems not increased, sometime it would spin fast for 2 sec, then go back to the normal level. I did not run 3d games because I do not think X300 is capable of that, also the 3dmark2003 's score proves that.

Now goes to the tweaking part, as other people suggested in this forum, I downloaded the CHC 1.9 beta2, and use the dynamic swithcing... Frankly speaking, I am not sure about whether this "dynamic swithing " will influence the performance a lot, can anyone tell me ? I do not dare to change too much about the cpu voltage and just set X6 0.908 and X10 1.212, X15 1.308. Not much difference from the default one. Also i set the ATI to 280/210. Now the idle (just web surf and other light duty task) temp drops to 43-45C. The fan seems to be the same behaviour because I do not notice that too much.

Maybe i am not too sensitive to noise level of notebook. I think it is of course higher than my X40, which has VERY LITTLE NOISE (The fan is seldom up), but still fine for me. However the heat is still an issue, because the bottom of the unit is very hot, especially the place below the touchpad. So the south and north bridge chips are indeed TOO HOT...It is strange that IBM does not deisgn heat sink for them!!!

Overall I am satisfiied with this one , and the only other complain besides the heat is that the screen is not beautiful compared with SONY's XBRITE!!! But people say IBM's are for business and brah barh ... However up to now I still do not understand why business people do not like XBRITE screen In my view, sony's XBRITE is one of the best screen I have ever seens and too bad IBM does not have that.

[suaveguyc]

Yeah, I am also a relatively new T43 owner (266871U).

I have to say, those older T-series (and A-series) must have been built like rocks if forumers are compaining about the build quality of the T43. Perhaps I just got lucky, but this thing is tough, which one of the reasons I went for it.

I too don't have issues with the fan. Every so often it will flare up loud for a brief moment, but I am used to a fairly loud desktop, so to me it isn't a problem.

I have read some complaints about the fingerprint reader, but I am really loving not having to type in a password- it works most of the time, and when it doesn't I realize that I am probably moving my finger to quickly.

The screen is decent for color graphics. I really like the 1400x1050 resolution, and it scales very well. However, the screen seems to really shine with white on black text, which I noticed when I was watching OSX Intel boot up in verbose (on an external USB drive!). Oh yeah, the Pentium M rocks my world.

What are you overclocking the x300 with? I have to say that I wasn't expecting much from it, but was pleasantly suprised to easily run SimCity 4 and NFSHP2. I have yet to plop CS:S on the machine, however my gaming doens't really consist of many FPS's. I really didn't buy the machine for gaming, but I know that it is enough for what we do at lan parties which means no lugging around my 40lb server box! Sweet!

Apart from the size, weight and build quality, all of the IBM software makes me happy. Very industrial grade. I love the connection profiles, the control over the battery, software updater as well as Rescue and Recover (at least its working for me).

I went for the T43 over the T42 for several reasons, all of which were minor and would probably be considered worthless by other forumers. The fingerprint reader (which I suppose I could have sought out on the T42), the newer chipset (even with heat issues) and most importantly the ExpressCard slot. Sure, there wont be anything for it until next year, but it opens up some great possibilities for expansion- I wanted to be as future proof as possible (laugh as you will). Plus, I never would use two PCMIA cards at the same time anyway.

Overall, my first IBM impressions are excellent. A great machine!

[cooleye]

In fact I am downclocking the ATI instead of overclocking, because I think I do not need the default 300/250 clocl speed since I am not running 3d games. I dowclocled a little bit trying to reduce the temp more because I think the bottom is too hot. However today I checked one of my friend's sony laptop(GRX550), the bottom is even hotter

You have got 15" 1400x1050, so that is IPS screen, which is better than mine (mine is 14" reular). But even with IPS, I think it is still no match for XBRITE, that is something I think IBM should improve later...

[suaveguyc]

Actually its the 14" 1400x1050- so the non-Godly screen. Its not as nice as my 19" VX924 viewsonic, but has a higher res.

Yeah, I do like the Sony screens alot- I really love the glossy finish. However, in construction they seem no different from say a Toshiba to me. Also, the feature set that came in the T43 that I wanted was only availible on two other notebooks (same weight class)-HP 6320 and Dell D610...i think that was the right dell...

Does ATI Tray tools work on the x300?

[cooleye]

CHC can work with ATI video chips, however you have to disable POWERPLAY(tm) first, then you can use VEDIO opetions to down or overclock.

Just now I find another incovenience... the right side has no usb I like X40's design for usb, one on each side. Also my T43 (266861u) has no sd card reader, I thought it is standard for IBM since my X40 has it, but I am wrong. I have to use an external card reader for my photos. Seems X40 does have a better design