51nb.com released T50 (= new mobo for T4x's) in Shenzhen

[Norway Pad]

Lazycat: That sounds good! Looking forward to hearing the experiences with your board. Feel free to start a new thread about that subject, I am sure that's a subject that will be met with big interest from many users here.

it is a sata interface, but in a special assembly way to accommodate the DVD drive interface. accturely, it's the same interface in T4x. That's why you can add a SATA hdd to CD position in T4X machine by an ultrabay.

So I understand this as the original T4x Ultrabay CD / HD-caddy must be used? That's ok, and would in fact be my preference for an as original look as possible. Even though it excludes the use of devices like BluRay ROMs, as mentioned above.

[ajkula66]

I have already upgraded my T43 to T50 yesterday in 51nb's office in shenzhen. I'll post the details later.

I can't recall the last time I've been looking forward to anyone's post on this forum with such anxiety...

Please - pretty please - do keep us in the loop...

[RealBlackStuff]

The translation (from Google...) of that 51nb For-Sale page is:

Adapter ThinkPad T40-T43 motherboard upgrade to support first-generation i3/i5/i7 processors.

The batch motherboard 20, only supports Shenzhen door installed mailed to upgrade or field installed upgrade Shenzhen, please submit your order as a service for installation, and is ready to use the new machine CPU (recommended i5, cheap enough, the speed fast enough), memory (DDR1066), wireless LAN (half-height MiniPCI-E) and the hard disk. If you want to help purchasing, please contact well in advance. Mailed to the following address:
Shennan Road, Shenzhen, Guangdong, South China Power Building, Room 801 specialized network Aki
0755-83348643/83348645

The motherboard is not available in batch shipped overseas, please note.

In addition, the board is currently surviving some minor problems, see:

http://forum.51nb.com/thread-1420277-1-1.html

[Norway Pad]

So I understand this as the original T4x Ultrabay CD / HD-caddy must be used? That's ok, and would in fact be my preference for an as original look as possible. Even though it excludes the use of devices like BluRay ROMs, as mentioned above.

Edit: I take my statement back. After trying a T410 (Or T420?) DVD Rom today, and pushing it as far in as it went, due to the wrong connector, I realized it's bezel fits good. It is closer in shape to the T4x than the T6x bezel, and if you could push it all the way in, it would fit good.

Then an idea came to mind: Would it be possible to make a converter card to use with the 15" ones? If I remember correctly, the 15" ones use an extension piece between the plug on the motherboard and the drive unit, due to the size. Maybe this extension piece can accommodate some kind of converter? That would make the SATA Ultrabay option only available for T4x 15" units, but so be it. Just an idea. Maybe it has been presented before, so take it for what it is.

[Medessec]

Edit: I take my statement back. After trying a T410 (Or T420?) DVD Rom today, and pushing it as far in as it went, due to the wrong connector, I realized it's bezel fits good. It is closer in shape to the T4x than the T6x bezel, and if you could push it all the way in, it would fit good.

That's what I mentioned a few posts back:

I would really like for them to do a motherboard with the Serial Ultrabay Slim(T500/W500) because the outside bezel is a lot closer to the T43 aesthetic than the T60/61 ultrabay

The T43 has a little angled bit on the bottom half of the bezel that the ultrabay bezel matches- The T60 goofed this up by being completely slab-sided. But the T400/T500 brought the angular bit back, and uses the SATA interface. If someone can confirm it to be an absolute fit, I would love to see them implement SATA Ultrabay. I don't see any reason they shouldn't... other than potential customers wanting to use T4x Ultrabay devices rather than Ultrabay Serial Slim devices. But... hey. You're buying a modded motherboard... you're obviously craving newer hardware, you might as well get SATA Ultrabays as well.

Would it be possible to make a converter card to use with the 15" ones?

If it's at all possible(and it might be) the problem would be that anything SATA would be reduced to IDE speeds... which defeats the point of having a SATA Ultrabay, I'd imagine there would be complications with doing Blu-Ray playback over IDE. I'd be personally against that.

[Norway Pad]

I'd imagine there would be complications with doing Blu-Ray playback over IDE.

I don't think so. That would mean that a BluRay movie couldn't play from an IDE harddrive, and existing BluRay devices for IDE / PATA would be useless. To be sure, I checked it out, and the required data transfer rate for BluRay seems to be 54mbps, which should equal 6.75MB/s. (Correct me here if I'm wrong) From my A+ days I think a common IDE transfer rate was 133MB/s, so in theory that should suffice indeed. When that is said, we also know that any converter adds one more layer of data handling, speed reduction and potential error that should be avoided. So by all means; if our colleagues in Shenzhen are willing to in the future incorporate a SATA Ultrabay interface for the T50, that would be the very best solution for having access to BluRay drives in the T4x.

For the fit of a T410 (T420?) Ultrabay device in a T43: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4W8v ... 520DVD.jpg I removed the plastic tab on the rear face, so it could be pushed as far in as the mismatching plugs allow. The casing of this device is similar to a T60 DVD rom I have, so expect it to line up with the ejector mechanism as well. If somebody else has discovered something else, let us know.

[Medessec]

So by all means; if our colleagues in Shenzhen are willing to in the future incorporate a SATA Ultrabay interface for the T50, that would be the very best solution for having access to BluRay drives in the T4x.

Hmm... alright- I suppose it would be a much more flexible solution than making a whole different model of the board that uses the SATA interface at the Ultrabay, but I went ahead and fetched out an array of T43 parts I have, and I happen to have a cruddy T500 right now, so I fetched out the Ultrabay drive and took some pics:

http://www.medessec.info/m/T43SATAULT

If you look at some of the pictures-including the first one, you can see that the drives are physically almost exactly the same. And sure-when I slotted it into a nearly complete T43 I have, the same thing happened as in Norway's picture. However, I've got a much more parted up T43- and after playing around with it, the T500 Ultrabay drive is pretty much a perfect fit, the only thing getting in the way is the original Ultrabay port. The release mechanisms work perfectly fine too.

I just remembered... my W700 uses the same Ultrabay as the T500/W500. I could've just used that.

[EasyMac308]

This is such a beautiful thing...

[Medessec]

Alright - so that would be the message I'd want to relay to the guys at 51nb. I understand if it's already been requested or thought of- but I think the board would be so much more fantastic if the Ultrabay port was done for Serial Ultrabay Slim(T400/T500/W500 gen) either by simply making the Ultrabay interface on the board into SATA, or by making a converter piece out of the extender for the 15" T43 chassis.

This is the extender piece, for those who aren't aware:
http://www.medessec.info/m/T43SATAULT/IMG_0967.JPG

And this is a pretty neat pic of it in action:
http://www.medessec.info/m/T43SATAULT/IMG_0960.JPG
The camera is looking at it upside-down, the motherboard is on the left, the extender piece is screwed in the middle, and the Ultrabay itself you can see on the right, although dismantled because I'm playing around with it.

Here's some other two pics of it, although harder to see.
http://www.medessec.info/m/T43SATAULT/IMG_0963.JPG
http://www.medessec.info/m/T43SATAULT/IMG_0966.JPG

I think if they intentionally stuck with the T43's original IDE Ultrabay interface, the main reason would be so they could still use the original extender piece. Which makes sense, and isn't a bad decision, especially if the T60 extender piece wouldn't work with a plain SATA interface on a T43 motherboard... because then they'd have to make their own extender pieces.

In that regard, I do like the idea of a SATA extender piece converter... but again it would mean that only 15" T43s would have the privilege of SATA Ultrabay drives.

[irus]

the only processors that can be used on the t50 motherboard are 1st gen core processors with integrated graphics meaning only processors with 2 two cores. aka a dual core system.

i hope HOPE makes a mobo to support at least second generation core processors (it would give quad core with integrated graphics) which would make it a much better deal.

[Medessec]

If lazycat is correct about the T50 motherboard running the HM55/57 chipset, then that is indeed correct... the absolute fastest processor that can run in the T50 is the i7-640M:

http://ark.intel.com/products/49666/Int ... e-2_80-GHz

A Dual-Core CPU with Hyperthreading and 2.8 GHz Stock-clock with 3.46 GHz Turbo boost. The reason Quad-Core First gen CPUs(i7-720QM, 820QM, 920XM) will not work is because they actually do not have the on-die Intel HD graphics that the i5-540M, i7-620M and i7-640M have.

The chipset DOES support more powerful processors without Intel HD, such as the i7-720QM and even the i7-940XM(try cooling that), but there won't be any video. The only solution is to see if the guys at 51nb manage a dedicated graphics version of the board. But then they'd have to surpass the dilemma of switchable graphics, and the cooling necessary. But as I mentioned earlier, pictures of the T50 board do show solder points where a video chip and VRAM would be soldered onto the board.

To give people an idea of what they're looking at buying if they need a CPU for their T50 motherboard:

i5-520M: $25-35
i5-540M: $30-40
i5-560M: $40-60
i5-580M: $80-200
i7-620M: $60-180
i7-640M: $180-300

Pricing was done based on a quick skim of ebay, and just tallying a brief average of the "Buy it Now" entries, NOT auctions. Please don't go pointing fingers when you got a i5-540M for $45, while the next person paid $18 in an auction.

Here are some cruddy processors you can probably snatch up, and I've even seen a couple of these Buy it Now for only $3-5.

Celeron P4500
Celeron P4600
Pentium P6200
Pentium P6300

For those curious: There are no socket-borne First-gen Core i3s that work with this chipset. In fact, all these listed above is pretty much THE list of CPUs to choose from, as long as the T50 is indeed HM55/57 and there is no BIOS locked CPU list.

[RMSMajestic]

I'd imagine there would be complications with doing Blu-Ray playback over IDE.

I don't think so. That would mean that a BluRay movie couldn't play from an IDE harddrive, and existing BluRay devices for IDE / PATA would be useless. To be sure, I checked it out, and the required data transfer rate for BluRay seems to be 54mbps, which should equal 6.75MB/s. (Correct me here if I'm wrong) From my A+ days I think a common IDE transfer rate was 133MB/s, so in theory that should suffice indeed. When that is said, we also know that any converter adds one more layer of data handling, speed reduction and potential error that should be avoided. So by all means; if our colleagues in Shenzhen are willing to in the future incorporate a SATA Ultrabay interface for the T50, that would be the very best solution for having access to BluRay drives in the T4x.

For the fit of a T410 (T420?) Ultrabay device in a T43: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4W8v ... 520DVD.jpg I removed the plastic tab on the rear face, so it could be pushed as far in as the mismatching plugs allow. The casing of this device is similar to a T60 DVD rom I have, so expect it to line up with the ejector mechanism as well. If somebody else has discovered something else, let us know.

There was an engineering sample blue-ray writer for T61 (IDE interface) but perhaps too rare to find
From my personal experience, IDE devices requires very good quality cables and soldering, using a third party HDD caddy on my T61 gives a C7 value of 27 to my harddrive in the past year

Also, maybe it's worthmentioning that one of the defects of T50 is that you can't hot plug/remove the ultrabay device

[RMSMajestic]

Merry Christmas and happy new year to every1!

I've just talked to aq5200, the assembly engineer. He said that T50 mobo still has various defects (with ultrabay, screen brightness control, south bridge temperature, etc) and especially with high resolution screens. If they begin selling it abroad(worldwide) now a lots of problem might occur and due to the high postage for international shipping, it's not a sensible thing to do:(

They haven't even ship to the other part of China yet :/

The good thing is that new processor still makes negligible improvement in performance so we can still wait, or it is still worth waiting ╮(╯_╰)╭

p.s. lazycat's post on 51nb http://forum.51nb.com/viewthread.php?tid=1426774
apparently he's feeling good

I wanna move to Shenzhen

[Medessec]

The good thing is that new processor still makes negligible improvement in performance so we can still wait, or it is still worth waiting ╮(╯_╰)╭

Well... when we compare our options... I say it might be worth the wait. A lot of people strongly prefer the T43's chassis to the T60, and the T60 plays host to the next best 4:3 Thinkpad down, a T61 planar T60 Frankenpad.

I suppose the advantages of the first-gen Core i-series are indeed very slim, especially since we can only use the slower CPUs with Intel HD graphics on the chip.

However-if they can solve these present problems: Shorting on the screw points as seen in lazycat's testimony... Southbridge heat... and please, PLEASE just put a T500/W500 Ultrabay Serial Slim SATA port in there! I'd imagine interfacing it with the rest of the motherboard would be easier, it'd make more sense, I don't see any reason to not use that, other than you won't be able to use T4x Ultrabay devices. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like it would vastly improve the motherboard. I would buy that, and definitely for the price they have right now.

However... the best thing, by far, to do to the board, would be to add dedicated graphics. An NVS 3100M(T410) would be incredible, I'd even settle for a Mobility Radeon 3450(T400). And it would allow the possibility of upgrading to the far beefier Quad-Core Core i7 first-gen CPUs without Intel HD, such as the i7-820QM, and i7-920XM. They wouldn't need to do anything else to the board.

[Norway Pad]

So both good and bad news. But as long as the developers are set on continuing the development and debugging of the board, I guess that's good news all in all. So we just have to wait. Hopefully I will soon have a T43 test bench sitting waiting for its new motherboard..

[lophiomys]

We should also help the engineers in Shenzhen whereever we can. i.e. testing or crowd funding.
It is quite an achievement that the guys from 51nb got this far!
When the first version of the board is finally working, then we could start whishing for more features.

RMSMajestic let us know if your friends in China need/want some help.

For an exciting new year!

[shawross]

Patience is a virtue they say so we will hope they can sort out some of these problems. I would like to know the specs they are using for testing regarding screen resolution and cpu.
Also I wonder if other people have done test installs.
Google translate is problematic so it is difficult to get accurate feedback. At this early stage l am hoping we can get something stable at around T400 performance but time will tell.

[Medessec]

There's no question if this gets as far as it does, the performance will be pretty dramatic. Even the Core i5 you can put in their motherboard easily trumps the T9600(one of the fastest T400/500 processors) in raw performance, despite still being dual core. And it's doing the video processing on top of that, which means your T50-modded T43 will be doing eons better in efficiency than your widescreened T400/500.

I'm really happy to hear that they've got the motherboard working, and that they have people already doing quality-assurance on it, and they're sharing the board with real users. I'm so interested to see how much more progress they make...

[RealBlackStuff]

Patience is a virtue they say so we will hope they can sort out some of these problems. I would like to know the specs they are using for testing regarding screen resolution and cpu.
Also I wonder if other people have done test installs.
Google translate is problematic...

Instead of Google, I tried Bing (MStranslator).
http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.a ... id=1426774
Both translation are absolute crap!
But at least you get the drift of them testing Southbridge cooling methods.

[andy2000]

This is an interesting project, but for me to be interested, I would want dedicated video, cardbus + express card slot, and a docking station support. If full docking ability is impossible, I would at least want it to work with a port replicator so that I can get DVI out. SATA ultrabay would be nice, but it's a deal breaker considering how little I used optical discs anymore. Does it support a second battery in the ultrbay?

[Raceboy]

1st gen Core CPU's still runs circles around fastest Core 2 Duo CPU's. Even though they have dual core, they also have Hyperthreading. I had X201 with i5-520M and it was very fast compared to W500 with T9600 I had. Graphics was stronger on W500 (FireGL V5700) but not too much and there is always eGPU which allows to use laptops internal LCD screen when at home etc.

[Medessec]

I'm not going to speak for them-I'm just going off what I've seen about the board so far, what I've read, and my personal experience:

cardbus + express card slot

This I imagine would be tough for them. Where the CardBus used to be, they've put an SD card slot, so I imagine it's not in the books anyway. ExpressCard would be a good addition, if anything... but I doubt they can manage it. It'd make the board quite a bit more complex.

and a docking station support

I really doubt they'll be able to add a docking port at all. The interfacing with the newer hardware seems like it'd be extremely difficult, and probably not in their interest. I'd imagine the DVI-out only would be possible, but there's still the issue of getting docking ports.

Pictures of the production board show that the board doesn't have the contacts for Ultrabay Batteries-so no. Seems it is currently not supported. I'm not sure if they will be able to add the feature later down the road... I've got no foresight or prediction to pose on that. The main reason I would like a SATA Ultrabay is so the T50 can natively make use of Blu-Ray drives, Ultrabay SATA HDD trays, and at SATA's full speed.

1st gen Core CPU's still runs circles around fastest Core 2 Duo CPU's. Even though they have dual core, they also have Hyperthreading.

Absolutely. It's no question that on the CPU level, things will be far better than the Core 2 Duos. But that's why I'm saying the T50 motherboard would be so outrageously better with dedicated graphics- the Intel HD will gimp the T50 motherboard for high performance applications. 3D Gaming, Video and Media Development, and CAD application won't work as well.

However-reliability problems with the board need to be solved first. And with a graphics chip on a design like that, with it so close to the CPU socket and with the T43's array of heatsink options, that's not going to be easy for them.

I'd still love to have a board, even if it will exist only as it is right now though.

[irus]

where are you guys getting your info on core 1st gen running circles around the fastest core 2 duo?

they are neck and neck have a look

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core2-Duo ... re-i5-540M

[andy2000]

It's not too surprising that dock connectors might be hard to find. It might also be hard to find detailed specs for the docking signals without inside information.

I still think it would have been better to have a cardbus + express card slot instead of the SD slot like the T43. It's easy to put an SD card reader in if you want it.

What about replacing the VGA port with Displayport in the future? It would fit the cutout for the VGA connector, and be a lot more versatile.

Andy

[Medessec]

where are you guys getting your info on core 1st gen running circles around the fastest core 2 duo?
they are neck and neck have a look: http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core2-Duo ... re-i5-540M

That's not as fair of a comparison... the T9600 is one of the absolute best CPUs to go in a W500-the Core i5-540M is sort of a midrange processor for the T50 board.

These would be fair comparisons:

T9600 vs. i7-640M

T9300 vs. i5-540M

If anything, the Core 2 Duos do catch up a bit when it comes to single core performance. But- the Core i-series is still going to be better, because it's newer, more up-to-date technology. It's more efficient, and you get Turbo Boost, better power management, multi-core management, faster RAM, and remember that these CPUs in particular are doing this while being smashed up against a GPU, with Intel HD graphics on die.

What about replacing the VGA port with Displayport in the future? It would fit the cutout for the VGA connector, and be a lot more versatile.

Perhaps... some early pics of the motherboard showed they had an HDMI port on there, so I'd imagine they can do it. And I do agree DisplayPort would be the way to go.

[shawross]

Some people will need to put their wishlists to one side I think. Hope has done a creditable job to get it this far and there is still more to be done yet.
I think it is a miracle that we have a chance to replace our old T4x mobo with something that brings us up to a reasonable standard for todays computing.
There are people that will and should reassess if this mobo is going to meet their needs. I will be overjoyed if we can get an I7 CPU with an independent GPU but I will still be happy with something that is comparable to my T400 in performance and with its limited ports.

[irus]

where are you guys getting your info on core 1st gen running circles around the fastest core 2 duo?
they are neck and neck have a look: http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core2-Duo ... re-i5-540M

That's not as fair of a comparison... the T9600 is one of the absolute best CPUs to go in a W500-the Core i5-540M is sort of a midrange processor for the T50 board.

These would be fair comparisons:

T9600 vs. i7-640M

T9300 vs. i5-540M

If anything, the Core 2 Duos do catch up a bit when it comes to single core performance. But- the Core i-series is still going to be better, because it's newer, more up-to-date technology. It's more efficient, and you get Turbo Boost, better power management, multi-core management, faster RAM, and remember that these CPUs in particular are doing this while being smashed up against a GPU, with Intel HD graphics on die.

What about replacing the VGA port with Displayport in the future? It would fit the cutout for the VGA connector, and be a lot more versatile.

Perhaps... some early pics of the motherboard showed they had an HDMI port on there, so I'd imagine they can do it. And I do agree DisplayPort would be the way to go.

pfft 1/2 point difference is hardly worth talking about for all the marketing terminology being thrown around to make it seem like the best thing since sliced bread, but if it makes you feel better alright!

anyhow just hoping the kinks are worked out asap!

[Medessec]

I mean, that's definitely a fair argument... The T50 board may have newer, faster hardware, but it's a mod board, manufactured by modders for modders. It'd have to prove to be solidly reliable if it were to make it at all as a true 4:3 laptop solution. In contrast to this: Thinkpad T62p mod, which is a pretty tacky mod that shoves a T500 ATI Radeon 3650 motherboard into a T60p chassis... yes, it does look pretty silly and quite horribly botched(if you look at some pics) but it works, and it's 100% original Thinkpad hardware.

pfft 1/2 point difference is hardly worth talking about for all the marketing terminology being thrown around to make it seem like the best thing since sliced bread, but if it makes you feel better alright!

Yes, Yes... but you can't just compare CPUs by numbers... the reality is that because the Core i-series has all the newer tech, features, hyperthreading and the cleaner operation, the Core i-series will be more worthwhile in the long run. It will cling onto life longer and longer, whereas the Core 2 Duo will rapidly become more and more useless.

When it comes to Intel processors, newer is almost always better. I wish I could say the same about Thinkpads.

[Raceboy]

Heh, are you serious?!? Judging CPU performance by WEI?

I have direct experience with various applications and games, both on W500 and X201 and Core i5 has four threads and with todays software that is optimized for multiple cores, i5 will smoke any Core 2 Duo.
Also the graphics is not a problem at all, if I want to play newer games, I use my desktop. It has already old GTX285 1GB in it but let me see a laptop VGA card that has similar or better performance? Not too many of those around..

[Norway Pad]

Some people will need to put their wishlists to one side I think. Hope has done a creditable job to get it this far and there is still more to be done yet.. ..There are people that will and should reassess if this mobo is going to meet their needs. I will be overjoyed if we can get an I7 CPU with an independent GPU but I will still be happy with something that is comparable to my T400 in performance and with its limited ports.

You are so right. With the danger of repeating myself from an earlier post, I think that this project will never be a neither cost-effective nor reasonable solution for an every day use laptop. It will be a solution for those who see the pleasure and satisfaction in using an old 4:3 unit with brand new and reasonably powerful internals. Sacrifices has to be done, and for me a lack of docking and Express Card slot are the two. Despite this, I am really exited about it, and really hope that Hope and his friends succeeds with the T50 project.

Cheers to all of them (And all of you) from New Years Party in Norway.