IBM r51 ATI Radeon 7500 performance

[confection.cool]

Hi, new member here, nice to meet you all. I just got a great deal ($30) on a used IBM R51. It has a Pentium M 1.5ghz, 256mb of RAM, an ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 with 32mb and runs Windows xp.
I opened it up, cleaned it nicely, changed the thermal paste and then ran some benchmarks.

3D mark 2001 SE gives me 3973 points

I also ran some older games in 1024x768 and what I’m getting is:
- GTA 3 : 20-25 fps (visible texture and object pop in but I am guessing this is due to the failing hard drive)
- Unreal tournament 2004, normal settings, anywhere from 15 to 30 fps

Are these good results? What should I change/improve?
Thanks in advance

[axur-delmeria]

Reduce the resolution to 640x480. Is 20fps even playable?

visible texture and object pop in but I am guessing this is due to the failing hard drive)

This sounds more like a driver or VRAM issue.

[confection.cool]

well, when I opened it, i noticed that the Radeon chip has zero cooling, no heat sink, no fan and the chip gets pretty toasty during gaming. could that be the issue?
where could I find some benchmarks for this video chip?

[axur-delmeria]

I've never owned an R51 so I can't be 100% sure, but it may be possible to use the heatsink from an R52 that has Radeon X300 graphics.
If not, you may need to DIY your own cooling solution using a small copper or aluminum heatsink and attaching it with thermal tape.

[kfzhu1229]

I've never owned an R51 so I can't be 100% sure, but it may be possible to use the heatsink from an R52 that has Radeon X300 graphics.
If not, you may need to DIY your own cooling solution using a small copper or aluminum heatsink and attaching it with thermal tape.

I have such a rigged cooling for Radeon 7500 on my ThinkPad T42 that had to be baked and I used T42 Radeon 9600 cooler for that, but T43 cooler works fine also but maybe you need a few copper shims. So similar should work on R5x. The thing though is that I don't think stock T42/R51 Radeon 7500 variant fan curves would consider the GPU temperature whatsoever.
And yeah, it was a mistake leaving those chips bare while they have the dreadful first gen lead free solder, it makes T40/T41/T42 vulnerable to GPU failure that's immune on other brands.

Hi, new member here, nice to meet you all. I just got a great deal ($30) on a used IBM R51. It has a Pentium M 1.5ghz, 256mb of RAM, an ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 with 32mb and runs Windows xp.
Are these good results? What should I change/improve?

In this case, the Mobility Radeon 7500 is a lower tier GPU option since by that time Radeon 9000 existed. It works perfectly fine for Windows 98 games but in XP games it is a bit long in the tooth compared to the 9000, and in fact the Intel extreme graphics 2 beats it in DirectX features (Radeon 7500 has zero DX8 support) and hence get similar 3DMark01 scores.
So, the GPU performance is just fine, but don't expect it to be top of the line performer by 2004 standards even for a 14.1" laptop (Dell Latitude D600 for example came exclusively with Mobility Radeon 9000, no 7500 option and no 9600 option, and it is also properly cooled)
You can however, try to upgrade that CPU. You can definitely make use of a Dothan based Pentium M CPU, get one Pentium M 745 and that would definitely improve your user experience while not spending too much money.
If you are adventurous however, you can also get a Pentium M 725 and FSB overclock it to 533Mhz and that allows the CPU to be clocked up to 2.16Ghz stable without overvolting, so you get faster than top dog Pentium M 765 performance but at a small fraction of the cost, and pretty much the same amount of heat output. You need a lot of experience fiddling with RAM timings to get that to work.
1GB of RAM would've been nice too.

[confection.cool]

thanks for the answers! I am gonna try to mess around with some mini heat sinks to see if they improve GPU performance at all.
any recommended software to monitor temps for cpu and gpu? I tried hwinfo but it only shows temp1, temp2, etc. my only test at the moment is to check with my finger how hot the GPU gets (and it’s toasty, I would estimate at least 85C)

also, would a t42 heat sink like this work on the r51 without any physical modifications? https://www.ebay.com/itm/324295413183?m ... media=COPY

[axur-delmeria]

I use TPFC https://thinkwiki.de/TPFanControl on old Thinkpads that run Windows. Do note that it also controls fan behavior.

The R51's heatsink is taller than the T42's. I'm not sure if the T42 heatsink will fit without modifications.

[confection.cool]

I ran tpfancontrol while benchmarking the laptop and the Gpu barely reaches 70 degrees C (I did place a mini heatsink on the gpu)
so we can safely assume it’s not overheating, just that GTA 3 and UT2004 are a bit much for the card.
Now for the texture and object pop-in, could it be the failing hard drive (it clicks from time to time)

[RealBlackStuff]

For that machine, the very best HDD would be a Samsung HM160HC (160GB), which is very affordable on e.g. eBay.

[confection.cool]

For that machine, the very best HDD would be a Samsung HM160HC (160GB), which is very affordable on e.g. eBay.

thanks, I found one listing here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/151856122059?m ... media=COPY but I don’t understand if these are new or used or refurbished? the reviews sound great and the price is good

[RealBlackStuff]

Brand new here: https://www.ebay.ie/itm/384325934952

[confection.cool]

I ran some more tests and VERY surprisingly, GTA Vice city runs flawlessly, even in 1024x768. On the other hand, GTA 3 still runs like a slideshow. How is this possible?

[axur-delmeria]

Poor game optimization?

[dr_st]

I ran some more tests and VERY surprisingly, GTA Vice city runs flawlessly, even in 1024x768. On the other hand, GTA 3 still runs like a slideshow. How is this possible?

Try various graphical settings in the game options menu. Also make sure you have the latest patch for GTA3. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_III

[confection.cool]

I ran some more tests and VERY surprisingly, GTA Vice city runs flawlessly, even in 1024x768. On the other hand, GTA 3 still runs like a slideshow. How is this possible?

Try various graphical settings in the game options menu. Also make sure you have the latest patch for GTA3. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_III

Thanks, this actually helped. I installed GTA 3 silent patch and the FPS improved a bit and also there's little to no stutter now. Much appreciated