Take a look at our
ThinkPads.com HOME PAGE
For those who might want to contribute to the blog, start here: Editors Alley Topic
Then contact Bill with a Private Message

Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

T40/T41/T42/T43 Series
Message
Author
jlee
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2017 2:34 pm
Location: West Covina, California

Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#1 Post by jlee » Sun Jan 07, 2018 9:01 pm

I was thinking about buying one, but they're pretty expensive on ebay (upwards 200+). Is the uxga and form factor in your opinion worth the money? What are the pros and cons? Do the old school ports work under linux (parallel port etc). I own a 14" t42 for context, and I fitted a uxga screen onto a t60, but I personally think thta the t4Xp series had a better design and was smoother.

ajkula66
SuperUserGeorge
SuperUserGeorge
Posts: 17303
Joined: Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:28 am
Location: Belgrade, Serbia

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#2 Post by ajkula66 » Sun Jan 07, 2018 9:23 pm

It really depends on one's needs and expectations.

I own a SATA-modded T43p, running an Intel X-25E SLC SSD and love it dearly. Having said that, web experiences in both W7 and Linux are less than stellar. The system struggles with today's web architecture due to its single-core CPU and no amount of tweaking can change that state of affairs IME.
...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

Cheers,

George (your grouchy retired FlexView farmer)

One FlexView to rule them all: A31p

Abused daily: T520, X200s


PMs requesting personal tech support will be ignored.

dr_st
Admin
Admin
Posts: 9691
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:20 am
Location: Israel

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#3 Post by dr_st » Mon Jan 08, 2018 3:06 am

I have to agree with George's summary above. The single core (and not even a hyper-threaded one) really keeps these old ones back.

I have a T42 SXGA+ IPS myself (that was the first Thinkpad I ever owned, incidentally). Now it's been relegated to a backup-of-a-backup in my parents' house; only used for light web browsing and Office occasionally. I didn't even bother upgrading it in any meaningful way (SSD, UXGA etc.) - it is simply not worth it to me for such a rarely-used computer, especially considering that T42, unlike T43 is PATA only and you cannot even apply a SATA mod to speed it up a bit.

If you really want a 4:3 SXGA+/UXGA IPS, just stick with a T60 (or better yet a T601 Frankenpad). It has quite a bit more to offer over a T43. It is also better-designed in almost every way, except maybe the looks, which are a subjective thing. I find the overall case design of T60 more appealing, but T4x series has some specific advantages, like red stripes on trackpoint, slightly bigger touchpad and a few others that I would not mind to give up to have the extra performance of a whole CPU core.

Some good pics of T4x vs T60 15", for those who want to refresh their memory, are available here:
By NathanA: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=48697
By yours truly: /viewtopic.php?t=48697#p593888
Thinkpad 25 (20K7), T490 (20N3), Yoga 14 (20FY), T430s (IPS FHD + Classic Keyboard), X220 4291-4BG
X61 7673-V2V, T60 2007-QPG, T42 2373-F7G, X32 (IPS Screen), A31p w/ Ultrabay Numpad

wujstefan
ThinkPadder
ThinkPadder
Posts: 1343
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2011 8:38 am
Location: Tarnow, Poland

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#4 Post by wujstefan » Mon Jan 08, 2018 8:24 am

$200 for 15" T4xp!

in Poland those are easily obtainable for less than $100, and if you hunt well - in a very good shape.

Unless you are web brosing these are nice machines. I personally like the craftsmanship better than any T6x and above, use it much, love it, keep it on the Royal Shelf. Maybe it's because this was my first thinkpad ever, obtained by accident and with giant amount of stories I'd tell to my children and/or forum users someday.
dr_st wrote:
Mon Jan 08, 2018 3:06 am
If you really want a 4:3 SXGA+/UXGA IPS, just stick with a T60 (or better yet a T601 Frankenpad).
I completely, totally agree with that. And with some help and a little bit of work, your final output may look like this:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2p58 ... TNTZUx5UHc

Not to mention $200 is actually enough to build a startup frankenpad with X3100 that will still do wonderfully well in everyday usage.
Too many thinkpads not enough time!
(stable under reduction)

kfzhu1229
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2484
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#5 Post by kfzhu1229 » Fri Jan 12, 2018 4:07 pm

I still have my T43p used as a daily driver. Now it has some scuffs from my daily commuting.
The UXGA IPS LCD is still nice to use. The FireGL V3200 fares so much better than X300 to UXGA panels, though I can certainly use a newer GPU with video acceleration and DX 9.0c or DX 10 support.
Windows 10 still works on this computer, I guess.
The speed of this computer is not very fast and everybody knows that, but I feel like I can be patient enough to wait for that, as it is not like the apps that I use on this computer fails to load.
YouTube still works for me, in 720p30.
Now the batteries that I bought a few years ago are really starting to struggle with it barely being able to squeeze past one hour of battery life.
I am considering to retire this computer from my daily driver by the end of this year or so, as I feel like it is no longer worthy for me to go out and buy replacement batteries for this thing again, and my newer T530 is gonna get a 1080p display upgrade and mSATA SSD. I am probably gonna use that computer for another year or so, and then when I decide to upgrade, I will go all out and get a laptop computer with at least GTX 10 series GPU.
As for overall usefulness, I guess you can still use it, if you can keep it from being OS bloated.
As for pricing, I personally find it hard to obtain a T4x with IPS display for under $100. I got mine for $200 in total 2 years ago (upgraded a 15" T43 to T43p eventually during a span of one year or so).
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)

Hans Gruber
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 817
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2005 6:18 am
Location: Seattle, WA

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#6 Post by Hans Gruber » Mon Jan 15, 2018 5:49 am

Stick with XP on a T43. I think T43's run better using Linux.
:beer: T43p,T61,X200,X200s,x201,T500,W500,T510,T410,T410s,T420s,T430,T430s :parrot:

kfzhu1229
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2484
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#7 Post by kfzhu1229 » Mon Jan 15, 2018 1:41 pm

Well I have just fixed another one of those UXGA IPS LCD with red backlight (From an A31p but on my T43), and things look so much better on a T43 of mine after getting rid of the red hue. UXGA panels are still pretty useful, while not so for XGA panels anymore.
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)

irus
Junior Member
Junior Member
Posts: 359
Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2009 3:36 am
Location: New Delhi, Delhi, India

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#8 Post by irus » Sun Jan 28, 2018 9:45 am

installed linux on the t42 with 64mb ati radeon chip. maxed ram and 128gb SSD, it flies.
plus it is more secure than core series. not affected by intel ME backdoor and also now with patched kernel for meltdown the most secure machine i have .

easily does 720p on ytube. easily handles 15 odd open tabs. running XP in VM for those one or two odd programs that one needs.

very impressed by what i can still do with this. thanks to linux.

beko1987
Freshman Member
Posts: 76
Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2017 3:53 am
Location: Oxon, Britain

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#9 Post by beko1987 » Sun Jan 28, 2018 5:46 pm

i installed BunsenLabs linux on my T40 last night, and it's amazing! My T40 is stock at the moment still (T41 mainboard 1.6ghz 1gb RAM) and it browses the net like a champ, youtube almost works at 720p but most of all the CPU isn't maxed out even on idle. I even installed citrix receiver and logged onto my work computer and that went fine too. More than capable for flicking around the net, I'm typing this on it now!

In the post I do have 2gb RAM, an SSD kit and a better processor but I'm only 70% sure that'll fit. (I'll update my thread when that happens, some of it's coming from china etc) but I'll install some form of windows on it when it comes to properly test it, and see how that goes. Tempted with windows 7 and see, or just a very stripped out XP I have. If it's still mediocre it'll have BunsenLabs back on and I'll learn Linux!
Thinkpad T40
Thinkpad T43
Thinkpad X60 Tablet
Thinkpad X61
Thinkpad R500
Thinkpad X201

kfzhu1229
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2484
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#10 Post by kfzhu1229 » Mon Jan 29, 2018 2:19 pm

beko1987 wrote:
Sun Jan 28, 2018 5:46 pm
In the post I do have 2gb RAM, an SSD kit and a better processor but I'm only 70% sure that'll fit. (I'll update my thread when that happens, some of it's coming from china etc) but I'll install some form of windows on it when it comes to properly test it, and see how that goes. Tempted with windows 7 and see, or just a very stripped out XP I have. If it's still mediocre it'll have BunsenLabs back on and I'll learn Linux!
Highly suggest you update the BIOS to latest revision or with the no-1802 patches before you install the new processor because the older revisions of BIOS will not recognise the 400mhz 90nm Dothan processors.
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)

beko1987
Freshman Member
Posts: 76
Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2017 3:53 am
Location: Oxon, Britain

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#11 Post by beko1987 » Mon Jan 29, 2018 3:58 pm

kfzhu1229 wrote:
Mon Jan 29, 2018 2:19 pm
beko1987 wrote:
Sun Jan 28, 2018 5:46 pm
In the post I do have 2gb RAM, an SSD kit and a better processor but I'm only 70% sure that'll fit. (I'll update my thread when that happens, some of it's coming from china etc) but I'll install some form of windows on it when it comes to properly test it, and see how that goes. Tempted with windows 7 and see, or just a very stripped out XP I have. If it's still mediocre it'll have BunsenLabs back on and I'll learn Linux!
Highly suggest you update the BIOS to latest revision or with the no-1802 patches before you install the new processor because the older revisions of BIOS will not recognise the 400mhz 90nm Dothan processors.
Yes, I do need to do that, not least so I can put the unliked Phillips wifi card back in that was in the machine when I bought it, and give the T43 it's intel card back! Still not fully sussed how to flash though. I have updated the BIOS to the latest stock one though, which I hear is step one!

Been using it tonight to list stuff on ebay and flick around facebook, perfectly happily! The keyboard is fantastic to use!
Thinkpad T40
Thinkpad T43
Thinkpad X60 Tablet
Thinkpad X61
Thinkpad R500
Thinkpad X201

micrex22
Junior Member
Junior Member
Posts: 442
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:22 am
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#12 Post by micrex22 » Thu Feb 01, 2018 9:25 pm

ajkula66 wrote:
Sun Jan 07, 2018 9:23 pm
It really depends on one's needs and expectations.

I own a SATA-modded T43p, running an Intel X-25E SLC SSD and love it dearly. Having said that, web experiences in both W7 and Linux are less than stellar. The system struggles with today's web architecture due to its single-core CPU and no amount of tweaking can change that state of affairs IME.
Hans Gruber wrote:
Mon Jan 15, 2018 5:49 am
Stick with XP on a T43. I think T43's run better using Linux.
I'd just like to defend the T4x platform and say... browsing on the internet is WHOLLY acceptable on a T41 with OS/2. It can actually play youtube videos that are viewable, and runs imgur and other sites OK. Sure it's not -as fast- as the latest and greatest but... OS/2 cures issues of heavily OSes (it's obviously lighter than even XP, and at this point, more secure).

Although would I recommend this? Don't know. I don't do anything serious on my T41 like banking. It's just a 'fun' laptop to do whatever on and random browsing. And means I'm not stuck using windblows with sucky laptop hardware, just a 100% pure unadulterated IBM experience.

Dekks
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 583
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:38 am
Location: Birmingham, UK

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#13 Post by Dekks » Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:09 am

If you want it as a document processor where the screen & screen size come into play they are great, not so as a web browsing device where modern JS laden pages kill the single core processor.
Home - Win 10 MSi GF63 Gaming Laptop /Arch GNOME 3/X230 Tablet /X61 [Korean] - Debian 10/T60p - Ubuntu 20.10 Helix 2
Work - Win10/Thinkpad X1 Tablet Gen 2

micrex22
Junior Member
Junior Member
Posts: 442
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:22 am
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#14 Post by micrex22 » Fri Feb 02, 2018 2:47 pm

Dekks wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:09 am
If you want it as a document processor where the screen & screen size come into play they are great, not so as a web browsing device where modern JS laden pages kill the single core processor.
Well like I said, with OS/2 you can watch youtube and browse most things comfortably. And that's on a Banias, a Dothan would do a much better job no doubt. I was doing IRC and watching youtube simultaneously on the thing, quite nice.

Adding in noscript to axe any unnecessary JS can also help.

Windows XP and beyond is just too bloated, that's the problem.

Dekks
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 583
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:38 am
Location: Birmingham, UK

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#15 Post by Dekks » Fri Feb 02, 2018 10:20 pm

video replay isn't really an issue at 720p it's the webpages loading times on the social media pages.

OS/2 IMO isnt worth the effort as Debian 9 does what i need on my T43.
Home - Win 10 MSi GF63 Gaming Laptop /Arch GNOME 3/X230 Tablet /X61 [Korean] - Debian 10/T60p - Ubuntu 20.10 Helix 2
Work - Win10/Thinkpad X1 Tablet Gen 2

ajkula66
SuperUserGeorge
SuperUserGeorge
Posts: 17303
Joined: Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:28 am
Location: Belgrade, Serbia

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#16 Post by ajkula66 » Fri Feb 02, 2018 10:29 pm

I have a spare Intel SSD with W2K loaded, T43p is a thing of beauty under that OS. Of course, there are limitations.

OS/2 has always intrigued me, but the last time I attempted to load it - from FDDs - onto my A31p it turned into a royal pain, so I gave up. I might re-visit that environment again ay some point in the game.
...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

Cheers,

George (your grouchy retired FlexView farmer)

One FlexView to rule them all: A31p

Abused daily: T520, X200s


PMs requesting personal tech support will be ignored.

dr_st
Admin
Admin
Posts: 9691
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:20 am
Location: Israel

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#17 Post by dr_st » Sat Feb 03, 2018 3:10 am

micrex22 wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 2:47 pm
Well like I said, with OS/2 you can watch youtube and browse most things comfortably. And that's on a Banias, a Dothan would do a much better job no doubt. I was doing IRC and watching youtube simultaneously on the thing, quite nice.
Which browser do you use on OS/2? Warpzilla? I can't imagine anything else being modern enough to support the modern web. And even Warpzilla stable version is based on a hopelessly outdated Firefox core. They do mention they plan to port 52ESR, but so far looks like their latest test version is 45.something.
http://os2news.warpstock.org/Warpzilla.html

If you're not using a modern browser, then you cannot claim that you can browse "everything", because a progressively larger number of websites stops working correctly, especially the interactive ones. Even Pale Moon, which is based on a not-so-outdated Firefox, with ongoing updates, is already starting to fail more and more (which got the team to explore a different direction, Basilisk, based on a more recent drop).

Of course, the simple, non-interactive ones, or those that are mostly text-based (like this forum), will work on basically any browser, and are also the lightest ones. If you only browse these sites, you get the impression that everything works and that it's fast enough.
micrex22 wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 2:47 pm
Adding in noscript to axe any unnecessary JS can also help.
Again, until you actually go to a site that needs Javascript to function properly.
micrex22 wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 2:47 pm
Windows XP and beyond is just too bloated, that's the problem.
I'm always a bit skeptical with these claims, especially in reference to why browsing is slow. Usually, when I see that the PC is struggling while surfing heavy pages, I find the CPU core utilized 100% just on the browser, with every other task in the system taking close to 0%. So how dependent on OS bloat is it really?

If one can somehow show that the same browser core, running on different OSes shows different performance on the same websites, then maybe it somehow can be attributed to different efficiencies of the OS (core APIs, drivers, etc.) I would be interested to see such comparisons, if they exist.
Thinkpad 25 (20K7), T490 (20N3), Yoga 14 (20FY), T430s (IPS FHD + Classic Keyboard), X220 4291-4BG
X61 7673-V2V, T60 2007-QPG, T42 2373-F7G, X32 (IPS Screen), A31p w/ Ultrabay Numpad

irus
Junior Member
Junior Member
Posts: 359
Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2009 3:36 am
Location: New Delhi, Delhi, India

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#18 Post by irus » Sat Feb 03, 2018 5:39 am

browser needs hardware acceleration

viewtopic.php?p=811573#p811573

Dekks
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 583
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:38 am
Location: Birmingham, UK

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#19 Post by Dekks » Sat Feb 03, 2018 12:22 pm

micrex22 wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 2:47 pm
Windows XP and beyond is just too bloated, that's the problem.
No the OS isnt the problem the browser is. Look at CPU utilisation as dr-st says.
Home - Win 10 MSi GF63 Gaming Laptop /Arch GNOME 3/X230 Tablet /X61 [Korean] - Debian 10/T60p - Ubuntu 20.10 Helix 2
Work - Win10/Thinkpad X1 Tablet Gen 2

Mike Pickwick
Posts: 28
Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2014 5:14 pm
Location: Covington, Virginia

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#20 Post by Mike Pickwick » Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:31 am

micrex22 wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 2:47 pm
Dekks wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:09 am
If you want it as a document processor where the screen & screen size come into play they are great, not so as a web browsing device where modern JS laden pages kill the single core processor.
Well like I said, with OS/2 you can watch youtube and browse most things comfortably. And that's on a Banias, a Dothan would do a much better job no doubt. I was doing IRC and watching youtube simultaneously on the thing, quite nice.

Adding in noscript to axe any unnecessary JS can also help.

Windows XP and beyond is just too bloated, that's the problem.
Perhaps dumb question, but where does one get OS/2 these days, and what does it cost?
Thanks

RealBlackStuff
Admin Emeritus
Admin Emeritus
Posts: 23809
Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:17 am
Location: Loch Garman, Éire

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#21 Post by RealBlackStuff » Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:51 am

Check this out: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=115894
In the very last post is a link to: https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/

PS: we do have an OS/2 Questions forum!
Lovely day for a Guinness! (The Real Black Stuff)
Lenovo: X240, X250, T440p, T480, M900 Tiny.

PS: the old Boardroom website is still available on the Wayback Machine
.

jb10
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Apr 07, 2018 3:45 pm
Location: Minneapolis, MN

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#22 Post by jb10 » Sat Apr 07, 2018 5:53 pm

Still useful, if that's what you have.

To help things along,

(1) Use a larger HD with 2 G ram

(2) Keep a pristine OS copy with must-have programs and settings backed up as ISO file on a external HD and use Macrium to restore. Whenever things slow down after a couple months I restore. Most working files are stored on thumb drive in case of crashes or backups. Nothing lost. Everything loaded externally. You can also use a non-tracking browser like Epic as it is more compatible with limited ram etc. (I do have pre Quantum Firefox 56 one T43 for FlashGot).

(2) Use CCleaner regularly. Somehow, from somewhere, dust collects.

(3) Reduce services to a mimum (see blackviper.com tweaks)

(4) Parts do expire, so I keep a running spare to swap, if needed. Just last week a screen and a fan went south.

However, for playing streaming video or music, most T4xs are weak. Also XP has better sound than Windows 7.

kfzhu1229
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2484
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#23 Post by kfzhu1229 » Mon Apr 09, 2018 6:02 pm

Also, I would like to add on that I think the IPS T4xp laptops can make a decent pdf reader if you have a good battery. The 4:3 screen can either fit more content than 16:9, or fits the entire page perfectly should you want to use the laptop sideways like a book.
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)

ziemeck
Freshman Member
Posts: 80
Joined: Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:30 pm
Location: Warsaw, Poland

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#24 Post by ziemeck » Thu May 17, 2018 3:14 pm

I am late to the party, but here are my 2 cents:
1. Silence:
I have experience with all ATI T60s (x1300, x1400,x1600) and T2500, T5600, T7400 CPUs. These machines are really loud in comparison to T42. I love silence so I am still using T42 (15' XGA, Radeon 7500, 2GB RAM) for programming (Eclipse) and reading documentation (www or PDFs). T42 has no problems handling these tasks while almost never turning the fan on. In comparison T60s turn fans more frequently and are much louder.
2. RAM:
If you open too many tabs in your browser 2 GB of RAM is low by today's standards and Firefox excells at consuming all memory it can. Still - T60s offer a mere 1GB more.
3. CPU:
WWW browsing could be painful due to low professionalism of javascript programmers of our times (framework kiddies everywhere ...) either you must install noScript or let Firefox use up 99% of CPU and render your machine unusable.
Multimedia: 720p youtube videos work fine, but nothing above that, so forget about fullHD. Not a big deal if you have XGA screen anyways.
4. HDD:
PATA HDDs were pretty small (by todays standards of 500GB being low-end small storage), so use USB with some SATA drive for offlne backups and as external storage. Despite being slower than SATA PATA offers acceptable performance for all my applications.
5. Operating systems:
Works really well with WindowsXP and OpenBsd, haven't tried any other at this machine.

In short - summarizing years of usage/experience - this laptop did not age at all except in games and multimedia department (that I never really needed it for).
Need to replace T60 LCD? Read this thread.
High-pitched fan noise [viewtopic.php?f=29&t=86763]?
- Sure the fan [viewtopic.php?f=29&t=74322]?
- Fan lubrication [viewtopic.php?f=29&t=87448],
- Fan replacement/reapplying thermal grease [viewtopic.php?f=29&t=80203].

thinkpadcollection
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 817
Joined: Fri Oct 17, 2014 8:13 pm
Location: kingston, ontario, Canada

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#25 Post by thinkpadcollection » Thu May 17, 2018 4:35 pm

ziemeck wrote:
Thu May 17, 2018 3:14 pm
I am late to the party, but here are my 2 cents:
1. Silence:
I have experience with all ATI T60s (x1300, x1400,x1600) and T2500, T5600, T7400 CPUs. These machines are really loud in comparison to T42. I love silence so I am still using T42 (15' XGA, Radeon 7500, 2GB RAM) for programming (Eclipse) and reading documentation (www or PDFs). T42 has no problems handling these tasks while almost never turning the fan on. In comparison T60s turn fans more frequently and are much louder.
2. RAM:
If you open too many tabs in your browser 2 GB of RAM is low by today's standards and Firefox excells at consuming all memory it can. Still - T60s offer a mere 1GB more.
3. CPU:
WWW browsing could be painful due to low professionalism of javascript programmers of our times (framework kiddies everywhere ...) either you must install noScript or let Firefox use up 99% of CPU and render your machine unusable.
Multimedia: 720p youtube videos work fine, but nothing above that, so forget about fullHD. Not a big deal if you have XGA screen anyways.
4. HDD:
PATA HDDs were pretty small (by todays standards of 500GB being low-end small storage), so use USB with some SATA drive for offlne backups and as external storage. Despite being slower than SATA PATA offers acceptable performance for all my applications.
5. Operating systems:
Works really well with WindowsXP and OpenBsd, haven't tried any other at this machine.

In short - summarizing years of usage/experience - this laptop did not age at all except in games and multimedia department (that I never really needed it for).
Keep in mind keeping going with T4x 4:3 is bound to end someday when software requirements looms. Get a 4 core 15W notebook with 2K screen this way will help with LCD height requirements and quieter. 4 core/8 threads is kaby lake refresh Core i5-8350U at 3.6GHz with 4 cores running or i7-8650U (running 3.9GHz with all 4 cores) Both are 15W and pretty good. Also longest battery runtime between 4 to 8 hours is easy with these 15W processors.

I know this as I have a Latitude 3350 with i3-5015U 15W and fan is quiet usually and pretty good what I need but screen is not 2K but that what I need from it.

PS: I have R52, RT42 (T42 board in a R52 chassis), and T43, T60, R61. All these is poor by modern need standards and Linux is also transitioning to 64 bits, and software kept changing. The best I can do is Penryn 1066 fsb processors based notebooks and Turion X2 Ultra ZM-87 2.4GHz with darned good nvidia's iGPU chipset in CQ60 recently rebuilt this thing and exchanged wireless card for N completed the rebuild and much useful. But they are just toys to play with for now.

PSS: I have T500 2.8GHz as well in use by my friend's and we will retire that once I find another newer notebook for my needs so I can give my sandy bridge T420 to friend's later.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

Dekks
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 583
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:38 am
Location: Birmingham, UK

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#26 Post by Dekks » Fri May 18, 2018 2:51 am

thinkpadcollection wrote:
Thu May 17, 2018 4:35 pm
Keep in mind keeping going with T4x 4:3 is bound to end someday when software requirements looms. Get a 4 core 15W notebook with 2K screen this way will help with LCD height requirements and quieter. 4 core/8 threads is kaby lake refresh Core i5-8350U at 3.6GHz with 4 cores running or i7-8650U (running 3.9GHz with all 4 cores) Both are 15W and pretty good. Also longest battery runtime between 4 to 8 hours is easy with these 15W processors.
Think you didn't get the OP's point, he doesn't need the extra horsepower as his user case doesn't need it. Plus the kabylake doesn't have the 7 row kb and throttles at the drop of a hat if you push the cores close to the thermal limits. Don't fall into Intel's ultrabook mindset where battery life is everything, performance counts.
Home - Win 10 MSi GF63 Gaming Laptop /Arch GNOME 3/X230 Tablet /X61 [Korean] - Debian 10/T60p - Ubuntu 20.10 Helix 2
Work - Win10/Thinkpad X1 Tablet Gen 2

dr_st
Admin
Admin
Posts: 9691
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:20 am
Location: Israel

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#27 Post by dr_st » Fri May 18, 2018 9:44 am

Dekks wrote:
Fri May 18, 2018 2:51 am
Think you didn't get the OP's point, he doesn't need the extra horsepower as his user case doesn't need it.
True, but at some point newer versions of software will require newer CPUs just to run. So he'll be stuck using older versions forever. This process, however, takes far longer on Linux than on Windows - Linux retains better compatibility with older hardware, usually.
Dekks wrote:
Fri May 18, 2018 2:51 am
Plus the kabylake doesn't have the 7 row kb and throttles at the drop of a hat if you push the cores close to the thermal limits. Don't fall into Intel's ultrabook mindset where battery life is everything, performance counts.
Are you seriously bringing up throttling and performance drops in Kaby Lake in a thread discussing T4x laptops? Kaby Lake can probably throttle down to 1MHz and still run leaps and bounds around these 15-year old Pentium Ms! (yes, that's an intentional exaggeration). The point is that even with the maximum throttling you are likely to see, a Kaby Lake CPU will still be probably at least 4 times as fast as the Dothans in T42/T43.
Thinkpad 25 (20K7), T490 (20N3), Yoga 14 (20FY), T430s (IPS FHD + Classic Keyboard), X220 4291-4BG
X61 7673-V2V, T60 2007-QPG, T42 2373-F7G, X32 (IPS Screen), A31p w/ Ultrabay Numpad

kfzhu1229
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2484
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#28 Post by kfzhu1229 » Fri May 18, 2018 11:59 am

dr_st wrote:
Fri May 18, 2018 9:44 am
True, but at some point newer versions of software will require newer CPUs just to run. So he'll be stuck using older versions forever. This process, however, takes far longer on Linux than on Windows - Linux retains better compatibility with older hardware, usually.
That said, T43 can run Windows 10, so if you say Linux retains better compatibility, that means that the T43 can still be used on the latest software (though albeit its days are numbered)
Also, while there are distributions of Linux that can run on the Dothan architecture, isn't it the case that things like Google Chrome only supports x64 in Linux for the latest versions?
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)

Dekks
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 583
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:38 am
Location: Birmingham, UK

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#29 Post by Dekks » Fri May 18, 2018 3:02 pm

dr_st wrote:
Fri May 18, 2018 9:44 am
Are you seriously bringing up throttling and performance drops in Kaby Lake in a thread discussing T4x laptops? Kaby Lake can probably throttle down to 1MHz and still run leaps and bounds around these 15-year old Pentium Ms! (yes, that's an intentional exaggeration). The point is that even with the maximum throttling you are likely to see, a Kaby Lake CPU will still be probably at least 4 times as fast as the Dothans in T42/T43.
Yup i am ;) but the blind faith evident in the reply kinda fired me up.

In benchmark terms of course your right, but in the user case of using my t43 for doc editing standard ops there isn't that much perceptible difference in comparison to a t470 doing the same work load bar the superior i/o of modern SSD loading large files. For the t43 that what the cup of coffee is for.
Home - Win 10 MSi GF63 Gaming Laptop /Arch GNOME 3/X230 Tablet /X61 [Korean] - Debian 10/T60p - Ubuntu 20.10 Helix 2
Work - Win10/Thinkpad X1 Tablet Gen 2

thinkpadcollection
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 817
Joined: Fri Oct 17, 2014 8:13 pm
Location: kingston, ontario, Canada

Re: Those who own the 15" T4xp laptops, how useful are they in 2017?

#30 Post by thinkpadcollection » Fri May 18, 2018 3:40 pm

Not just Dell, there's HP, even have trackpoint.

Time march on still. Just for others to be aware of.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “ThinkPad T40/T41/T42/T43 Series”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 52 guests