T400 questions, system board replacement, possible upgrade??

[DerCribben]

Hello board, Chris here, first day, first post, first questions, let's start with a story...

So I'm between trains in Boston, in the summer of 2010 relatively new (late 2008), beloved laptop in my backpack and the sky just OPENS up, street goes from no water to water above the sidewalk rim in minutes and I have to run through it to get to a cab or miss my train up to Portland Maine. Backpack gets drenched, laptop isn't soaked but is pretty damp. Never got submerged but you may have well wrapped it up in a wet towel for 15 minutes. As soon as I get to a dry area I pop open the laptop, pop out the battery and dry it all of as best I could. I don't fire it up for a solid week, it gets a good 2 days sitting in the direct sun, nights in front of the fan. When I finally fire it up it runs just fine but has a tendency to just hard shut down any time I plug the charger in. It will take a charge if it's shut down, but it always dies if I plug in the cord while it's on.

I send it in to Lenovo, I didn't have the acts of god coverage, they quote me something like $1,500 to replace the MoBo. My beloved laptop goes in the closet.

Until last week! So, I figure, it's been 6 years, that's now a relatively old news laptop, I can probably get parts for pretty cheap. I called Lenovo and they now quote me $650, paid up front, or less in which case the charge will be whatever the lesser amount is. That being said, I se I can get a replacement system board for $50 or so and I've replaced parts in my iPhone, I've built my own desktops for a while now, I figure I could probably swap out a motherboard in my laptop with some guidance.

Which brings me to my question.

This laptop is a T400 Type 2767-13U, the system board the woman at Lenovo support said goes in it is a 42W8127, I can't remember what CPU or memory is in it, or HD for that matter and I'm not sure I could until I get her fired up again or cracked open to where I can see them physically.

What's my best option? Is this the only MoBo or chipset that will fit in this case? If so, what is the best processor that is compatible with what I've got? and the Same question stands for memory? If not, what are my options and what are the chances that a different MoBo/chipset will work with the rest of the hardware this has? If the cost is going to be negligible to reasonable, I'd like to end up with the best computer possible at the end of this process and would immensely appreciate any help and or advice I can get here.

Thanks in advance for any help, and thanks for looking!

Chris

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

First things first: any T400 board will work in your existing shell. They all support CPUs up to T9900.

Your machine ex-factory looked like this:

T9400(2.53GHz), 2GB RAM, 160GB 7200rpm HD, 14.1in 1440x900 LCD, 256MB ATI Radeon 3470HD, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11agn, Verizon WWAN, Bluetooth, Modem, 1GB Ether, UltraNav, Sec Chip, FPR, Turbo Mem, 9c Li-Ion, WinVista Business 32

Short of CPU being maxed out, this is as good as T400 got. You could buy an entire system with a broken/missing LCD or just swap the board, the first option might prove to be the less expensive and time-consuming one. Either way, you're looking at $100 or less.

All *00 series max out at 8GB DDR3 RAM. For light daily use, they are still above and beyond competent systems.

Good luck.

[DerCribben]

Welcome to the forum!

First things first: any T400 board will work in your existing shell. They all support CPUs up to T9900.

Your machine ex-factory looked like this:

T9400(2.53GHz), 2GB RAM, 160GB 7200rpm HD, 14.1in 1440x900 LCD, 256MB ATI Radeon 3470HD, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11agn, Verizon WWAN, Bluetooth, Modem, 1GB Ether, UltraNav, Sec Chip, FPR, Turbo Mem, 9c Li-Ion, WinVista Business 32

Short of CPU being maxed out, this is as good as T400 got. You could buy an entire system with a broken/missing LCD or just swap the board, the first option might prove to be the less expensive and time-consuming one. Either way, you're looking at $100 or less.

All *00 series max out at 8GB DDR3 RAM. For light daily use, they are still above and beyond competent systems.

Good luck.

Ok excellent so this motherboard will take a T9900, and 8 gigs of PC3-8500 1066mhz DDR3. I got it fired up for a moment yesterday and it does indeed have the 2.53CPU, but it has 4gb of memory. I was thinking of maxing the memory out and loading WIN7Pro 64bit on it. Seeing as I'm not a gamer, this computer should be a screamer as far as I'll be able to tell. A couple of other things, what's the biggest hard drive (optical OR solid state) that's compatible with this system board? And the fingerprint reader never worked right, straight out of the box. I'm going to search around the forum but if there's a known issue you can think of off the top of your head I'd love to hear about it.

Finally, you said any of the systems boards will fit in this shell, so what are the differences between them? They all seem to be around $40-$70 so if one is preferable over another then why not.

Thank you so much, as far as I can tell you just saved me over $400 (at the very least) and I'm going to end up with a better laptop than I had previous

[Hans Gruber]

Swapping out the motherboard is a big job for the average PC user. It would be much easier for you if you simply buy a bare bones high end T400 on Ebay with the same specs minus ram, a good CPU and good battery with a 1440x900 screen. These guys here all have the highest end CPU's and usually the highest end screen up to 1920x1080 (aftermarket stuff). 8GB of DDR3 will run you $40 or less and you can get a T9600 or T9800 to put in and swap over the rest of your parts. I would suggest a SSD and either of these two processors. Anything above the T9800 is overkill and since the T400 is outdated, the increased CPU performance will not show up or make a difference vs. adding a quality SSD drive and 8GB of ram.

[RealBlackStuff]

@Hans Gruber:
The T400 has max. 1440x900 screens...

@DerCribben:
Click on the HMM link at the top of this page to download the Hardware Maintenance Manual for your T410.
Motherboards (12 different ones) come with either only Intel graphics (6x), or with switchable ATI/Intel graphics (6x)
As per HMM, you should look for motherboard 60Y3761.
I'd suggest to keep your CPU, it is quite fast enough.

RAM: look for 2 x 4GB either DDR3-1066/PC3-8500 or DDR3-1333/PC3-10600 204-pin SO-DIMMs.
Stick with well-known brand names such as Hynix, Elpida, Samsung, Axiom, Micron, Crucial, Kingston.
Avoid any stuff like "Value-RAM".

Your wallet will decide, but 1TB (TeraByte) HD or SSD (2.5" SATA, 7mm or 9.5mm high) is already possible.
An SSD will be the major improvement.

[TonyJZX]

I have one identical to this save for typical modern upgrade of 4Gb ram and 120Gb SSD. I bought it sans hdd but otherwise complete for $50. I can buy more of them but I wouldnt simply because of two flaws... the GFX is a gimmick that will be stuck on Win7 forever. You can use Linux though.

The other flaw is that it has a CCFL screen. I dont want any more of these.

I have another T400 which is a bit of a jewel in the crown, Intel GFX so great support and an LED 1,440 x 900 screen which is one of the best of this era, I think the 410 is about the same but the 420 screen isnt as good.

[DerCribben]

I can't tell you how much you all have helped me out on this. Looks like I'm just going to go with the 60Y3761 MoBo and keep my old processor and the rest of it. I've talked with a couple other friends that have made the valid point that as much as I have a nostalgic connection with my old laptop, that for the $350 it would cost for used parts to get it as tricked out as possible that I could buy a new system that would blow it out of the water for that or a little more. And I quote

" I came to tell you that machine is dated and not worth that kind of money, but it looks like Chad already brought that up.

Even the upgrade, the T9900, is a 7 year old chip. Granted it's on a 45nm die, which is pretty decent, It's a non hyper-threading dual core with 140M transistors. Compare that with even the old Haswell i3 processors (hyperthreading turbo dual core with a 1.3Billion transistor count on a 22nm die) and you'll see Chad's grand theme is right, if it costs you as much to risk fixing it yourself as to buy a newer better laptop, you're actin' a fool, dawg! XD"

So, that being said, I can't see any harm in dropping the $50 or so on a new system board though, and maybe some new RAM, and maybe a SSD later if I feel like it. But it'll certainly make a great laptop for just being able to write and surf the web on the go.

SO, that being said, thanks for all the advice Cheers!

[DerCribben]

So, I got my new System Board ($29 ) and fired up the HMM to review any factory info before performing the surgery and I got stopped cold in my tracks by this...

When the computer was manufactured, the EEPROM on the system board was loaded with the serial
numbers of the system and all major components. These numbers need to remain the same throughout
the life of the computer.
If you replace the system board, you must restore the serial number of the system unit to its original value.
Before replacing the system board, save the original serial number by doing the following:
1. Install the LENOVO ThinkPad Hardware Maintenance Diskette Version 1.76 or later, and restart the
computer.

I stopped there because I don't have said diskette. So, I'm going to need to retrieve a set of hardware security serial numbers and then replace the set burned into the new System Board with the set that goes will all my stuff in order for my new/old laptop to work properly?

Is the only way to achieve this via this diskette?

[DerCribben]

Thanks in advance of course for any help you can provide.

[Neil]

First option is to drop in your used replacement board, which will very likely have it's own serial number and system number, thus converting your laptop into the system numbers of the replacement board.

Second option is to jot down the system and serial numbers from your current board, acquire the maintenance diskette, and slip those numbers onto the replacement board. Now your laptop's numbers remain the same, but they won't match the replacement motherboard.

There is probably no problem in operating either way, I've done it both way (on older Thinkpads). Those maintenance diskettes used to be available (unofficially) to the public years ago (for older ThinkPads), but Lenovo pulled them from the public domain, and made them available only to certified technicians. So by asking the right people, you may be able to acquire the disk. On the other hand, you'll be fine without it.

[RealBlackStuff]

YGPM

[DerCribben]

Ok so RBS got me sorted out with the maintenance disk as well as pointing me in the right direction to get past the "eeprom protected" message I was getting trying to get to "option 20". So far so good. Just got new ram, 8gigs, and now I'm about to load Win7 Pro 64 bit (not Lenovo sourced, regular full version). My question is, Lenovo packs a whole lot of thinkvantage stuff into this laptop (blue button, fingerprint reader, the Thinkvantage security features hard wired in, etc) is any of it going to work after? What are the really important thinkvantage programs to DL from Lenovo?

[TPFanatic]

Without installing additional drivers they won't work, I don't think. You'll definitely want the Lenovo Hotkey driver.

In the Lenovo environment the blue button is supposed to launch PC Doctor's Thinkvantage Toolbox, but that program's discontinuation means it cannot be downloaded and installed from Lenovo anymore. So, the button won't do anything. However, it's an additional button and you can modify the Windows registry to use it for anything, like turning off the monitor: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=80052

[DerCribben]

I just went ahead and wiped the HD and did a fresh install on a single partition (or non partition as it were) here goes nothing. It seems to be having a hard time reaching Windows update but I left it home for the day to update at its leisure. We'll see how it's done in 7 hours or so when I get home...

[Terrahawk]

If you do want all the Thinkvantage stuff, download and install the latest Lenovo System Update from their web site (a Google search will take you to the right place). You will need Microsoft Dot NET 4 or later. As long as you have programmed in your machine type and serial number to your new motherboard properly using the maintenance diskette the System Update will allow you to download the most common Thinkvantage stuff easily.

[DerCribben]

Mostly I was hoping to get peoples opinions about which ThinkVantage tools were useless, resource stealing, HD space fillers, and which ones actually had some benefit to the usefulness of my laptop. For example, it seems that the ThinkVantage fingerprint software is important for my fingerprint scanner to operate so I guess I'll be downloading that. Also, if there was a good reason why it was a terrible idea to delete all of the old partitions and just do a clean install because of some important ThinkVantage system stuff that usually resides on one of the factory partitions. And if there was somewhere (now that I've gone and deleted it anyway) I could go to recover it.

So far so good though, everything seems to be working well. I installed the fresh copy because there was nothing I could do to get the original install to download and install Win 7 SP1, so far (after three days of updating) all current updates have been installed on this fresh install. I am having a couple driver install issues. The fingerprint reader is pretty obvious, but there are others that aren't. Here's a screenshot of the device drivers that can't be found:

[DerCribben]

So will the "System Update" application automatically download all of the other apps that run the devices in my laptop or do I still have to choose and download them manually? I've saved the run files, but if the first time I run system update it's just going to do it all on its own I don't want to risk causing a conflict by manually downloading bits and pieces beforehand.

Sorry for all the noob questions. I just don't want to screw my computer up again...

[RealBlackStuff]

Read the W7 Forum to find out how to speed up fresh installs and/or updates, and many other options.
One file you MUST download from Lenovo is the T400 Chipset file.
FPR will never get installed on my machines, if it ever goes wrong, you're screwed.

[jaspen-meyer]

You mentioned a few times that you want to just 'surf the web and write' and want to get rid of
things which are hogging resources.

If you tweak it a little, your T400 will perform as well as any recent machine.

Consider installing Xubuntu 14.04 64-bit - there's a reason 494 of the world's 500 fastest computers run Linux and 0 of them runs Windows. Give it an ssd drive and 1 GB of ram. If you go this route you can PM me, I'd be happy to answer any noob Xubuntu questions.

[DerCribben]

Jaspen, I may just be up for that at some point. I'm in the process of blogging my way through codecademy (slowly, my "real job" is woodworking and wooden boatbuilding and 13+ hour days this past month are leaving me exactly zero time to focus on academia right now) and long story short, as I get more familiar with computer science I will definitely be more down to stray from the known and familiar. For now though Windows 7 is where it's at for me but I am fully planning to redo this laptop yet again in a week'ish when I get a Sandisk 480gb SSD and some new RAM.

Which brings me to my current issue. So, I've now taken two deliveries of Corsair "ValueSelect" (didn't call it that on the purchase page for some reason, odd, wonder why?) 8gb kits from Amazon which both, appear to have arrived DOA. But maybe I got something wrong, tell me what you think. It's product ID is "CM3X8GSDKIT1066 G" which says it is an 8GB DDR3 SODIMM Memory kit, 1066MHz, PC3-8500. Which unless I missed my guess, should work, right? But both sets, when loaded, make my poor Thinkpad holler 1-3-3-1 at me when I try to fire her up.

Amazon will only reship me another set of this exact memory, or refund the card upon receipt of the returned product, which means, since I'm currently tapped out, I have to wait till next weekend to order new ram at which point I was planning to buy a set of two Crucial CT2KIT51264BF160B (4GBx2, DDR3 1600 MT/s, PC3 - 12800, CL11 SODIMM Notebook Memory Modules). As well as the SanDisk Ultra II 480GB SATA III 2.5-Inch 7mm Height Solid State Drive (SSD) with Read Up To 550MB/s- SDSSDHII-480G-G25.

Since it'll be a whole week before I potentially make this mistake if it is one, feel free to let me know now whether I'm missing something ...

But seriously, the Corsair 8GB DDR3 SODIMM Memory kit, 1066MHz, PC3-8500 should have worked right? Aside from being crap "value" ram?

Thanks for the help guys

[jaspen-meyer]

PC3-8500 is right. RBS said don't get 'ValueRam'. I'm not sure what that is, but 'ValueSelect' sure seems similar.

Did you really get Corsair ram?

fwiw, most of my T400's have Samsung dimm's.
That said, unless you're running virtual machines or working on huge files, I can't imagine needing 8gb of ram in a T400 - but maybe Windows 7 is really a hog.
I'm typing on a T400 with 1gb ram

[DerCribben]

I can't tell you how irritated I was when I opened the box. I've got premium Corsair RAM in my desktop and it's great, fast, no wait performance. So I went ahead and got the Corsair 8gb kit from Amazon, opened the box and this is what greets me:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/ ... C32157.jpg

Of course I installed it, but I already knew what was going to happen. I honestly believe that Amazon is being 100% intentionally misleading when not accurately selling this stuff as "Value" ram. Nowhere obvious in this listing is it described as such.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/ ... Select.jpg

I have 4gb in the laptop now and my RAM usage sits at about 50% at all times. Right now it's at 56%, a little bit ago it was 43% but it's never far below that.

[jaspen-meyer]

Ok, so you got both the wrong brand and the value crap ram.
Frankly, I don't think you need more ram, but if you really must - go with one of the brands RBS suggested.

Minimum system requirements for 64-bit os:
Windows 7 = 2 GB
Xubuntu 14.04 = 512 MB

So, sitting at 2 GB is expected behavior.

For comparison the Cray-1 supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratory cost $9 million, weighed 12,000 lbs, ran at 250 mHz and had 8 MB of ram. I'm not sure what sort of things you're doing with your computer, but surely you don't need 1000x more ram than the Los Alamos laboratory.

In 1990 your machine would have been, by a long shot, the fastest machine in the world. So again, whatever it is you're doing - if you're being even the slightest bit thrifty, doesn't require 8 GB of ram

[ajkula66]

As well as the SanDisk Ultra II 480GB SATA III 2.5-Inch 7mm Height Solid State Drive (SSD) with Read Up To 550MB/s- SDSSDHII-480G-G25.

Since it'll be a whole week before I potentially make this mistake if it is one, feel free to let me know now whether I'm missing something ...

I'd pass on the SSD in question due to its utilization of TLC NAND...

But seriously, the Corsair 8GB DDR3 SODIMM Memory kit, 1066MHz, PC3-8500 should have worked right? Aside from being crap "value" ram?

Yes, it should have. Just return it for a refund.

[DerCribben]

Yup, both of these sets are going back now. I had read RBS's post but never realized Corsair wasn't big name, solid RAM, the new stuff is Crucial, and is only slightly more expensive.

Thanks for the TLC NAND tip, I hadn't read about this stuff until now so I'll be switching that to a Kingston MLC NAND drive now instead. It's about $25 more but it sounds like it's going to be a far better option. I looked in to the SLC drives but at $400 more they just aren't in the budget.

[ajkula66]

Thanks for the TLC NAND tip, I hadn't read about this stuff until now so I'll be switching that to a Kingston MLC NAND drive now instead.

Make sure it doesn't have a SandForce controller, though...

[DerCribben]

Thanks for the TLC NAND tip, I hadn't read about this stuff until now so I'll be switching that to a Kingston MLC NAND drive now instead.

Make sure it doesn't have a SandForce controller, though...

How about a quad-core Phison S10 controller?

[ajkula66]

How about a quad-core Phison S10 controller?

No experience with that one, would have to research it...

How big of an SSD are you looking for, and how much are you willing to spend?

[DerCribben]

Since I'm going to be using this laptop for blogging, other writing and doing codecademy stuff, it needs to be big enough to hold some images, my word files, MS Office, Virtual Studio, and any projects I work on as I progress in my studies. I decided to go with the Kingston 480GB HyperX Savage, since it's reasonably priced, seems to be a decent quality and not have the TLC NAND, or that controller you mentioned. I like to buy good stuff so I can reuse it later in another application if I want but don't usually go for the most expensive thing out there. I don't have a lot of money to use but don't mind investing in high quality stuff if it's going to stand the test of time and make a difference when I'm using it. The model# is SHSS37A/480G.

[ajkula66]

One inexpensive choice:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

My favourite SSD nowadays, more $$$ but well worth it IMO:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Your money, your ThinkPad, your call.

Happy shopping.