Would you buy a T43 today?

[ajkula66]

Well name another heavy JS site then young man.

I can't...would get banned...

[Dekks]

I can't...would get banned...

[Kilkenny]

Firefox and Chromium are near useless, so I run Xombrero and am happy with it

How does Xombrero do with a modern JS heavy site like facebook?

I have never used the desktop site with it. The mobile site https://m.facebook.com works great though.

Xombrero is generally significantly faster than Chromium or Firefox though for JS. You can run it in whitelist mode where all JS is blocked, and you can then selectively allow it for certain sites. One thing to keep in mind though is that it has no adblocker because the devs prefer running an ad-filtering DNS proxy for better performance. I use adsuck (written by the same people) for this task and it speeds things up dramatically.

[kfzhu1229]

Who else in this forum would upgrade T43 fully and put T43 into Windows 10 like me? For me, Edge is decent enough for that computer with Adblock enabled

[ajkula66]

Who else in this forum would upgrade T43 fully and put T43 into Windows 10 like me?

If you dig a bit deeper, you'll see that a couple of other folks have done it, for better or worse...

For me, Edge is decent enough for that computer with Adblock enabled

Whatever works for you is all that really matters. Seriously.

[kfzhu1229]

Now I have several things left to do for my T43 machines:
1. A motherboard swap. I have a defective mothetboard which does not detect the primary hard drive and a slower Pentium M 750 in the 15" chassis with your UXGA IPS while I have a fully working motherboard with 780 inside the 14.1" chassis with SXGA+
2. A Pentium M 780 to replace that 750
3. Maybe another T43p motherboard with real FireGL V3200 but then I have to purchase a Windows 10 license because the free upgrade ended and I usually upgrade from 7 to 10 to get genuiue Windows.
4. Maybe also some T43 BT cards as well

[TPFanatic]

@kzfhu1229: You may want to look into this. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessi ... s10upgrade

Although the phone re-activation might work for you.

[kfzhu1229]

I saw that trick from vwestlife but never had a chance to test it. Now the problem is where to find a T43p motherboard

[shawross]

I have been progressively moving most of my computers back to Windows 7. Initially I wanted to digitally sign my motherboards to Windows 10 and check out how Windows 10 performs.

I still have Windows 10 on my X201 and probably will keep this machine on 10. Also I have an SSD for my X301 with W 10.

My latest to go back to Windows 7 is one of my T43's which developed issues after Windows 10 updates. It wouldn't recognize keyboard inputs and after blank screens from startup I have lost patience with Windows 10.

I truly believe Windows 7 is arguably Microsoft's best OS. As EOL approaches for Windows 7 then decisions will need to be made.

I could see possible reasons to put Windows 10 on a T43 after Windows 7 EOL but today IMHO Windows 7 is the much better fit. YMMV

[dr_st]

I truly believe Windows 7 is arguably Microsoft's best OS. As EOL approaches for Windows 7 then decisions will need to be made.

I could see possible reasons to put Windows 10 on a T43 after Windows 7 EOL but today IMHO Windows 7 is the much better fit. YMMV

It's not that Win7 is better than Win10 (in most objective ways, as much as one can be objective, it is not). It is just, as you say, a better fit for an older system. Software/hardware vendors do not bother (and simply would not be able to) test combinations that are too far removed from the original, that the machine was intended to run with. You are likely to run into issues with old hardware and new OS. New hardware and old OS tends to be even worth. And power management stuff is usually the trickiest of them all.

[kfzhu1229]

I can tell you right now i run W10 on T43 and there is ATI driver bug that you have to turn off the display and then back on to get the display to display things and infrared support is removed from W10

[TPFanatic]

Does your PCMcia card slot work in Windows 10? I couldn't get that to work on T500 or R500.

[ajkula66]

Does your PCMcia card slot work in Windows 10? I couldn't get that to work on T500 or R500.

I couldn't get myself to work in W10 never mind the card slots...

[TPFanatic]

Maybe if I plug it in running XP mode....

[kfzhu1229]

Never tried them in Windows 10 but in Windows 7 I got my Bluetooth pcmcia card working just fine before I took it out because I got the Bluetooth daughter card

[SurrealMustard]

Back in the days it was really understandable for websites to require more and more CPU power because they look better and better. Now it requires more CPU power because they are more and more bloated with ads and unwanted Flash. I really don't see the point of the ads taking up to one gig of RAM to display something you don't want to see or they are simply wasted.

This is true and is one of the great paradoxes of the "modern" web. They manage to make the sites slower, harder to use, and uglier, so you'd think they're making up for it through behind-the-scenes optimizations, but they're actually making it worse! I have to try really hard to screw something up on that many levels. Don't even get me started on websites that dispense with the "submit" or "go" buttons and assume that it's convenient for you to press the return key...

That said, most websites have given up on Flash player (even though it's not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be) and the banner advertisements on most webpages are one thing that actually haven't changed that much, so I don't feel that this is a valid excuse anymore for poor web performance. I lay 100% of the blame on terrible design of the pages themselves.

Now the '00 and '10 kids won't understand how Internet was really used to be like comparing to now. And I'm 100% sure they don't understand what is the good of using a black business class IBM ThinkPad T43 which doesn't look cute for the outside and is older than most of themselves. Well I'm pretty sure everyone on this forum knows the truth is that under those not-so-cute looking shells is full of neatness unlike today's home computers. A fingerprint sensor is still something very special on today's home laptops, especially something as accurate as that.

It all depends on how integrated things are/get. Upgrading the CPU on my T61p required a lot more disassembly than on my N200, but the T61p is a far more compact system, so certain design considerations had to be made. I was working on a Yoga 2 Pro several weeks ago, and that thing required extensive disassembly just to swap the keyboard, but it was even thinner than my T61p, so again, I respect the design compromise that had to be made there. Phones and tablets are probably the worst of all, but it is tough to do super-slim and offer dead-simple-serviceability at the same time.

[TonyJZX]

I dont think anyone did PCMCIA drivers for Win10.

Are there any pcmcia cards you cant do without?

[Omineca]

In addition to an adblocker, noscript really speeds up browsing an older laptop.

I tend to frequent the same sites, and you can tailor it to permit necessary JS and block all other scripts.

I'm going to have to try out the Youtube suggestion on the previous page. On my 390X, I've used a user agent switcher, set it to a mobile string, and youtube videos get forwarded to a media player.

[w0qj]

Make sure you have lots of RAM. Today's webpages use a horrendous amount of RAM nowadays; guess webpage programmers are getting very lazy.

For example, on our modern computer (X1 Carbon Generation 3, circa 2015) had 8 GB of RAM, and it complained of "Not Enough Memory" at least once every week!
I was running 30 tabs on my FireFox, running my email program, and a large MS Excel file in the background.
I don't consider this as heavy computer usage? (OK, I "sleep" my computer weeks at a time, then reboot when this memory error crops up.)

Back in the days it was really understandable for websites to require more and more CPU power because they look better and better. Now it requires more CPU power because they are more and more bloated with ads and unwanted Flash. I really don't see the point of the ads taking up to one gig of RAM to display something you don't want to see or they are simply wasted.

[kfzhu1229]

Make sure you have lots of RAM. Today's webpages use a horrendous amount of RAM nowadays; guess webpage programmers are getting very lazy.

For example, on our modern computer (X1 Carbon Generation 3, circa 2015) had 8 GB of RAM, and it complained of "Not Enough Memory" at least once every week!
I was running 30 tabs on my FireFox, running my email program, and a large MS Excel file in the background.
I don't consider this as heavy computer usage? (OK, I "sleep" my computer weeks at a time, then reboot when this memory error crops up.)

Back in the days it was really understandable for websites to require more and more CPU power because they look better and better. Now it requires more CPU power because they are more and more bloated with ads and unwanted Flash. I really don't see the point of the ads taking up to one gig of RAM to display something you don't want to see or they are simply wasted.

30 tabs is heavy computer usage. If you open 30 tabs of things like Youtube, Facebook, etc. you would need around 20GB of RAM to be safe. In that case go and buy a server, they come with a bunch of memory for a really cheap price. I wouldn't open more than 5 tabs on my T43 at the same time. As for Office, I have office 2007 and office mobile installed (Office 2013/16's hardware acceleration is not supported by the Radeon X300 therefore eating CPU power constantly to display the GUI). I wouldn't put my computer to sleep as it is not too unacceptably slower to start Windows 10 than waking it up from sleep. Putting your computer to sleep will significantly shorten your components' lives as nothing lasts forever. ThinkPads are built to last at least 8 years, not for a few years. Go and buy a T43 with 2GB RAM, at least 40GB HDD, Pentium M 780, and Windows 10, try sticking with it for a month, and then go back to your laptop. You will be using your laptop much lighter and nicer.

[kfzhu1229]

Update: I have finally got my two T43 motherboards swapped.
I have two T43 machines. One 14.1" with Pentium M 780 and one UXGA IPS (thanks to ajkula66 for providing me the LCD assembly) 15" with a defective motherboard that doesn't recognise the primary hard drive. I swear that is something you don't want to do a second time in you entire life. It takes me half an hour to disassemble each machine and one hour to do the swap and reassemble for each machine.

[ajkula66]

. It takes me half an hour to disassemble each machine and one hour to do the swap and reassemble for each machine.

TBT, T4x series are ridiculously easy to work on. Rip apart a newer (post-2008) Mac and you'll agree with me.

[RealBlackStuff]

For everybody's information:

Hunting through my parts stock, I discovered another T43 motherboard with SATA-mod.
This, combined with other stock parts, will turn into what must now become my absolutely LAST SATA-modded T43.

It will have:
- 15" housing
- 15" new Sharp UXGA (1600x1200) LCD with AVS (comparable to IPS)
- T43 motherboard with ATI X300 graphics and SATA-mod
- the fastest M 780 (2.26GHz) CPU, will get M10 long fan and fresh AS5 thermal paste
- 2GB RAM
- bluetooth/modem
- Intel 2200BG wifi card
- 500GB SATA hard disk
- Chicony Keyboard
- palm rest with FPR (Finger Print Reader)
- TTAV134's BIOS with Slic2.1, no Error 1802 (use ANY wifi card), no Error 2010 (use ANY hard disk/SSD)
- W7 Pro/32-bit installed
- genuine OEM 72W 16V charger
- battery in green (need to check 6-cell or 9-cell)

Overall it will be in very good condition.
The T43 clearplate does not have a Bluetooth symbol (but you could have a T40 clearplate with BT instead).
Waiting for the CPU.
I'm still working on the price, will let you know.

[kfzhu1229]

. It takes me half an hour to disassemble each machine and one hour to do the swap and reassemble for each machine.

TBT, T4x series are ridiculously easy to work on. Rip apart a newer (post-2008) Mac and you'll agree with me.

Well, that's also mostly because IBM gives you instructions for how to disassemble and reassemble them. I have also done things like replacing LCD on my Galaxy S2, motherboard swap for S4, and midframe replacement on my S5. Those are much simpler comparing to Apple because Apple purposely used different sizes of screws to screw you up (a wrong screw can lead into permanent LCD damage)
Also it's Steve Jobs that created those kinds of problems. I'm still not a fan of unibody design.

[thinkpadcollection]

In my view P-M with 2MB cache for both 400fsb and 533fsb 2.0GHz and up are absolute minimum, 533fsb recommanded even watching HTML5 video is very hard on them. and an Turion 64 x2 2.3GHz I just did series of trials on notebooks, 3 thinkpads; A31p P4-M 2.0GHz, T42 with ATI 9600 64MB, P-M 2.0GHz 400fsb and R52 P-M 2.26 533fsb. Also Dell latitude D531 AMD Turion TL-66 2.3GHz x2 (still one core) all equipped with 2GB memory. I find that R52 almost did ok but D531 did better and is the actual minimum since this is 2x the performance level vs P-M 2.26.

That does change 2 things on playing with put on back burner real low is P-M and P4-M. Need to play some more with Atom N455 and N2600. I have an Acer aspire One 722 given to me and rebuilt two into good one using C-60 APU, now need to get 2 more parts, bottom cover and SATA connector inexpensively. Did a test run with live linux distribution on 722 and all appears to be ok. Linux kernel has worked fine with Atom N2600 SGX545 (intel GMA 3650) since 3.5 kernel.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[kfzhu1229]

In my view P-M with 2MB cache for both 400fsb and 533fsb 2.0GHz and up are absolute minimum, 533fsb recommanded even watching HTML5 video is very hard on them. and an Turion 64 x2 2.3GHz I just did series of trials on notebooks, 3 thinkpads; A31p P4-M 2.0GHz, T42 with ATI 9600 64MB, P-M 2.0GHz 400fsb and R52 P-M 2.26 533fsb. Also Dell latitude D531 AMD Turion TL-66 2.3GHz x2 (still one core) all equipped with 2GB memory. I find that R52 almost did ok but D531 did better and is the actual minimum since this is 2x the performance level vs P-M 2.26.

That does change 2 things on playing with put on back burner real low is P-M and P4-M. Need to play some more with Atom N455 and N2600. I have an Acer aspire One 722 given to me and rebuilt two into good one using C-60 APU, now need to get 2 more parts, bottom cover and SATA connector inexpensively. Did a test run with live linux distribution on 722 and all appears to be ok. Linux kernel has worked fine with Atom N2600 SGX545 (intel GMA 3650) since 3.5 kernel.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

The ABSOLUTE minimum I can tolerate is T23/A30 (preferably A30) with 1.2ghz PIII and 1GB RAM. The non-9600/FireGL T42 does not play 720p YouTube video. T43 will play just fine but when switching to full screen with higher resolution it struggles. The problem with T43 is that it gets very hot that it is inappropriate to be put on your lap while doing that

[ajkula66]

Well, that's also mostly because IBM gives you instructions for how to disassemble and reassemble them.

No.

That's because I've spent my youth ripping apart things that are way more difficult to work on than any laptop.

For everybody's information:

Hunting through my parts stock, I discovered another T43 motherboard with SATA-mod.
This, combined with other stock parts, will turn into what must now become my absolutely LAST SATA-modded T43.

Someone needs to grab this, and fast.

FTR, I'm the owner of the last SATA-modded "p" board...

[kfzhu1229]

Well, that's also mostly because IBM gives you instructions for how to disassemble and reassemble them.

No.

That's because I've spent my youth ripping apart things that are way more difficult to work on than any laptop.

I cannot imagine ripping anything and assemble it back any harder than doing so for changing the backlight of a LCD without getting a single particle of dust inside

[RealBlackStuff]

Have you ever read my How-to? http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=88991
Didn't take me more than maybe 15-20 minutes.

And I have done probably 20 or more, without ever getting any dust in...

[ajkula66]

No.

That's because I've spent my youth ripping apart things that are way more difficult to work on than any laptop.

I cannot imagine ripping anything and assemble it back any harder than doing so for changing the backlight of a LCD without getting a single particle of dust inside

Try rebuilding a hydraulic sphere chamber of a pre-66 Citroen DS and get back to me.... ...BTW, there's a total of 5 or 6 of them per vehicle, depending on whether one is dealing with a manual trans or a Citro-Matic...