T42 1.5 Upgrade Question

[Callahan]

I would like to upgrade my T42 (1.5 Banias - 2374E88) to a 1.7. Can someone verify if this Pentium M 1.7 would work in my T42? I found this at eBay ...

Genuine Intel Pentium M 1.7GHz/1M CPU Processor SL6N5

Searched around on Google but found only limited information.

thanks ...

[RealBlackStuff]

The T40/T41/T42 and R50/R51 can all use any of these CPUs:

Code: Select all

Banias (standard-voltage, 130 nm)			
			
Model Number 	sSpec Nr. 	Frequency 	L2-Cache 
Pentium M 1.3 	SL6N8 	1300 MHz 	1 MB 
Pentium M 1.3 	SL6N4 	1300 MHz 	1 MB 
Pentium M 1.4 	SL6F5 	1400 MHz 	1 MB 
Pentium M 1.4 	SL6F8 	1400 MHz 	1 MB 
Pentium M 1.5 	SL6F6 	1500 MHz 	1 MB 
Pentium M 1.5 	SL6F9 	1500 MHz 	1 MB 
Pentium M 1.6 	SL6F7 	1600 MHz 	1 MB 
Pentium M 1.6 	SL6FA 	1600 MHz 	1 MB 
Pentium M 1.7 	SL6N9 	1700 MHz 	1 MB 
Pentium M 1.7 	SL6N5 	1700 MHz 	1 MB 
			
Dothan (standard-voltage, 90 nm)			
			
Model Number 	sSpec Nr. 	Frequency 	L2-Cache 
Pentium M 710 	SL7V5 (B1) 	1400 MHz 	2 MB 
Pentium M 715 	SL7GL (B1) 	1500 MHz 	2 MB 
Pentium M 725 	SL7EG (B1) 	1600 MHz 	2 MB 
Pentium M 735 	SL7EP (B1) 	1700 MHz 	2 MB 
Pentium M 745 	SL7EN (B1)	 1800 MHz 	2 MB 
Pentium M 755 	SL7EM (B1)    2000 MHz 	2 MB 
Pentium M 765 	SL7V3 (B1) 	2100 MHz 	2 MB

[danikayser84]

I believe if you're running an old BIOS you'll need to upgrade it in order to use the Dothan chip though? (note: upgrade the BIOS first before installing the CPU otherwise you may get a beep code or no boot/POST)

[RealBlackStuff]

Yup, you're right, BIOS update first to the latest and greatest version.
My T4x memories are getting a bit rusty...

[Callahan]

Thanks for the replies ... I was going to just add a 1.7 Banias upgrade to this T42, since it is already a 1.5 Banias. My other T42 (15 in) is a 1.6 Dothan and I may upgrade that one but it seems pretty fast the way it is right now.

The T42 (1.5) seems a little slow at times so for a small cost I could upgrade that one for now.

Callahan

[kfzhu1229]

If you want best performance go for higher ones like 2.1ghz Pentium M 765
For balance between heat and perfomance go for Pentium M 745
I do not suggest banias ones over dothan ones since they have identical price tags
Or if you want you can get a 765 and if you find it too hot, undervolt it and underclock it if really needed. The highest processor speed precentage works great in Windows 7 (and later as well for sonoma Pentium M 7x0 ones)

[TPFanatic]

Dothan has twice the L2 cache of Banias. Definitely go for Dothan.

[ajkula66]

Dothan has twice the L2 cache of Banias. Definitely go for Dothan.

An excellent piece of advice. Seconded.

[Callahan]

I will look into the Dothan processor a little more. I definitely could add one to my T42 1.6 Dothan ThinkPad. I plan on staying with these ThinkPads until the end of time. I wasted many dollars years back starting with Win95 with all the constant changes every few months ... as many others did.

Now I just think of myself as living in the "backwoods" somewhere ... miles from any forms of human life or maybe somewhere on a lost island. So I say this is what you have ...make the most of it.

Callahan

[kfzhu1229]

If you want to use it to the end get a Pentium M 765 and if you have the higher end 9600 use Windows 7

[Callahan]

I will take more time to reading up on the better Pentium M 765. My only question for now is how hot would a Pentium M 765 run? I do regret not picking up a Win7 notebook a few years back on Black Friday when Walmart had some good deals.

I could check out eBay. Have you ever seen the YouTube video of the guy that got a ThinkPad T20 laptop at a thrift store for $7.49?

The $7.49 IBM ThinkPad T20 laptop ... xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcEycj_50hA

Take the 'x' away in front of the xhttps link ... I wasn't sure if the video would start playing all the time, so I put the small x there.

This is a follow up video ... The $7.49 IBM ThinkPad T20 gets an OS upgrade

xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOlTXBaE6RE

It's interesting to watch as he turns it on to check everything out.

Callahan

[Cigarguy]

I got a T42 with a M765 and it runs hot. Sucks a lot of battery too. Recommend a M745 as the sweet spot between speed, heat and power consumption. Max out the RAM and install a SSD.

A used Thinkpad such as a T60, T61, T500, T510 or X/W series from these generation can be had from resellers for cheap and will beat anything that Walmart sold. They will also run Win 7 just fine. My last 2 laptops was a X200s for $33 US and a T61 (date code 08/09) for $16 US.

[Callahan]

I took your advice and went with the Pentium M 745 SL7EN (B1) 1800 MHz 2 MB for $4.99 with free shipping. Already have the max 2 GB RAM installed so I'm sure this will be plenty fast for me.

Thanks ...

[thinkpadcollection]

Still recommend the 2.0GHz 2MB dothan CPU (21W). Slightly cooler than banias CPUs that it replaced.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[Callahan]

First of all, I have a small correction on what I bought. I have two T42s ... one a 1.5 Banias and the other a T42 (1.6) Dothan. So got the two mixed up on my last post at to the price of each processor.

The Pentium M 745 SL7EN (B1) 1800 MHz 2 MB for the T42 (1.6) is coming from China and with the exchange rate cost $7.09 with shipping included. I said earlier that the total cost was $4.99.

That price was for the Intel-Pentium-M-CPU-Processor-1-7GHz-1MB-400MHz-Socket-mPGA478C-SL6N5 for the T42 (1.5) notebook. Both sellers had 99% + feedback so I will see how this works out.

Actually, I wasn't going to upgrade those two T42s ... the T42 (1.6 Dothan) seems pretty fast to me as it is right now, so upgrading to the 1.8 processor should seem like super fast to me.

The T42 (1.5 Banias) does seem to be a bit slower ... when I compare it to the T41 (1.6 Banias), that I had the fan problem with, in my earlier post. Just using a 1.5 Banias and a 1.6 Banias notebook, I can tell the difference at times with the T42 (1.5) being a second or two slower.

So I figured just replacing the 1.5 with a 1.7 Banias should be good enough for me. I would think I would see a nice speed jump.

Thinkpadcollection ... comparing these ThinkPad upgrades to the older Toshiba Pentium and NEC Pentium 3 that I was using ... even as they are now before upgrading, they are so much faster and better than what I had years back.

I am sure some people here are amused at my talk of how fast my ThinkPads are, when newer models are out there ... but with what I was using before, they are fast to me.

I bought that older Toshiba Pentium as new in 2001 and paid a terrible price of maybe $1500, if I remember correctly and the NEC Pentium 3 was $1,000. So my last stand is with these ThinkPads and also I really like WinXP. Back then, it was like "every 15 minutes" there was a newer faster processor out on the market. I sort of got caught up in all that, but then I was younger and more foolish with my money ... but those earlier notebooks that I had were were fairly slow, compared to the Pentium M processor that came out later.

I haven't kept up with anything after the Pentium M processor ... not really looking to spend more money on computers ... I spend too much in the early days.

Maybe next year I'll look around on eBay or the internet for a good used Win7 machine just to fool around with. My WinXP setup now still works OK for my needs at this time. Pale Moon just announced that they are dropping WinXP with their new browser version. I set up a portable version of Firefox and I mainly still use an older version of K-Meleon, which works 98% of the time on the internet ... sometimes I have pages that don't load correctly, so Firefox will handle those.

Over at the MSFN forum ... the XP group keeps me informed as does the K-Meleon forum.
...

[kfzhu1229]

The point is, there is not much price difference, if there is at all, for the regular Pentium M processors other than the top 765 and 780. If you need more performance go for 765 and if you need balanced heat & performance 735 and 745 are your friend. It is not necessary for you to put a banias inside as it is not any cheaper at all.

[kfzhu1229]

FYI, what is more important than these CPUs is the RAM config. You'd better get 2x1GB DDR sticks for all your T4x machines (of course other than T43/p if you have one) if you want to use them for another 2 years or something. With RAM maxed out and as time passes by, Windows 7 becomes your friend for these computers even though you have to have X300 (in T43), 9600 or FireGL to have Windows Aero capability for these things

[Callahan]

All three of the ThinkPads that I have came with 1 MB RAM ... last December I upgraded my best T42 ... with the Dothan processor to 2 MB RAM ... but to be honest, I didn't notice any real difference in speed or anything. I'm sure there was an improvement, I just didn't notice anything.

The other two Banias machines ... I just went from 1 MB to 1.5 MB a few months ago. Again, for those older Banias machines ... the 1.5 RAM seems OK. I don't really notice anything much faster but again, I suppose there is something probably faster. I do think I will see the T42 (1.5) running better with the 1.7 processor added. Remember ... I'm using WinXP ... from what I read, Win7 would be another story and would benefit greatly.

Also, I have never worked much inside my ThinkPads ... just cleaning out dust, changing the CMOS battery and adding RAM memory in the slot inside. I did buy a new Wi-Fi adapter for the T41 (1.6), since it came with no Wi-Fi. I have a Netgear card that I use with all three ThinkPads but I still always wanted internal Wi-Fi for the T41. Sometimes I forget the Netgear card if I go to MacDonalds ... so having that internal Wi-Fi solves that problem.

I am a little nervous on putting a new fan setup in the T41 and also working with thermal paste. I have never worked with the paste before ... so I have downloaded some YouTube videos and found some information and picture guides online for the fan and paste challenge.

That will be enough "adventure" for me at this time. Maybe next year, I will go with what you said an switch the one Banias T42 to a Dothan. As you said, the price is no longer a factor in 2016.

Also, what was posted earlier about having to change the BIOS when going from a Banias to a Dothan processor. I will have to read up on that.

If these little projects work out now then maybe some extra stuff next year ... but I may be satisfied with the results for now.

I like the feedback and information from everyone ... for now I just want to get the ThinkPads working OK with the thermal paste applied correctly or whatever else I have to do. For me it's quite a project when I work on a notebook ... handmade drawings where all the different size screws go ... I have little plastic jar lids numbered #2, #3 and so forth. Being careful not to break the connection plugs. I know there are screw numbers printed on the bottom of the ThinkPad but I go by my drawings and notes.

If I did this sort of thing for a living ... it wouldn't be a problem, everything would be in my head, I'm sure.

Always happy to see the ThinkPad start up again when I get all the screws back in place.
...

[Cigarguy]

Good stuff Callahan. The T4x series are excellent to learn and get experience on taking it apart, reapplying thermal paste and update BIOS. These laptops are inexpensive. Worse come to worse you destroy it and replace it with a T60 or new Thinkpad which will run Window 7 no problem. I still run a T60 with Win 7 as my everyday machine. Learning how to disassemble, apply thermal paste, and update the BIOS is an invaluable lesson that can be applied on other machines and devices. Download the maintenance manual (click on HMM on top of this page) and follow it. It's pretty simple.

An upgrade on CPU and RAM will only be noticed in certain circumstanced. The biggest improvement is an upgrade to a SSD. I found this to be true on any laptop or desktop.

[thinkpadcollection]

Checked the thinkwiki on T42. Same board takes both Banias and Dothan processors. Go with Dothan 2MB 2GHz processor, model 755.

Before you do the processor swap, update the bios to latest version first.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[kfzhu1229]

As for the thermal compound I was freaked out as well but it is no big deal actually. First you clean the leftover thermal compound on the fan, on the CPU and on the GPU as well if there are any left; put arond the size of 1/2cm sphere of thermal compound on to the CPU (if you have the long fan without a thermal pad on the GPU side, also apply the same amount onto the GPU die in the center); apply the heatsink onto your board, tight the screws up and take care on the GPU side by pushing the GPU gently on that side if you applied the long fan. After you assemble everything up, hallelujah! It is done

[Callahan]

Thanks again everyone ... any and all advice or hints are welcome.

thinkpadcollection ... that's what I was thinking, that I have the same BIOS on both the Banias and Dothan notebooks ... but I didn't have time to check that out till now.

I'm confused about the current BIOS from the Lenovo site. I have this version installed on all my ThinkPads dated June 18, 2007 ... BIOS version - 1RETDRWW (3.23) ... this page shows the same version available but it has a release date of June 02, 2015 but the version is still the same number as the June 2007 version.

BIOS Update (Non-Diskette) - ThinkPad R50, R50p, R51 (1829, 1830, 1831, 1836), T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p

BIOS update utility - 1.39MB - Windows XP (32-bit) - Ver3.23 (1RETDRWW)
Release date: Tuesday, June 02, 2015

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product ... s/ds013709

I guess I can just work with Jun 2007 version already on my computer. Does this sound right?

This information is from the "README for BIOS update utility" dated Tuesday, June 02, 2015.

ThinkPad June 20, 2007
ThinkPad R50, R50p, R51 (type 1829, 1830, 1831 and 1836)
ThinkPad T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p
ThinkPad BIOS Update Utility

BIOS Version 1RETDRWW (3.23)

I wonder why the release date of June 2015 is there for the same version that was already released in June 2007?

So this BIOS must be the same for both the T4x Banias and Dothan computers as was mentioned earlier.

As to the thermal paste ... some no name thermal paste was sent with the one fan setup ... just a tiny little pouch, more than enough but it has no product name. The other came with a syringe with the name Halnziye Thermal Grease. I didn't see it listed with other thermal paste on a chart. I decided to order a tube of Arctic Silver 5 ... maybe I should have spent a little more and got a higher rated brand.

Will the Arctic Silver 5 tube be OK or should I get something with a better rating? For the small amount that I'll probably use, I could get a better or more expensive thermal paste. I have not received the order yet.

Callahan

[TPFanatic]

Arctic Silver 5 will be good enough. In my experience it's noticeably better than generic paste. The improvement between AS5 and generic is greater than that between AS5 and a better name brand.

[brchan]

AS5 performs OK, but it has a long curing time. Wouldn't hurt to use it if you don't want to get a different paste. I do like Noctua's nt-h1 thermal paste. Cheap and performs exceptionally well.

[danikayser84]

I use the Thermaltake TG-7 from Best Buy on my T6x and T4x systems, seems to run fine on my machines (no heat issues with a 2.4GHz Merom in my upgraded 4:3 T61)

[kfzhu1229]

I use the Thermaltake TG-7 from Best Buy on my T6x and T4x systems, seems to run fine on my machines (no heat issues with a 2.4GHz Merom in my upgraded 4:3 T61)

How does that paste perform with Pentium 780 and T43p? I feel like my AS5 and long fan cannot keep it up without fan64 or undervolting

[Callahan]

I guess I should have researched AS5 more before I bought that product. I didn't know about the cure time of 200 hours ... I saw one article where it says the cure time could be only 8 hours.

I was reading about Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Compound Paste in an overclock forum and they seem to like this product over AS5. One poster also posted this comparing AS5 to NT-H1 : What truly differentiates the two is that the NT-H1 doesn't have cure time like AS5, so it's got an edge there IMO.

I found a seller on eBay selling a tube of NT-H1 for $7.25 or best offer so I offered $7.00 with free shipping ... I noticed in his feedback, that all his sales were somewhere under the $7.25 price.

I like the no cure time thing. Live and learn I guess.
...

[Cigarguy]

There's much more to PC and laptop cooling than just the paste. TDP, chip design, Heat sink fan, case design and airflow are just some of other things to consider of which TIM is only one element.

IMO, the newer liquid metal pastes do make a difference in the high end PC overclocking environment. It will make some difference in a laptop environment but not enough nor significant enough over a good conventional TIM to justify the price or difficulty in acquiring it. A good paste such as AS5, MX4, Noctua, Thermaltake, Thermalright, etc pastes are plenty good enough in a laptop environment. Assuming proper and consistent application, all will perform within 1-3 degrees of each other in a laptop environment. User error in installation contribute significantly to a TIM's performance. I myself prefer MX4 in a laptop environment because it's non-conductive so any slight overflow will not be at risk of shorting anything. Most importantly it was on sale for cheap. In the past I've used AS5, Noctua and many other pastes with happy and consistent results.

Learn the proper technique of disassembly, appying TIM, assembly, cleaning and environment variables and worry less about paste. For example put a 780 in a T43, there's no magic paste that will make that sucker run cool or warm even with a moderate load. I got a T42 with a 765 and knew before swapping out the 765 that this machine was going to run hot and will be a battery hog. Sure enough it ran hot, is a battery hog but have never BSOD due to heat. No paste in the world which turn my T42 into an ice cube with all day battery life.

[Cigarguy]

I guess I should have researched AS5 more before I bought that product. I didn't know about the cure time of 200 hours ... I saw one article where it says the cure time could be only 8 hours.
...

Not a big deal. AS5 is fine. You're sweating over this way too much. You need a good cigar and scotch. In my days of extensive overclocking with a desktop rig, AS5 was more than fine. Some will say cure time is 100 hours others 200 hours but IMO, no one really knows. In my experience the difference before fresh install of AS5 and after curing times is a few degrees at most on a high end, heat producing (as in no need for a space heater in Canada during the winter heat producer) system.

Again, nothing wrong with AS5. Learn how to properly disassemble, clean, apply thermal paste and how to properly assemble the machine. Technique is most important and it's not that difficult to learn.

[Callahan]

Cigarguy ... thanks for the information on MX4. That bit about "it's non-conductive so any slight overflow will not be at risk of shorting anything", that sounds like a plus.

Well, if I go with the Noctua NT-H1 ... that probably will work OK for me. Even at $7.25 the price seems OK with free shipping. That's not cheap in today's world.

I guess my thoughts are to get this job done correctly the first time and not have to take the computer apart again any time soon.

Callahan