BoD T42

[fleamourian]

Can a T42 suffer from the Blink of Death syndrome? There are some being bandied around by resellers but only come with 90 days RTB warranty & I don't wanna get stung. My T21 is getting a bit long in the tooth & Win2k support is up in 2010. Maybe I should leapfrog the T42 & get something different entirely but I am on a tight budget & need the right balance of price/performance. Is the PM processor man enough to run XP? What do you reckon?

[rkawakami]

Can a T42 suffer from the Blink of Death syndrome?

Not that I'm familiar with, but I only have a couple of T41 systems.

Is the PM processor man enough to run XP? What do you reckon?

I have several P III systems running XP (with maxed out memory; 576MB or 1024MB) and processors as slow as 500Mhz. For web surfing, email, Word documents and light graphics editing duty, it's not too bad. I believe that several users here are also running XP on even "slower" systems.

[KristianJ]

MOD EDIT: Moved this thread from X2-X4 forum to T4x forum.
Admin note: Duh! Didn't even see that! Thanks!

[schen]

Can a T42 suffer from the Blink of Death syndrome? There are some being bandied around by resellers but only come with 90 days RTB warranty & I don't wanna get stung. My T21 is getting a bit long in the tooth & Win2k support is up in 2010. Maybe I should leapfrog the T42 & get something different entirely but I am on a tight budget & need the right balance of price/performance. Is the PM processor man enough to run XP? What do you reckon?

For someone on a tight budget looking to upgrade, the T4x series would be a good solution. Actually, even the T30s would be fine upgrade. Each machine type has it's strong points and weak points:

* The T30s seem to be somewhat more physically robust and are VERY cheap right now. Fully functioning units can be found for less than $200 and quite often down close to $100 if you are willing to do a little work on it. In addition they have the advantage of using the same UltraBay 2000 devices that your T2x has and so you can save that money as well. However, they tend to run hot (especially the CPUs that are over 2.0Ghz) and have relatively poor battery life. And they are older and have some older subsystems such as USB 1.1

* As far the the T4x are concerned, they present an excellent value for performance in the market at the moment. They can often be found around the $200 mark with machines ranging high dependent on condition and newness of the model (T40, T41, T42 and T43 generally costs rising in that progression, BUT NOT ALWAYS). Equipped with the P M processors, they are plenty powerful enough for everyday work and even some light photo editing (dependent on which processor) with a more efficient power useage design, tend to run cooler and longer. Since it's new, the RAM, etc. are easy and cheaper to find. The long documented downside is the GPU detachment issue that can be of concern. I'd recommend to read the many threads regarding this problem and decide for yourself whether you can live with the risk. I have handled or owned 5 T4x series machines with no issues.

Of course the above is all MY opinion, so take it for what it's worth. Good Luck with your search.

[Mike Blake]

One man's "physically robust" is another man's clunkier, thicker and less elegant, when I compare my T30 to my T42.

No real slam on the T30, but I was unexpectedly bit by the USB 1.1 point you raised. I bought one off eBay with Vista installed because I needed a Vista machine for research purposes; but I found I couldn't test ReadyBoost because that requires USB 2.

It strikes me, I think, as more of a desktop replacement type of laptop. Although, I must admit, between the GPU issues of the T4* and the BOD issues on the T2* series (see sig), it strikes me as the safest to constantly use for travel...though I have not had either of those issues -- yet.