Is this one of the better t43's ?

[zzrich]

I just bought this t43( http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0343060451 ). I hope its ok to post that link. I have been wanting a thinkpad for several years now. Its seems to be a real good deal. I didn't want to buy a piece of junk low end laptop. All the affordable ones seem to have intels inadequate gma 900 card. And I know from building desktops that an integrated video chipset is no mach for a dedicated one. Let me know what you guys think, and very nice site !

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

You've certainly done well with that T43, especially at the given price.

Although I personally see it as being on a higher end of mid-range T43 palette, I'm certain that it will give you many hours of joy and prove to be more than adequate for most tasks.

Enjoy!

[zzrich]

Thank you for the affirmation and the welcome ! The t4x series have always seemed the benchmark of quality for me. What other fairly modern laptop could I have gotten at this price ? Nothing this rugged and portable with the features it has. I will be doing the hd upgrade to the 7200rpm model. I think 1.5 gb of ram is ok for now. I just wish the video card was upgradeable, maybe it is ? But even with the ati x300 it should be more than enough graphics power for me as I game with a desktop.

[Quicklite]

Congrats on scoring that laptop, its nicely spec'ed.

The video card is not upgradable as such, because you'll need to get a brand new motherboard to upgrade; not to mention that X300 is pretty much top of the line for thinkpad T4x series; the only card better is the workstation version of X600, which is basically same card as X300, but with 128mb of RAM(128+128 using hypermemory), and better manufacturing quality, which means they are higher clocked; however, unless you must use CAD apps, I cannot recommend that card, its really hungry on power, and gets REALLY hot; not something an aging laptop ought to have.


If you want to upgrade the HDD, please have a look here first:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11059

Basically you have to upgrade to a supported drive, otherwise a pretty annoying message pops up everytime, when you turn the laptop on.


Another advice would be to read:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=57021

The soldering on the GPU may loosen if you lift it by a hand at either side of front corner.