Thinkpad R40 (2723 26G) CPU Bios Mod

[DeanoTheSaxman]

Hello Guy's & Gals ...

I currently have R40 (2723 26G) Socket 479 (mPGA479M)
I have modded most of the hardware & am currently running
Win XP (service pack 3)
Bios (1PET65WW (1.33 ) with SMBIOS Version 2.3.1
Intel Pentium M 1.7Ghz (SL6N5) (Banias Chip)
2Gb Ram
160Gb Hdd
Ultrabay 2000 PATA Tray with 60Gb "2nd HDD"
Atheros (WiFi) Wireless Card

I appreciate that the i855 "chip set" can run Dohan chips ... Has anybody yet come across
a Bios mod to run Dohan CPU chips, The bios obviously doesn't support such devices

I have been told that certain Dohan chips will run with the motherboard so long at the
Core stepping B1 memory address is achieved ... I have tried many P4M chips but as of yet nothing will run
because the Bios obviously doesn't recognise such chips ...
Currently waiting for a Intel Pentium M 755 2.0Ghz (SL7EM) to see if this will run as it has the Core stepping B1 memory address also.

[RealBlackStuff]

R40 was built under license by Acer, and is a rather unwanted 'stepchild.'
That's why nobody bothers much with them.
And Dothans do NOT work in an R40, period.
See also:
http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... =5&t=52785
http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... =5&t=78792

[DeanoTheSaxman]

http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... =5&t=52785
http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... =5&t=78792

Appreciate the links I am fully aware of what has been said about the R40 regarding CPU upgrades ...

Anybody know if the Dothan can be added to the Newest Bios revision BIOS Version String 1PET65WW (1.33 )
mPGA479M Ziff socket
or is Dothan just completely incompatable and a "NO GO" situation with the Banias Motherboard ... ???
(Even if the Dothan core stepping is B1) same as the Banias .. ?

[ajkula66]

If you get a Dothan to work in a R40, you'll likely be the first one to succeed, ever...

I tried it on several occasions, got nowhere and gave up since R40 was a trouble-prone concept enough to begin with...

Good luck.

[DeanoTheSaxman]

Trouble-prone ...... really ... ?

My R40 has been nothing but reliable ... Or am I the only one ...
If someone were to crack this upgrade thing .. they could make an awful lot of money from those
who want to upgrade .... ????

My machine is really quite solid .. ?

[Medessec]

R40s can be reasonable machines no doubt - but the R3x/R4x machines themselves are not very desirable. The machines alone don't hold a lot of residual value. Which is why it's generally not preferred to spend time and labor attempting to boost it, when the supported CPUs do fine for what the machine's worth.

If someone wanted more power in close to the same profile and general design, they'd just get a T4x/R5x. They're much better overall, it's easier to find a well kept one, and parts are more interchangeable making them a bit more fun to play with.

If you still feel insistent on seeing if this upgrade will work, then there's really not much we can do to help. You're blazing the trail on this one.

[ajkula66]

Trouble-prone ...... really ... ?

My R40 has been nothing but reliable ... Or am I the only one ...
If someone were to crack this upgrade thing .. they could make an awful lot of money from those
who want to upgrade .... ????

My machine is really quite solid .. ?

There's no money left in R40 generation. You can barely give them away.

If you take a look at forum's Marketplace, you'll see that forum member jamiphar - who runs a repair shop and is an authorised Lenovo partner - was giving away both brand new and refurbished motherboards for the price of shipping...

The problem with R40 is that if one wants a P4M unit, an A31p is a much more compelling offering.

Should one be interested in a PM machine, all but the very top models of T4x/R5x generation are dime-a-dozen nowadays...

And yes, R40 had a very poor QC resulting in some troubles that I've never seen on other ThinkPads, such as permanent failure of recognizing *anything* in the drive bay which was very common on them, apart from usual ATi chip desoldering problems that are shared within ThinkPads of this era...

They had great battery life when new, and were somewhat of an interesting offering design-wise a decade ago, but hold very little - if any - value to most people still playing around with older ThinkPads...

[DeanoTheSaxman]

So are there any other Motherboards that will fit into the R40 that will allow me to go over the 1.7Ghz Banias .. ?
Or am I flogging a Dead Dog .. ? I really love the R40 ... I'm surprised so many hate this little machine .. !

[ajkula66]

No other boards will fit.

I don't think anyone around here hates the R40 platform. It's just the matter of it not ageing as gracefully as some of the others...

Having owned and sold (at least) dozens of R40 units in the past, I can't say I miss having one right now. With that said, there's no reason not to enjoy yours. With 2GB RAM and an updated wireless card along with a newer hard drive they are still perfectly usable machines for normal daily chores within the XP realm.

[DeanoTheSaxman]

George ...

It does all I ask .. even does Video editing and most of my YouTube video processing ... Yes is it might be a tad slow processing but with a new Banias 1.7Ghz pentium M processor it fly's a bit faster ... I also have a caddy 2nd hard drive in the CD bay so no shortage of storage options .... It really does all I ask of it ... !!!

I have even created my own backing tracks for my Solo sets that I perform .. all high quality stuff ...

Mainly use my laptop for Music creation/editing & scoring out Music parts .... It's all I need ....
So long as it works, it's ideal for me ...

[ajkula66]

George ...

It does all I ask ..

Have you managed to teach it to bring you breakfast ?

That's where I always failed...

[emeraldgirl08]

lol ^^^

@Deano I have a T400 which works very well as a desktop replacement. Occasionally I find some complaints in threads about the T400. They usually revolve around :

-the asymmetrical LCD bezel (doesn't bother me in the least!)
-flexy keyboard (Lenovo sent an NMB-type kb per my request under warranty for free and next-day shipping- took me ~2 mins to replace on my own)
-placement of the headphone jack (in front); again does not bother me. If docked the headphone/speaker and Mic jacks are in back or front. You are able to use either set.

It works very well and is cool even with a 2.53 T9400 processor. The 1440X900 LCD (not LED) reproduces color very well and displays a decent level of brightness. I would go as far as to say that it does a better job of reproducing color than the IPS (or AFFS?) screen in my X200T. At the end of the day it does pretty much everything I need and since it is on a dock I have a total of 7-USB ports

I do get the impulse to upgrade occasionally. If I do then my ThinkPads will usually be given to someone who needs it. If I need the money then I will sell it locally, fleabay (used to do this but no longer; too expensive for me and risky), or try selling here on the forum.

I once had an R40 which was in very good shape and initially came with a very nice and bright LCD display! I turned it on and loaded W7 onto it and was impressed with the colors and the brightness.

Good to hear you are satisfied with the R40 and have made it work for you

[DeanoTheSaxman]

Yes my R40 does work, & works very hard most of the time, it's basically my office, playground, & everything else ... I love it !

Does anybody know if the R40e motherboard would fit, or am I better off with the "MAX" 1.7Ghz "No Dothan" support R40 motherboard .. ?

It's just that I see R40e Motherboards for sale on Fleebay, and sometimes wish I has the "P4M" power & support of that R40e motherboard ... I fully appreciate that the R40 "PM" motherboard is powerful, but is it as powerful as the "P4M" .. ?

What will the R40e motherboard support regarding the "P4M" chips I appreciate this motherboard is "Dothan" ..... ????

Thanks for all the help by the way ...........

[ajkula66]

Stay away from R40e boards, their USB is 1.1 and not all of them offer wireless support.

There were two (main) types of R40 boards, P4M and PM.

Honestly, you're better off with what you already have. While you can stick a 2.6GHz in a P4M planar, it will likely kill it with overheating in no time. That small fan just isn't powerful enough, and these CPUs have only half the cache of your current Banias one...

[DeanoTheSaxman]

Many thanks Senior Thinkpadder ....
Appreciate your input ...... Many thanks ...

[DeanoTheSaxman]

Just scrapped my old CD-Rom drive ... Came across an Acer Pioneer drive DVR-K15RA on Fleebay £2.99 .... Fitted the R40 bezels to the drive and the old front panel of the CD-Rom tray .... and low & behold I now have a re-writable DVD+-RW / CD+-RW drive and it works perfectly in the R40, using "Nero 9" & "My DVD" ..... The R40 may well have had it's day ... but it is still upgradable even 10 / 15 years on ... Ha Ha ...

Wonders Never Cease .... !!!!!

[Medessec]

That's Thinkpads for yeh. Most of them have quite a lot of potential.

[Shredder11]

It's always worth buying the very best quality and then upgrading that, instead of wasting thousands on inferior new products. The last time I bought anything brand new and cutting edge / up to date was in 2005, and that was a DIY desktop PC and a Pocket PC with GPS, and also a lot of music studio equipment. Since then I have bought everything used from Ebay, including further PC upgrades, laptops (IBM only), another Pocket PC. All the CPU upgrades, hard drives, memory, audio interfaces etc to all those were bought used as well so I have saved a fortune and got some amazing stuff.

They say that the death of the high street is due to the rise of the internet, but in my case I do not even buy my more expensive items brand new from online retailers and always buy used from Ebay. I even know of friends who can get me expensive items at cost price + VAT, but it still works out much cheaper to buy used from Ebay. I've never bought a new car either and the three I have owned were 3½; 9 and 11 years old upon purchase respectively.

Intelligent Thrift!

[Medessec]

It's always worth buying the very best quality and then upgrading that, instead of wasting thousands on inferior new products.

I do agree full-heartedly. If you're a teenager/student/on a budget, what always pays is to buy secondhand-premium, rather than something that's cheap from the beginning.

German cars are an exception.

[DeanoTheSaxman]

German Cars .... Great engines !!! But body work is a pile of crap ... Rusts like poo !!!

Give me a Thinkpad, over a German car any day !!!!

[ajkula66]

German Cars .... Great engines !!! But body work is a pile of crap ... Rusts like poo !!!

Give me a Thinkpad, over a German car any day !!!!

I don't know what German cars you've owned, but having owned several Benzes ranging from a '56 220A to '85 380SE I'll say that I've *never* had any issues with rust...

Yes, I know that the climate in the UK encorages body rot - used to live there in the 80s - but I'd still pick a *proper* German car over almost anything else...

[Medessec]

I don't know what German cars you've owned, but having owned several Benzes ranging from a '56 220A to '85 380SE I'll say that I've *never* had any issues with rust...

I'm from the new age, so I've got a fairly recent Audi A4. Love it to death, but my original point on German cars being an exception to buying secondhand-premium, is that... the fix-it bills can rack up quite a bit.

Thinkpads are premium(well, old ones considerably). You can tell even though the R-series was made to be cheaper, some still haven't failed the Thinkpad name.

[ajkula66]

I'm from the new age, so I've got a fairly recent Audi A4. Love it to death, but my original point on German cars being an exception to buying secondhand-premium, is that... the fix-it bills can rack up quite a bit.

Thinkpads are premium(well, old ones considerably). You can tell even though the R-series was made to be cheaper, some still haven't failed the Thinkpad name.

If you don't want to see high repair bills, buy a Japanese vehicle.

If you think that your A4 is about to send you into Chapter 7, try maintaining an Italian or British car in the U.S....

[Medessec]

If you don't want to see high repair bills, buy a Japanese vehicle.

If you think that your A4 is about to send you into Chapter 7, try maintaining an Italian or British car in the U.S....

Oh gawd. I was looking at a Freelander for my first car... and I wanted it so badly too.

But I bought a German car instead. I know the bills are high, but it's the sort of thing where you don't care that it's biting you in the butt, because everything else about the car is awesome.

[ajkula66]

My first car was a '69 Citroen Ami 6 Break:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_Ami

The car that I learned to drive on was, however, a very different animal altogether...a '69 2000Tii, which belonged to the father of my girlfriend at the time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_New_Class

Ah...the memories...

[Medessec]

Those cars looks like true classics... I'm born and raised West coast, so I won't have much of a perspective on the Citroen, but from my understanding they're quite interesting cars.

I bought my car because I always test drove cars I was interested in, and my car was the one I instantly wanted to be able to drive all the time. It's comfy and smooth when I want it to be, but quite ferocious otherwise. I'll really hate the day the thing has to get sent to the crusher, or scrapped.

[DeanoTheSaxman]

I'd far rather work on a Thinkpad than any car ... Have just Updated the Firmware on the DVR-K15RA drive ... back to Pure Pioneer DVR-K15 Firmware version 1.17 having been firmware Rev 1.04 .... Now the DVD drive supports +R & -RW Dual layer disc's ... it gets even better !!!! All this on a 1.7Ghz Banias ... I have a new SATA HDD Tray & a 250Gb HDD sitting in it .... I now have 3x HDD Trays with 20GB, 120GB & SATA 250GB hard drives as well as the stock 160Gb hard drive in the R40 .... This thing is so easy to upgrade, apart from the CPU restrictions .... This is Brill !!!!

[ajkula66]

You can add this "N" card as well to your hot-rodded R40:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833704061

Obviously you'll need a "no-1802" hack to go with it...

[DeanoTheSaxman]

Hi Senior Thinkpadder ..... NO !!!

I'm already running an Atheros Asus Wireless card for internet ...
It uses the (SAMSUNG SWL2700M 11b/g miniPCI WLAN Adapter) chip-set

No Hack needed as the latest Bios update from Lenovo takes care of all the Wireless cards problems.
(2723 26G) ........ 1PET65WW (1.33) 10 Jul 2006

that was one of the first mod's I did to this R40 machine ....

However the R40 internet light as per usual doesn't work with the card (Or is not supported)
But the main thing is that the Wireless Internet is fault-less ....

[RealBlackStuff]

Hi Senior Thinkpadder ..... NO !!!

The poster's username on the forum is ajkula66.
Senior Thinkpadder is one of many ranks, which you can acquire after a certain time on the forum, a certain number of posts, or other occasions as the forum-owner sees fit.
You yourself have no rank yet, being a relative newbie here.