IBM ThinkPad G40 Microsoft Windows 7

[ThinkPad560X]

Letting everyone know Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate will work on a ThinkPad G40.

My ThinkPad G40 is running a test 20GB HDD and 512MB RAM. I Will inform about lenovo software compatibility later on in this post.

[firenx]

Hey! Im trying to install Win7 on a g40 but getting the error:

"Windows could not retrieve information about the disks on this computer"

Any tips on how you got it to install?? Would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

[ThinkPad560X]

first did you check to see if the CD will read, test on another computer. on the G40 see how much RAM you have in it. should atlest have 512MB. 2nd must have a DVD Drive. Most but all ThinkPad G40 came with a CD/RW/DVD-ROM Drive. 3rd how mucg HDD space do you have? I have a WD 80GB in mine. Are you installing with a fresh install or a upgrade install?
I bought the Upgrade version.

[ThinkPad560X]

should also do a scandisk on the HDD.
And is the Windows 7 32-Bit or 64-Bit?
Should be 32-Bit

[firenx]

hey i got it installed but there was no drivers for my video card intel 82557 or something

i only have the CDRW, no dvdrom.. i made 2 partitions, installed xp on the first, mounted the windows 7 iso over the network with daemon tools then installed from there..

[ajkula66]

I doubt that Intel integrated graphics as seen on G40 are supported by W7, you'll probably have to search the web for a modded driver.

Good luck.

[ac12]

I am thinking about upgrading my G40 from XP to Win7.
But the stumbling block seem to be the video driver. I can't find any Win7 video drivers.
How have those of you that have Win7 on your G40 handled the video?

I loaded my G40 w 2GB of RAM so I think I'm OK there...I think.

This will be a casual home PC, not a game machine.

[ajkula66]

I believe that any desktop graphics will be crippled on G40 due to a lack of proper driver.

These machines run XP very well, and that's where they should stay IMO...

My $0.02 only...

[ac12]

Now that XP is EoL, I'm thinking about putting win7 on the upgraded G40 (P4, 2GB RAM, 150GB hd)

There apparently is a hack to use an older XP driver in place of the VGA driver in win7.
I don't know how it will work.

And the Lenovo site has changed. There is a new G40 computer currently out, and I can't find any of the old files for the old G40. Anyone know where to find the files?

[brchan]

An alternative to Windows is also Linux. Most modern distros with fancy GUIs will probably run slow on it, but if you install something like puppy linux onto it should be pretty fast and easy to use. Now to get really fast, you would install and configure a distro such as Arch linux or tiny core linux. However, the learning curve can be a bit steep. With linux, antivirus software is very rarely needed, so no need to install resource hogging AV on an already pretty old computer.

[rkawakami]

There is a new G40 computer currently out, and I can't find any of the old files for the old G40. Anyone know where to find the files?

Don't know the difference between the "old" and "new" G40 systems but the forum is hosting the drivers that were on the Lenovo Support site back in August of last year. At the top of each forum page in the "banner" area, there's a link named Drivers. Click it and you can navigate down to this page:

http://www.thinkpads.com/support/Thinkp ... m/G40.html

[Shredder11]

In October 2013 I downloaded a file for my G40 named "855gm_vista_driver.zip", which I plan on using with my G41 once I have added a PATA SSD. Sadly there is no support for AHCI in the BIOS but should work ok otherwise. I also downloaded a modded SLIC 2.1 BIOS for my G40, so installing Windows 7 should be a breeze. Now if anyone has a modded G41 BIOS with AHCI.....

The 855gm_vista_driver.zip can be downloaded from the link below, plus there are user comments on how to install it:

http://www.driverguide.com/driver/detai ... id=1556195

[ThinkPad560X]

From my experience IDE PATA SSD is really slow, T40, T30, R50 and a few other ThinkPads I upgraded "Was planning to upgrade all my ThinkPads to SSD" I just kept with a basic IDE HDD in my G40 witch it runs faster then the PATA SSD. Also from what I seen before Lenovo doesn't have a ThinkPad G series model but only their own house brand G. http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-G50-15-6-I ... B00K6ZIFAQ

[ajkula66]

From my experience IDE PATA SSD is really slow, T40, T30, R50 and a few other ThinkPads I upgraded "Was planning to upgrade all my ThinkPads to SSD" I just kept with a basic IDE HDD in my G40 witch it runs faster then the PATA SSD.

Yep. This matches my own experiences as well.

[Shredder11]

So in both your experiences SSD is a waste of time in models like the IBM G40 / G41? I did a CrystalDiskMark test on a 40GB Toshiba IDE drive in the G41 and that reported a top read speed of around 25MB/s I think; also the 4K results were awful. So surely a PATA SSD can improve on this!

This could also mean I might be wasting my time upgrading my sister's Acer Aspire 5612WLMi, which is a 2006 PATA model (some in the range were SATA) and has the same main chipset as the Thinkpad T60p. Her BIOS lacks AHCI support and therefore will be slower at multitasking stuff. I had read a few reviews of PATA SSD in older laptops that doubled the speed of the previous physical IDE drive. The results were usually around the 60MB/s mark for read speed.

[ajkula66]

So in both your experiences SSD is a waste of time in models like the IBM G40 / G41?

Yes. PATA SSDs are best left alone. A good (Hitachi/Seagate) 7200rpm spinner will make the machine noticeably faster.

This could also mean I might be wasting my time upgrading my sister's Acer Aspire 5612WLMi, which is a 2006 PATA model (some in the range were SATA) and has the same main chipset as the Thinkpad T60p. Her BIOS lacks AHCI support and therefore will be slower at multitasking stuff. I had read a few reviews of PATA SSD in older laptops that doubled the speed of the previous physical IDE drive. The results were usually around the 60MB/s mark for read speed.

I can't say anything about the Acer in question...apart from the fact that I wouldn't spend any time/money on upgrading it. T6x series machines are dirt cheap nowadays...

My $0.02 only...

[Shredder11]

Regards the Acer model and swapping it for a Thinkpad, I had that argument with her back in 2012 but she wanted to stick with what she knows. Shame because on paper my Z61p has the same hardware spec as hers (CPU, chipset, RAM etc) but mine blows the Acer out of the water and into orbit. It might be worth a cheap 64GB SSD to improve access times, as launching programs is sluggish.

[ajkula66]

It might be worth a cheap 64GB SSD to improve access times, as launching programs is sluggish.

A glass of water on the keyboard would be even cheaper, and solve the problem for good...

[Shredder11]

Good job hers is an Acer otherwise we would be here forever trying to do that with our Thinkpads!

[ThinkPad560X]

Even my ThinkPad X41 and X41 Tablet has IDE PATA SSDs and replaced them with the original 60GB HDDs, they are slow and not fast as SATA. Now if the G40 had SATA, then yes get a SSD, I wasted buying a PATA IDE SSD on my ThinkPads T30, T40, R50, X41, X41T, 770Z, 600X, 560Z. No improvement but a slower OS boot and work on. Once it loads to the desktop you can click on IE or my documents or any folder program and it will take over 5-7sec to load / respond. SSD wasn't retail when these ThinkPads were around and I even used the first SSD witch was a CF card and Adapter, Same results and thought a real SSD PATA would clear it up, no. So the best to do is get a IDE HDD. And Yes IDE HDDs are going to get harder to find soon, at least working or New ones. I got the original 80GB HDD in my G40 with 2GB RAM Max and it runs really well.

[Shredder11]

In my first G40 it had the original 40GB 4200rpm IDE drive and with a modest Win XP Pro SP3 install, it booted in around 25secs! So I decided to upgrade that to a 60GB 7200rpm drive and clone the old drive and the 60GB booted slightly slower! However the G40 I have feels great to use and is way faster than my G41, due to one having 2GB RAM and the other a mere 256MB (2GB on the way).

Were your SSD upgraded Thinkpads installed with maximum RAM and CPU?

[ajkula66]

So I decided to upgrade that to a 60GB 7200rpm drive and clone the old drive and the 60GB booted slightly slower!

That may very well have something to do with the cloning. I always suggest a clean install, if at all possible.

Were your SSD upgraded Thinkpads installed with maximum RAM and CPU?

I'll answer for myself and say "yes, as far as I can recall" since it's been a while.

You may want to look into mSATA to IDE adapter. I'm not sure whether they'll perform well (like in R5x/T4x) or atrociously (like A3x/T3x) but the chipset *should* be modern enough for this application.

Hopefully automobus will chime in since this is his area of expertise...