T43: Initial Impressions!

[JHaislet]

Just to give ya'll an update on my T43 I got Friday July 1st (finally )

Centrino Hardware Control is a pretty cool utility. The default voltage on my 2.0GHz PM is 1.308v and it runs great at 1.084v (I tested it with the CHC 15min burn-in tool, as well as about 2hrs of both the memory and the cpu burn in tools offered with Prime95 and got zero errors. I did get a bluescreen at 1.05v though, so had bumped it up two notches to be on the safe side.

I also used CHC to downclock the Radeon X300. I took the GPU down from 300mhz to 250mhz and the memory down from 230mhz to 200mhz.

On the low end, @ 800mhz (6x mulitplier) my cpu will run at the lowest voltage allowed by CHC; 0.700v. It is also rock-solid at this voltage as well, and the temperature is staying right at 42c during normal web browsing.

The fan still does kick on at this speed and you can somewhat hear it, but it's more a whoosh instead of a high pitch scream. I suspect this will be tuned up with the next bios/controller update.

Overall, I'm extremely happy with my T43 (no dead/stuck pixels WHOOP!) and everything seems to work as advertised. Also, the wireless range on this monster with the Intel 2915 card appears to be GREAT!

I was going to order the IBM Wireless II ABG card (that was before I recieved the T43), but I've changed my mind, as the Intel card seems to work really well and provides a rock-solid connection.

I did screw up making the recovery CD's, but no big deal, I followed the clean install guide (see sticky in OS section) and removed the IBM Recovery partition, installing a fresh copy of XP and reclaiming all of my space. Everything went extremely smooth.

The IBM Software Install tool is a real life-saver! It simplified at least a 2-3hr task of installing windows updates, drivers, and additional software into a couple clicks and 20-30minutes of letting it do its thing. Very Cool IMHO! I didn't even let it install one item at a time; I just had it do the whole shabang, and then restarted once. Everything is working fine.

Well, that's all I can think of for now!

[Torque]

I agree. The new software installer is the best piece of kit in a long time

[danny_isr]

how do u enable Dual Channel ?

[JHaislet]

Install an identically spec'd stick of ram in each SODIMM slot. For example, the T43's have two SODIMM slots for ram, and mine came from Lenovo with one 512MB stick in one of the SODIMM slots. I ordered a 2nd 512MB PC2-4200 DDR2 SODIMM to put in the remaining SODIMM slot. This enables dual channel operation. However, if I would have put in a 1.0GB stick along side the 512MB stick from IBM, dual channel operation would have been disabled.

Cheers

[Torque]

I have two 512MB identical sticks (not same brand, though) in my T41P. Would this active dual channel, or is it feature only for the newer chipsets?

[alpuzz]

Interesting. If the T43s are indeed capable of dual channel operation, then Crucial has their facts wrong, unless dual channel is only available in certain models? I spoke with several reps at crucial before deciding on a 1GB stick for my 2668-75U. They all assured me that my T43 didn't support dual channel capability and that I didn't have to worry about matching sims.

Also, notice what happens if you look up the Dell D610 and then the T43 on the Crucial site. If you look up the Dell, you get the following message which you don't see if you look up the T43 type 2668:

Important information about your system
Although the memory can be installed one module at a time, the best performance comes from using matched pairs of modules.

--Al

[danny_isr]

how can i tell that it was enabled on mine ? is there some kind of report ?

[JHaislet]

Well, I just ran SiSoft 2005 SP2 and with (2) 512MB sticks of DDR2 PC2-4200 ram in my T43, it lists 4 physical banks of ram and specifically states "Channels: 2"

Memory Benchmark Screenshot

Also, the estimated memory bandwidth is 8,512MB/s. This in and of itself tells me my machine is running in dual channel mode, as single channel DDR2-PC2-4200 has about 4,250MB/s of memory bandwidth.

[emorphien]

Nice voltages! Mine won't go that low.

[JHaislet]

I have two 512MB identical sticks (not same brand, though) in my T41P. Would this active dual channel, or is it feature only for the newer chipsets?

I don't believe your laptop chipset (855PM) supports dual channel memory. AFAIK, the Intel 915PM is the first mobile Intel chipset to support this feature.