Quik Questions about T40/41 series

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djpharoah · #1 Post by **djpharoah** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 7:33 pm

Hi guys. I have decided to sell my T20 and forgo upgrading it. I will eventually sell it and settle on a nice T40/41 laptop.

However seeing that this place is full of thinkpad gurus, im going to ask a few questions before i purchase the laptop. The reason im asking the questions here is because the some auctions on ebay have some misleading information.

[1] What is the highest Pentium-M i can fit into the T40/41? Just want to know so that i can upgrade later on when prices drop.

[2] What is max ddr-ram the T40/41 can take? What speed is the ddr ram at?

[3] Have seen 2 types of video cards available for the T40/41. The ATi 7500 Mobility and the 9000 Mobility each w/ 32mb ddr. Also have noticed that teh LCDs on the T40/41 come at resolutions of 1024x768 or 1440x1050. Does the ATi 7500 come with the 1024x768 LCD and the 9000 w/ the 1440x1050 LCD??

[4] What are the main differences between the T40/41 series?

thanks
-dj

alternative minimum · #2 Post by **alternative minimum** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:50 pm

Some answers:

1.) I'm pretty sure they will take any Banias or Dothan. I think Dothans top out at 2.1Ghz.
2.) The max for these is 2GB (2x1GB) PC 2700
3.) Don't quote me for gospel on this, but I think that there are R7500's, R9000's, FireGL 9000's and FireGL T2's. I can't speak to the first three but I am very happy with my FireGL T2. It handles everything I can throw at it (UT2004, AutoCAD, BF2, DVD's) but as always, YMMV.
4.) AFAIK they share the same chipset, but have different video and possibly have different processor core families (banias vs. dothan). Outside of that, I would defer to those who know more than me on this subject.

afd · #3 Post by **afd** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 10:05 pm

djpharoah wrote:Hi guys. I have decided to sell my T20 and forgo upgrading it. I will eventually sell it and settle on a nice T40/41 laptop.

However seeing that this place is full of thinkpad gurus, im going to ask a few questions before i purchase the laptop. The reason im asking the questions here is because the some auctions on ebay have some misleading information.

[1] What is the highest Pentium-M i can fit into the T40/41? Just want to know so that i can upgrade later on when prices drop.

[2] What is max ddr-ram the T40/41 can take? What speed is the ddr ram at?

[3] Have seen 2 types of video cards available for the T40/41. The ATi 7500 Mobility and the 9000 Mobility each w/ 32mb ddr. Also have noticed that teh LCDs on the T40/41 come at resolutions of 1024x768 or 1440x1050. Does the ATi 7500 come with the 1024x768 LCD and the 9000 w/ the 1440x1050 LCD??

[4] What are the main differences between the T40/41 series?

thanks
-dj

I'm not sure about the T41, but I believe the T40's RAM is 2100 not 2700. The 9000 Mobility also comes in 64mb, I would reccomend going for one of the 9000s as 1024X768 res really isnt enough.
Look around on google for reviews on each model.

smugiri · #4 Post by **smugiri** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 10:44 pm

My advice: get that which you can not upgrade later upfront and leave the rest for later. Video on Thinkpads is on the motherboard so it cannot be upgraded, you are stuck with what you start with unless you upgrade the motherboard. So, get the FireGL 9000 or FireGL T2. The 1400x1050 resolution also seems to be the sweet spot for resolution, 1024x800 seems too low while 1600x1200 seems a little high. Again, this is MY opinion.

RAM tops out at 2GB for all models in the T4x series. The T40 series has the 400Mhz bus with 2700 RAM while the T41 series and up have faster buses and 3200 RAM. When its time to upgrade, the best performance boosters that you could go for are faster HDD and a jump in RAM to 768MB/1GB.

djpharoah · #5 Post by **djpharoah** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 11:02 pm

would definitely love to get the T40/41 with the 1440x1050 SXGA lcd.
been staring at 1024x768 too long.

im looking on ebay. so many of the auctions state that the laptops have a resolution of 1024x768 and come with the 32mb ati 7500 card. then at the bottom of the auction, the laptop specs say 1440x1050 lcd and radeon 9000 64mb

wow..
defitely gonna wait a while before i get the new laptop. waiting for prices to fall, for me to earn some dough and to sell my T20.

-dj

djpharoah · #6 Post by **djpharoah** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:09 pm

am i limited to banias core pentium-m cpus for this laptop? meaning i can only run the 400Mhz fsb cpus w/ 1mb L2?

is there any way or has anyone gotten the dothan core working within the T40? or does the dothan core only work on the T41?

-dj

smugiri · #7 Post by **smugiri** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:30 pm

You can get some more info about this here and here

Aristotle11 · #8 Post by **Aristotle11** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:14 am

I think the 1024x768 thinkpads look better for typing in Word. Seems crisper to me than the 1400 res thinkpads, IMHO.

cmarti · #9 Post by **cmarti** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 2:05 am

IN MY ThinkPad T40 2373-75U I INSTALL A 1.8 DOTHAN 2MB AND ITS ROCKS!!

simms · #10 Post by **simms** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 11:28 pm

Something that everyone forgot was that the T40 does NOT have the HDD Active Shock Protection. This was introduced on the T41s.

The T40 also uses PC2100 AFAIK from what I remember in my BIOS.

Quik Questions about T40/41 series

Quik Questions about T40/41 series

Re: Quik Questions about T40/41 series

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