IBM r51 ATI Radeon 7500 performance

[confection.cool]

Hi, new member here, nice to meet you all. I just got a great deal ($30) on a used IBM R51. It has a Pentium M 1.5ghz, 256mb of RAM, an ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 with 32mb and runs Windows xp.
I opened it up, cleaned it nicely, changed the thermal paste and then ran some benchmarks.

3D mark 2001 SE gives me 3973 points

I also ran some older games in 1024x768 and what I’m getting is:
- GTA 3 : 20-25 fps (visible texture and object pop in but I am guessing this is due to the failing hard drive)
- Unreal tournament 2004, normal settings, anywhere from 15 to 30 fps

Are these good results? What should I change/improve?
Thanks in advance

[axur-delmeria]

Reduce the resolution to 640x480. Is 20fps even playable?

visible texture and object pop in but I am guessing this is due to the failing hard drive)

This sounds more like a driver or VRAM issue.

[confection.cool]

well, when I opened it, i noticed that the Radeon chip has zero cooling, no heat sink, no fan and the chip gets pretty toasty during gaming. could that be the issue?
where could I find some benchmarks for this video chip?

[axur-delmeria]

I've never owned an R51 so I can't be 100% sure, but it may be possible to use the heatsink from an R52 that has Radeon X300 graphics.
If not, you may need to DIY your own cooling solution using a small copper or aluminum heatsink and attaching it with thermal tape.

[kfzhu1229]

I've never owned an R51 so I can't be 100% sure, but it may be possible to use the heatsink from an R52 that has Radeon X300 graphics.
If not, you may need to DIY your own cooling solution using a small copper or aluminum heatsink and attaching it with thermal tape.

I have such a rigged cooling for Radeon 7500 on my ThinkPad T42 that had to be baked and I used T42 Radeon 9600 cooler for that, but T43 cooler works fine also but maybe you need a few copper shims. So similar should work on R5x. The thing though is that I don't think stock T42/R51 Radeon 7500 variant fan curves would consider the GPU temperature whatsoever.
And yeah, it was a mistake leaving those chips bare while they have the dreadful first gen lead free solder, it makes T40/T41/T42 vulnerable to GPU failure that's immune on other brands.

Hi, new member here, nice to meet you all. I just got a great deal ($30) on a used IBM R51. It has a Pentium M 1.5ghz, 256mb of RAM, an ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 with 32mb and runs Windows xp.
Are these good results? What should I change/improve?

In this case, the Mobility Radeon 7500 is a lower tier GPU option since by that time Radeon 9000 existed. It works perfectly fine for Windows 98 games but in XP games it is a bit long in the tooth compared to the 9000, and in fact the Intel extreme graphics 2 beats it in DirectX features (Radeon 7500 has zero DX8 support) and hence get similar 3DMark01 scores.
So, the GPU performance is just fine, but don't expect it to be top of the line performer by 2004 standards even for a 14.1" laptop (Dell Latitude D600 for example came exclusively with Mobility Radeon 9000, no 7500 option and no 9600 option, and it is also properly cooled)
You can however, try to upgrade that CPU. You can definitely make use of a Dothan based Pentium M CPU, get one Pentium M 745 and that would definitely improve your user experience while not spending too much money.
If you are adventurous however, you can also get a Pentium M 725 and FSB overclock it to 533Mhz and that allows the CPU to be clocked up to 2.16Ghz stable without overvolting, so you get faster than top dog Pentium M 765 performance but at a small fraction of the cost, and pretty much the same amount of heat output. You need a lot of experience fiddling with RAM timings to get that to work.
1GB of RAM would've been nice too.

[confection.cool]

thanks for the answers! I am gonna try to mess around with some mini heat sinks to see if they improve GPU performance at all.
any recommended software to monitor temps for cpu and gpu? I tried hwinfo but it only shows temp1, temp2, etc. my only test at the moment is to check with my finger how hot the GPU gets (and it’s toasty, I would estimate at least 85C)

also, would a t42 heat sink like this work on the r51 without any physical modifications? https://www.ebay.com/itm/324295413183?m ... media=COPY

[axur-delmeria]

I use TPFC https://thinkwiki.de/TPFanControl on old Thinkpads that run Windows. Do note that it also controls fan behavior.

The R51's heatsink is taller than the T42's. I'm not sure if the T42 heatsink will fit without modifications.

[confection.cool]

I ran tpfancontrol while benchmarking the laptop and the Gpu barely reaches 70 degrees C (I did place a mini heatsink on the gpu)
so we can safely assume it’s not overheating, just that GTA 3 and UT2004 are a bit much for the card.
Now for the texture and object pop-in, could it be the failing hard drive (it clicks from time to time)

[RealBlackStuff]

For that machine, the very best HDD would be a Samsung HM160HC (160GB), which is very affordable on e.g. eBay.

[confection.cool]

For that machine, the very best HDD would be a Samsung HM160HC (160GB), which is very affordable on e.g. eBay.

thanks, I found one listing here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/151856122059?m ... media=COPY but I don’t understand if these are new or used or refurbished? the reviews sound great and the price is good

[RealBlackStuff]

Brand new here: https://www.ebay.ie/itm/384325934952

[confection.cool]

I ran some more tests and VERY surprisingly, GTA Vice city runs flawlessly, even in 1024x768. On the other hand, GTA 3 still runs like a slideshow. How is this possible?

[axur-delmeria]

Poor game optimization?

[dr_st]

I ran some more tests and VERY surprisingly, GTA Vice city runs flawlessly, even in 1024x768. On the other hand, GTA 3 still runs like a slideshow. How is this possible?

Try various graphical settings in the game options menu. Also make sure you have the latest patch for GTA3. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_III

[confection.cool]

I ran some more tests and VERY surprisingly, GTA Vice city runs flawlessly, even in 1024x768. On the other hand, GTA 3 still runs like a slideshow. How is this possible?

Try various graphical settings in the game options menu. Also make sure you have the latest patch for GTA3. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_III

Thanks, this actually helped. I installed GTA 3 silent patch and the FPS improved a bit and also there's little to no stutter now. Much appreciated

[Gonzaleitor]

I ran some more tests and VERY surprisingly, GTA Vice city runs flawlessly, even in 1024x768. On the other hand, GTA 3 still runs like a slideshow. How is this possible?

Hey, i'm running it in a t42 with Windows 98se with similar specs to yours and it's stuttering often.
I Can't get it to run right, even with the latest Omega Drivers for that OS and a little OC (I have a t43 heatsink installed, so temps are not so worrying). Do you have a patch installed or something(I use the game as "right out of the box)?

[kfzhu1229]

Hey, i'm running it in a t42 with Windows 98se with similar specs to yours and it's stuttering often.
I Can't get it to run right, even with the latest Omega Drivers for that OS and a little OC (I have a t43 heatsink installed, so temps are not so worrying). Do you have a patch installed or something(I use the game as "right out of the box)?

If you are talking about running that game under Windows 98 se, yeah I think you need to try running it under Windows 2000 or XP and see if it works better. While the T42 has official Windows 98 drivers for the graphics, ATI seems to have cut down on the windows 98 drivers' capabilities that you might see better results under 2k or xp.

[Gonzaleitor]

That's what I thought. Maybe i'll try 2k, I already use XP for My modded T61.
It's a shame because i like 98se for games. Maybe i'll try ME too, that's an OS that I don't use since i was a kid.

[kfzhu1229]

That's what I thought. Maybe i'll try 2k, I already use XP for My modded T61.
It's a shame because i like 98se for games. Maybe i'll try ME too, that's an OS that I don't use since i was a kid.

ME is not going to help you in this case. The graphics drivers for those cards are simply not optimised for Windows 9x (and probably your game is also not optimised for 9x either). AFAIK you will see much better performance with a GeForce4 or FX Go card in windows 9x if you can get the desktop 4 MX / FX drivers to work.

[Gonzaleitor]

Yeah, I know about Me, but maybe there is a better driver for that OS. Anyway i'm going for 2k, I didn't update because I'm a little busy at the moment.

[Gonzaleitor]

Yeah, I know about Me, but maybe there is a better driver for that OS. Anyway i'm going for 2k, I didn't update because I'm a little busy at the moment.

Update: I installed win 2k in My A31 (2.0ghz p4m, 512mb ram Ati Mobility Radeon 7500 32mb) and the Game runs smooth as Butter.
Does anyone have the latest Omega drivers for this OS? The Omega drivers I found crash and I have to roll them back to the common drivers.

[nfraser01]

3D mark 2001 SE gives me 3973 points

That's within testing error of the result I got with a ThinkPad T42 Pentium M at 1.7GHz (with default everything) so sounds OK...
See https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=134849

N

[kfzhu1229]

Update: I installed win 2k in My A31 (2.0ghz p4m, 512mb ram Ati Mobility Radeon 7500 32mb) and the Game runs smooth as Butter.
Does anyone have the latest Omega drivers for this OS? The Omega drivers I found crash and I have to roll them back to the common drivers.

Sometimes the Omega drivers don't work as expected on laptop and IGP graphics (and driver mods are needed if you have a 1400x1050 screen). In that case I would just use the later drivers provided by the ThinkPad T42 driver section and they should give plenty decent performance

[Gonzaleitor]

In 98se they work like a Charm. With a little OC the GPU gets more responsive and You can get 2000 points more un the benchmarks of 3dmarks 2000.

[kfzhu1229]

In 98se they work like a Charm. With a little OC the GPU gets more responsive and You can get 2000 points more un the benchmarks of 3dmarks 2000.

Well if you are talking about the Radeon 7500 on the A31, I wouldn't do that if I were you - these are already notorious enough for failure as-is and I would actually fill them with thermal pads and/or copper shims to make contact with the heatsink if I wanted to do any amount of gaming on them.
I just had less luck with them especially on the nvidia omega drivers and also the ATI 9000/9100 IGP and XPress IGP - they would crash as soon as you touch the overclocking sliders.

[Gonzaleitor]

I have it with a 1mm Thermal pad, making contact with the heatsink and It stays decently cool that way. Anyway, the OC i used was pretty light.
The laptop is for using it, and as Ivan Drago would say: "If he dies, he dies"

[kfzhu1229]

I have it with a 1mm Thermal pad, making contact with the heatsink and It stays decently cool that way. Anyway, the OC i used was pretty light.
The laptop is for using it, and as Ivan Drago would say: "If he dies, he dies"

Thank god yeah that should do the job. I am doing similar things but with copper shims on my A30p motherboard and I really don't want it to die since the machine (along with UXGA IPS screen that I replaced backlight myself) is worth so much money nowadays
That said though for A31p I am hoping you aren't using an exotic Pentium 4-M inside either as for that A31p motherboard that I found a rare P4-M 2.5 hidden inside, the motherboard was dying in all sorts of manner including CPU Vcore problems and partially shorted on both north and southbridge

[Gonzaleitor]

Thank god yeah that should do the job. I am doing similar things but with copper shims on my A30p motherboard and I really don't want it to die since the machine (along with UXGA IPS screen that I replaced backlight myself) is worth so much money nowadays
That said though for A31p I am hoping you aren't using an exotic Pentium 4-M inside either as for that A31p motherboard that I found a rare P4-M 2.5 hidden inside, the motherboard was dying in all sorts of manner including CPU Vcore problems and partially shorted on both north and southbridge

Mine is a plain A31. It's like my baby, because I rescued her from a certain death. Sadly is a Frankenpad, because is rebuilt from dead sisters partes.
When I bought my G40 (In impecable shape, only lacks the ram and hdd cover) the seller gave me this destroyed A31. It had the 1400x1050 screen, but it was dead and had no rams. The keyboard was missing two or three keys but was in great shape overall. So, when I arrived Home i put a ram from My T42 in and it came back to life. The Screen was dead and I replaced it with a 1024x768 screen from a R40 and also replaced the 1.7 P4m it had with the 2.0 P4m from the same laptop. I did a deep cleaning of the entire thing, new Thermal paste and a 1mm Thermal pad in the GPU (i don't understand why IBM thought it was a good idea not cooling the GPU) and built it back. I Even did a 3d print of the hdd cover from a file that RBS linked me. And I have to say it's been pretty reliable, only a keyboard error here and there.
I think the A31 is prettier than the T42 (and has better benchmarks un 3d Marks 2000).
Sadly, Txxp or A3xp or T6xp models are rare here in Argentina. I always wanted a T42p!