T40 CPU upgrade story

Message

okkyn · #1 Post by **okkyn** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 1:37 am

Hi all, just want to share some pictures

http://bsnugroho.googlepages.com/thinkpadt40upgrade

okky

rxtech27 · #2 Post by **rxtech27** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 1:56 am

Nice man . . how difficult was it to take it apart??? Looks like I have an upcoming project to replace the mobo in my T40 . . ..

okkyn · #3 Post by **okkyn** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:06 am

Thanks, and sorry about you motherboard. Anyway, not difficult at all, just follow hardware maintenance manual, and don't forget to mark all the screws

rxtech27 · #4 Post by **rxtech27** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:21 am

Oh my goodness . . .the prices of mobos are insane $200?!?!?! If I cant find any cheaper ones looks like I might have to sell this one off. The laptop is in excellent condition .. what a waste.

#5 Post by **underclocker** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 12:03 am

Great pix and nice upgrade.

agarza · #6 Post by **agarza** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 12:52 am

Interesting stuff to see. Nice and neat job you did. The heatsink is pretty clean

An offtopic question: Can you read the temperature of the GPU chip using TPFanControl? I'm just curious to know the idle/load temp of the Ati Radeon 7500 chip on a T40

duhmask · #7 Post by **duhmask** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 9:36 am

@rxtech27 .. hey, PM me the model number and specs of your T40 and how much you would like to sell it..thanks..i might do a project with it..

cmarti · #8 Post by **cmarti** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:06 pm

The pictures remind me when i did the cpu upgrade to my previous T40 from 1.5 banias to 1.8 dothan and then to a 2.10 dothan.

Great pics.

bigwormie · #9 Post by **bigwormie** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 12:29 am

hey guys. just did this upgrade myself from 1.5 banias to a 2.0 dothan and seems to be working very well. I think I am only seeing about a 15-20% speed gain though. My best upgrades were the 7200 hard drive and 2g of ram.

cheers

agarza · #10 Post by **agarza** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:09 am

cmarti wrote:The pictures remind me when i did the cpu upgrade to my previous T40 from 1.5 banias to 1.8 dothan and then to a 2.10 dothan.

Great pics.

Hi cmarti

Is it noticeable the change in performance going from a 1.8 to 2.10 dothan?

lilserenity · #11 Post by **lilserenity** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 6:36 am

bigwormie wrote:hey guys. just did this upgrade myself from 1.5 banias to a 2.0 dothan and seems to be working very well. I think I am only seeing about a 15-20% speed gain though. My best upgrades were the 7200 hard drive and 2g of ram.

cheers

Good advice and some that I will heed when I have money to spend on my laptop. Presently I have the standard 512MB and 40GB 5400RPM drive, and whilst it's far from slow, it could do with a boost of RAM and hard disk speed/capacity--particularly with Office 2007 which I have totally fallen in love with *including* Word, the first version since 5.1 for Macintosh that I enjoy using since it doesn't throw heaps of assistants and annoyances my way.

I think the first upgrade will be a second 512MB stick of PC2700.

Vicky

cmarti · #12 Post by **cmarti** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 6:44 am

benottomex wrote:
cmarti wrote:The pictures remind me when i did the cpu upgrade to my previous T40 from 1.5 banias to 1.8 dothan and then to a 2.10 dothan.

Great pics.
Hi cmarti

Is it noticeable the change in performance going from a 1.8 to 2.10 dothan?

Hola! benottomex,

The performance was noticeable only on video encoding. For the rest of the stuff was the same.

agarza · #13 Post by **agarza** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 5:55 pm

On eBay a 2GHz Dothan costs about 150-250 USD, while the 745 (1.8GHz) costs very cheaply (about 70USD). I think is not worth to me to make the change, any opinions.

bigwormie · #14 Post by **bigwormie** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 7:06 pm

I dont think it would be worth the difference as long as your 1.8 is dothan and not banias (dont think they made one). Although I can definitely notice a difference between 1.5 banias and 2.0 dothan, I can now say it is a solid 20%. Your return would be much less in my opinion. Better getting 2g of ram and faster hard drive if you havent already.

The Spirit of X21 · #15 Post by **The Spirit of X21** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 9:59 pm

Having a 1.3 GHz Banias, even a 1.8 Dothan looks really tempting!

Temetka · #16 Post by **Temetka** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 10:30 pm

IMO, I think a 1.8 Dothan would be a great upgrade for your system. Heck I have a T41P with a 1.7 Banias. It's plenty fast but I am still considering an upgrade to a 2.0GHz Dothan. I would get some extra speed, but mainly a more efficient and cool CPU. Dothan chips to me are like the Tualatin: Best of Breed and Best of Show. Simply great pieces of engineering proving thusly that Intel is in the lead for a reason.

marvel · #17 Post by **marvel** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:41 am

Hello,

and thanks for great insights on upgrading! I´ve thought of giving my t40p (1,6 ghz, 1gb ram, 80 gb hdd) an upgrade. What would be a good start? Recently I bought the 7k100 100gb. Should the ram be next or maybe the dothans you talk about? Or getting a new GPU (64 MB Fire GL to 128 MB)?

Any suggestions?

bigwormie · #18 Post by **bigwormie** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:05 pm

In my opinion the Ram should definitely be your next thing to do. 2 1 gig chips. I bought the crucial 2700 ones from amazon for about $125 a piece and they work great but you could probably find something cheaper. I think after the hard drive and ram you will have a tough time deciding to upgrade the cpu because it seems like the sweet spot on price/performance is the 1.8 and you already have a 1.6 dothan I hope.

agarza · #19 Post by **agarza** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:22 pm

I think the first stepping in the Dothan started with the 1.8GHZ (or maybe 1.7GHz). T40's came with Banias. To me my 1.8GHz Dothan proved twice as fast my T30 Pentium 4 1.6GHz was.

I have 1Gb of RAM but spread in two sticks of 512MB. I would have to invest more first trying to sell those sticks then buy 2 sticks of 1GB. To my opinion 1GB is plenty to me (I haven't encountered Windows and all running apps to take more than 512MB of physical RAM)

bigwormie · #20 Post by **bigwormie** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:38 pm

there are 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 2.0 dothan's with 2m of cash. Just check intels site or type 1.5 dothan on ebay. Having gone from 512 to 756 to 1.5 to 2.0 of ram. If you are looking to save yourself the hastle of always questioning if you have enough ram, then just get 2 1 gig sticks or 1 at a time and get it over with. With each step up in ram I noticed a difference even though the lowest gain was from 1.5 to 2.0 or ram, I could still tell a difference.

Hope that helps

bigwormie · #21 Post by **bigwormie** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:45 pm

oh yeah forgot to mention, 1.5 and 1.6 and some 1.7 dothans may not work in your t series. Safest bet is to get one that was manufactured in 2003 as it should be in the most recent bios and controller(controller last updated 2004).

marvel · #22 Post by **marvel** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:48 pm

Thanks! I´ll check out the 2*1gb ram option and compare it to 1.8 ghz dothan.

What about the GPU? Can the MB handle an upgrade?

Thanks again!

Fuzz94 · #23 Post by **Fuzz94** » Fri Feb 05, 2010 11:47 am

Hi okkyn

do you still have your T40 ?
do you remember the temperatures before and after your upgrade ?

I think they re not higher with the dothan because of its gravure technology (90 nm vs 130 nm)

It depends whether you have speedstep enabled or not...