IBM ThinkPad T42 (2373CYU) - My firsthand impressions...

Message

HKILP7M8 · #31 Post by **HKILP7M8** » Sat May 22, 2004 10:33 am

Have you tried calling IBM to see if the shadowing is a defect or if it's normal on this new display?
If it's normal I would hate to go back to that faded look of the old dual scan displays, I remember those and did not like them very much.

Irving

#32 Post by **BillMorrow** » Sat May 22, 2004 10:43 am

greg..

you CAN get 1200x1600 on the external display on a T41p (and others i surmise) but using the generic driver from the ATI web site and doing the mod found on another web site..
the mod was done by a guy so as to allow this ATI generic driver to work with the mobil version of the vid chipset..

it works just fine as i have tried it for a customer in the UAE before shipping him a new T41p and ibm 20 inch FP display..

IRT stuck on pixels..
these are NOT as common as they once were..
and for those who are less willing to have a stuck pixel than pay more for the service i DO check them out before shipping for a fee or a smaller discount or some other compensation..

-30-

Conmee · #33 Post by **Conmee** » Sat May 22, 2004 10:46 am

feamster wrote:Will the IBM backup utilize your DVD burner? Sounds like it might fit on one disk.

Has anyone received a 14 inch T42P yet? Does the physical construction seem the same as a T41P?

Thanks.

The applet that allows you to make discs of the factory installation would only let me use CDs. I think this is because the image files it uses are probably some sort of CD/ISO image size. Not sure. If I can find a way to make it burn all the factory contents to 1, maybe 2 DVDs, I'll let everyone know (takes 7 CDs by default).

As for IBM Rapid Restore Ultra, you can backup data to the following choices: local hard drive (same/different partition), 2nd hard drive in Ultrabay or Dock II, network location/mapped drive, CD-RW, or the DVD-R/RW. I haven't tried backup directly to DVD yet, but it's an option.

Conmee · #34 Post by **Conmee** » Sat May 22, 2004 11:04 am

taphil wrote:Conmee -

Can you check these two web pages and see if there are any artifacts?

http://www.aaronbennett.com/2001fp/2001fp-testimage.gif

http://www.xs4all.nl/~marcone/images/de ... p_test.gif

More reading at http://www.aaronbennett.com/2001fp/ . I had a Del 2001FP 20" LCD for 2 days before I returned for a bunch of reasons. One of them was because strange artifacts would show up. Granted one may only rarely come across such problems, I thought it was ridiculous to have a display do that.

Taphil,

Well, I don't see anything wrong with the pages, other than the garbled text, which I assume is just from the fact the guy is using a GIF to represent the pictures. I don't see anything wrong with the grey columns. No shadowing/ghosting on my Flexview.

Irving...

It doesn't look that bad by a long shot... (i.e. Dual Scan) lol... I was just trying to come up with an approximation of what I was seeing that other people would understand (since there are a lot of us 'old timers' around).

The Flexview is great in 99% of non-gaming situations (unless you're a Virgo like me, and things like stuck pixels and shadowing and cycling fan noises--lol--cause you to fret about them to the point that you send in your system for a different one) . And even gaming looks more than good enough for the casual gamer, IMO.

The one stuck green pixel I have is having me think that once the T42 models are listed again, that I will send this unit back to IBM and try my luck again with another Flexview. Another user on this forum, in a thread about stuck pixels, brought up an interesting point: aside from the technical reasons/details about yields and quality and stuck/dead pixels every so often on LCDs, his point was that why should HE pay the SAME price for a particular machine with stuck pixels as someone else who pays the SAME price for the SAME machine but has a perfect screen with NO stuck pixels? If there was a "stuck pixel discount" I would be more inclined to live with a dead/stuck pixel or even five... depending on the discount. lol...

But for me... a Virgo... obsessive/compulsive... lol... the stuck green pixel doesn't bother me so much as the knowledge that alot of people out there paid the exact same price for the same machine, but DON'T have to live with stuck pixels. haha. That's the real source of my growing discontent.

At any rate, when I stop thinking about the ghosting/stuck green pixel, I really love this machine. So maybe I'll stop thinking about the LCD for awhile... ha.

Daniel.

akerman · #35 Post by **akerman** » Sat May 22, 2004 11:35 am

K. Eng wrote:7??? What resolution is your panel? The most I've seen on any LCD is 4, and that was on an XGA panel.

1400x1050... I have one dead (blue) pixel in the center of the screen, and then a vertical line of 6 pixels, that look like a small rainbow, right next to my start-button ! I wish I could get just one more.. then I'd be able to get a new screen from IBM

Oh and by the way - while it's very admirable that Bill will check for dead pixels before shipping, that may not help - I didn't have any dead/stuck pixels at first. The blue one appeared a couple of days after initial use, and the vertical line didn't show before two weeks had passed!

#36 Post by **BillMorrow** » Sat May 22, 2004 1:17 pm

stuck pixels popping up is rare.. not unknown, but rare..
that line of pixels SHOULD qualify for a replacement..

harryhermit · #37 Post by **harryhermit** » Sat May 22, 2004 2:19 pm

Arrgh, I'm a virgo too and the shadow thing will annoy me till no end. Well, we'll see. But I was primarily thinking of using the lappy for Photoshop. Do you think this we'll give me problems?

fox_napier · #38 Post by **fox_napier** » Sat May 22, 2004 4:01 pm

Daniel or others with both Flexview and non-Flexview laptops --

Could you please post a few digital pictures of Flexview vs. non-Flexview LCDs on laptops side by side for comparision. The Flexview is the ONLY reason I have for getting a 15" T42, I would much prefer the size and weight of the 14" if it was available in Flexview.

Flexview seemsto be the dealbreaker for me but I can't imagine the 14" LCD to be that dull and faded, perhaps only noticeable when placed side by sice with a 15" Flexview?

I used to have a 1600x1200 15" non-Flexview that was absolutely horrible in terms of brightness. If I'm in an office setting, the windows better not be right next to me or it gets hard to see; if I'm outside, forget about it, can't see a thing in sunlight.

Chun-Yu · #39 Post by **Chun-Yu** » Sat May 22, 2004 5:06 pm

JaimitoBond wrote:SiSoftware Sandra 2004.10.9.89:

CPU-ALU=5250 CPU-Int=15910 CPU-Flt=17613 Mem-Int=2163 Mem-Flt=2168 HDD=23840 BufferedWrite=72MBsec (7200rpm HDD)

Looks like 72K HD does make a difference. Memory is similar, and of course the CPU is slower than Dothan, by a bit.

Looks like it doesn't make a difference to me...my 40 GB 5K80 scores 29 MB/s, with a buffered write of 75 MB/s. I'm looking at either an 80 GB 5K80 or 60 GB 7K60, and I think I'll go with the 5K80 - from what I've seen, the 7K60 isn't worth it at all (it's $20 more than the 5K80 for 20GB less). I've seen other benchmarks where the performance of these two drives are very similar - the only slight edge the 7K60 has is a lower latency. Otherwise, the 5K80 can keep up when it comes to sequential read/writes.

Mofongo · #40 Post by **Mofongo** » Sat May 22, 2004 5:07 pm

Conmee wrote:It created the partitions automatically... I used Partition Magic to remove both default partitions. However, the Rapid Restore app says that it will delete and re-create the partitions when restoring.

Does it always delete and recreate partitions (even if the IBM_SERVICE and the ntfs partition are already there)? Let me be more specific: When I get my T42, I am going to use PartitionMagic to resize the XP ntfs partition to about half its original size. Then I will add extra partitions to install Linux. Let's say I also keep the 4.3GB RapidRestore partition. Then sometime in the future I run RapidRestore to restore my XP partition (maybe it got corrupted or something). Under these circumstances, will RapidRestore insist on removing my Linux partitions, too, or will it just restore to my ntfs partition like it should?

The older version on the T40/T41s, I have been told, would only restore to the ntfs partition and leave the partition table unharmed.

It seems weird that it would remove all partitions on the drive, since you have the option of backing up your data to another partition. If it deletes your backup partition, that's not very useful.

Thanks for answering all my silly questions!

Regarding your display. Between the stuck pixel and the ghosting thing, that does kind of suck. I have a Samsung 213T LCD display for my workstation and that this is *perfect*. No ghosting, stuck pixels, or any flaws whatsoever. If I were you (and I am only moderately anal, or so I like to think [others may disagree]) I would probably still get it replaced because every time I looked at it for the next few years, I would be thinking about how I could potentially have had a perfect display. 10 years ago, I bought a '486 from Gateway and had them replace the monitor 5 times over the period of the first few months. Each one they sent me had a flaw in the image. I guess other customers were not as picky.

Mofongo

Conmee · #41 Post by **Conmee** » Sat May 22, 2004 6:26 pm

Mofongo wrote:...Let me be more specific: When I get my T42, I am going to use PartitionMagic to resize the XP ntfs partition to about half its original size. Then I will add extra partitions to install Linux. Let's say I also keep the 4.3GB RapidRestore partition.

Mofongo,

According to the Rapid Restore Ultra support page http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-42216 if you add/change partitions or boot sector of the drive you need to uninstall and reinstall RRU (it will also only work with primary partitions, and doesn't won't work with Extended Partitions?!?! It will also render your backups useless. Evidently, this solution isn't as smart as Ghost, DriveImage, etc, where you can restore an image to different partitions/sizes. So as far as I can tell... if you want a dual boot system, you'll have to uninstall RRU, partition the system to your liking, configure the dual-boot, THEN reinstall RRU, which will then create a Service Partition from free space.. That's my take, based on a brief perusal of the guide. Check the IBM support for ThinkVantage Technologies and RRU to be sure.

As for the HPA (different beast entirely from the "Service Partition" used by RRU), it WILL restore to an existing partition (as long as it's the first active partition on the first drive). I did it all the time, and it left my other partitions and data intact. If you notice, the restore program with the T40/T41 was a watered down IBM-branded version of the DOS-based PowerQuest DriveImage (I believe IBM is interested in buying Powerquest). But RRU isn't using the same mechanism. And I haven't had a chance yet to repartition my drive, and "test" out if the RRU actually defaults to the first primary/active partition on my drive, or wipes them out completely. If you're going to set your system up as you say, test thoroughly first.

I've actually thought of just using the restore CDs I have for the T41p and creating an HPA again, rather than use RRU and the Service partition. Since they are image and driver compatible, the T41/T42. And I don't necessarily need the backup capabilities of RRU.

Daniel.

Razorback · #42 Post by **Razorback** » Sat May 22, 2004 10:22 pm

n my r50p, the webmail.att.net site does display and extremely small shadaw below the white box. To be honest, that is the first I have seen of this, and it is barely noticebale.

I'm a non-gamer, but I would *NOT* purchase a notebook without the flexview screen. Viewing angle is tremendous. Also, the black background is much more black, not "gray". Most of the T40/T41 1400x1050 panels I have seen tend to wash out towards the bottom of the screen in comparison to my r50p's flexview.

If you don't mind the form factor of 15" machines, go flexview!

Greg

#43 Post by **JaneL** » Sat May 22, 2004 10:30 pm

>(I believe IBM is interested in buying Powerquest).
>

Powerquest was swallowed up by Symantec in December 2003.

#44 Post by **BillMorrow** » Sat May 22, 2004 10:35 pm

not surprised..
i heard something about this..
symantec invents nothing, they just buy it and then let it languish..

never liked symantec..

JaimitoBond · #45 Post by **JaimitoBond** » Sat May 22, 2004 11:02 pm

Chun-Yu wrote:
JaimitoBond wrote:SiSoftware Sandra 2004.10.9.89:

CPU-ALU=5250 CPU-Int=15910 CPU-Flt=17613 Mem-Int=2163 Mem-Flt=2168 HDD=23840 BufferedWrite=72MBsec (7200rpm HDD)

Looks like 72K HD does make a difference. Memory is similar, and of course the CPU is slower than Dothan, by a bit.
Looks like it doesn't make a difference to me...my 40 GB 5K80 scores 29 MB/s, with a buffered write of 75 MB/s. I'm looking at either an 80 GB 5K80 or 60 GB 7K60, and I think I'll go with the 5K80 - from what I've seen, the 7K60 isn't worth it at all (it's $20 more than the 5K80 for 20GB less). I've seen other benchmarks where the performance of these two drives are very similar - the only slight edge the 7K60 has is a lower latency. Otherwise, the 5K80 can keep up when it comes to sequential read/writes.

Not sure how you tested it, but I was comparing two people's test results using that same software. So compared to T42 (2373CYU): CPU-ALU=5493 CPU-Int=16518 CPU-Flt=18233 Mem-Int=2184 Mem-Flt=2193 HDD=22548 BufferedWrite=67MBsec (5400rpm HDD)

the 72K is faster. The slowest step in computer is often the HD.

feamster · #46 Post by **feamster** » Sun May 23, 2004 9:33 am

I was wondering, with the ghosting that you experienced, how does the screen do with action (fast motion) movies?

Thanks

#47 Post by **BillMorrow** » Sun May 23, 2004 10:16 am

on my R50p it is excellent..

what in particular would you like me to look for..?

RaysMD · #48 Post by **RaysMD** » Sun May 23, 2004 1:17 pm

The older version on the T40/T41s, I have been told, would only restore to the ntfs partition and leave the partition table unharmed.

Let me chime in on this. I had a T40 which was setup as follows from the factory.

1. small IBM partition
2. ~70GB partition

so, I reformatted using WindowsXP install CD into
1. small IBM partion
2. 8 GB winxp partitoin
3. 62 GB main partition

It worked just fine. However when I ran Rapid restore, the entire partition map reverted back to the original. I was hoping that it would only modify the 2nd partition and leave my "main" large partition alone. nope, lost all my data.

Conmee · #49 Post by **Conmee** » Sun May 23, 2004 1:25 pm

For users with one big partition and a single OS (namely, Windows), I think Rapid Restore is pretty cool. But who uses a single partition, single OS system anymore? lol. I think it may be more trouble than it's worth to implement on a multi-partition, dual-boot configuration.

Chun-Yu · #50 Post by **Chun-Yu** » Sun May 23, 2004 2:36 pm

JaimitoBond wrote:Not sure how you tested it, but I was comparing two people's test results using that same software. So compared to T42 (2373CYU): CPU-ALU=5493 CPU-Int=16518 CPU-Flt=18233 Mem-Int=2184 Mem-Flt=2193 HDD=22548 BufferedWrite=67MBsec (5400rpm HDD)

the 72K is faster. The slowest step in computer is often the HD.

I tested my 5K80 using the same software. This isn't the only benchmark I've seen where the 5K80 and 7K60 come pretty close, either. The slight benefit certainly isn't worth the extra $70 (a 60GB 5K80 is just $140, compared to $210 for a 7K60) in my opinion. Perhaps the drive in that T42 somehow isn't a 5K80? My old Dell had a 40GB 5400rpm drive too, but it was a Hitachi 40GNX, the model that came before the 5K80, and it was considerably slower than a 5K80 (up to 10 MB/s slower in some cases). The new "adaptive formatting" of the 5K80 provides a real improvement over the old 40GNX, along with the new noise reduction stuff that makes it MUCH quieter.

Daniel · #51 Post by **Daniel** » Sun May 23, 2004 2:46 pm

Depending on the software you're using, the additional speed in day to day usage is much more noticeable than stepping up the processor.

So using your logic: $70 < ~$200 because in some programs upping the disk and lowering the latency associated with seeking gives a much more noticeable improvement in performance when compared to upping a processor.

Like what was said earlier, the hard disk is one of the biggest bottlenecks in computing. Your RAM is capable of moving at what.. 2700MB per second while the hard drive sits there struggling to put up 30MB/s. It's what you're waiting for when you load up a program, windows, etc.

Chun-Yu · #52 Post by **Chun-Yu** » Sun May 23, 2004 3:06 pm

Actually, I usually just leave most of my programs running until I have to restart for a Windows update (I have 1.25GB of ram in my T41), so the time it takes to load the program isn't really an issue. The only case where the extra speed might be beneficial is when I'm using BitTorrent, but then again, the extra 20GB I'd get out of an 80GB might be even more beneficial when it comes to that

I've even seen BitTorrent bring a T41p with the 7K60 to it's knees before - the "Display Properties" dialog box took well over a minute to come up.

Matt · #53 Post by **Matt** » Sun May 23, 2004 3:51 pm

Conmee wrote:For users with one big partition and a single OS (namely, Windows), I think Rapid Restore is pretty cool. But who uses a single partition, single OS system anymore?

Been thinking about this today, and I think the best solution might be to keep your 2nd OS on a separate HD and pop it in the ultrabay drive when you want to boot to it. Not a perfect solution I realize (you'd probably have to have it in the primary drive slot for OS installation if installing from a CD, or if you need an optical drive in ), but it'd work well enough for most use (for me, anyway).

Mofongo · #54 Post by **Mofongo** » Sun May 23, 2004 8:23 pm

Conmee wrote:For users with one big partition and a single OS (namely, Windows), I think Rapid Restore is pretty cool. But who uses a single partition, single OS system anymore? lol. I think it may be more trouble than it's worth to implement on a multi-partition, dual-boot configuration.

In some ways, doing dual boot is easier than ever before. On my current workstation, I partitioned, installed XP on the first partition, then installed Linux afterwards. Everything works magically and automatically. If I had done this in reverse, it still would have been a piece of cake because the normal XP install CD is even smart enough to allow the user to select which partition to install to.

The problem here I have found is the developers of windows software...e.g. the developers of Rapid Restore...have their heads up their a**es and essentially made their product just compatible with Windows, since it does not support extended partitions.

The even bigger travesty is IBM. First of all, they went ahead and bought this lame software, while at the same time they are claiming that their Thinkpads are "certified" Linux compatible. Secondly, what ticks me off royally is included in the cost of every Thinkpad is $179 for XP Pro, but can I actually get a copy of XP Pro that simply installs into the partition I want? No! I have to get it embedded in other "restore solutions" so that it trashes my entire hard drive if I need to reinstall it. Not even Microsoft is that iron-handed.

I think I will just burn copies of the restore CDs so that I have a copy if I ever need to do a fresh install, then get rid of the service partition. I will just back up my XP partition using DriveImage or Ghost. Then I should in theory never have to restore from scratch anyway.

Mofongo

JHEM · #55 Post by **JHEM** » Sun May 23, 2004 8:41 pm

Mofongo wrote:I think I will just burn copies of the restore CDs so that I have a copy if I ever need to do a fresh install, then get rid of the service partition. I will just back up my XP partition using DriveImage or Ghost. Then I should in theory never have to restore from scratch anyway.

Burn a bootable CD, then copy the C:\i386 folder from your HD to it.

Everything you need to install XP from scratch is in there and you can install it to any partition you want.

Regards,

James

Mofongo · #56 Post by **Mofongo** » Sun May 23, 2004 9:02 pm

JHEM wrote:Burn a bootable CD, then copy the C:\i386 folder from your HD to it.

Everything you need to install XP from scratch is in there and you can install it to any partition you want.

That's neat! I know that one can download the Thinkpad utilities from the IBM website, but what about the other commercial software that ships with the unit, like the WinDVD creator and Sonic label maker. Do you know if it is possible to reinstall those somehow?

Thanks!

Mofongo

Conmee · #57 Post by **Conmee** » Sun May 23, 2004 9:34 pm

Mofongo wrote:
JHEM wrote:Burn a bootable CD, then copy the C:\i386 folder from your HD to it.

Everything you need to install XP from scratch is in there and you can install it to any partition you want.
That's neat! I know that one can download the Thinkpad utilities from the IBM website, but what about the other commercial software that ships with the unit, like the WinDVD creator and Sonic label maker. Do you know if it is possible to reinstall those somehow?

Thanks!

Mofongo

Make it a bootable DVD (I did) and you can copy from the factory IBM install the following: C:\I386, C:\IBMTOOLS, C:\DRIVERS, C:\SUPPORT, and C:\VALUEADD. The original applications are under C:\IBMTOOLS\APPS. You'll find the Sonic, Intervideo, and Restore and Recovery installation files there.

Also, there will be a number of XP patches, Hydravision, Acrobat Reader, etc.

Daniel.

Mofongo · #58 Post by **Mofongo** » Sun May 23, 2004 10:37 pm

Great! So just to make sure I understand exactly what to do, if I need to reinstall I would boot the DVD (which contains all of the directories you list), then I would have to manually start the WindowsXP setup from the \i386 directory (or is there some magic that would make this do it automatically?). Then after XP has installed, I stick the DVD back in and run the installers for all the other stuff (except for Rapid Restore

).

Is this correct? If so, I can live with that.

Thanks,

Mofongo

#59 Post by **BillMorrow** » Sun May 23, 2004 11:13 pm

last time i investigated a TP with no OS i was told IBM MUST sell a copy of XP with every cpu..

its not IBM, it is the greedy iron fist of M$..

Matt · #60 Post by **Matt** » Sun May 23, 2004 11:16 pm

Just out of curiosity, how up-to-date is the OS on the HD? SP1 with all the patches or does it need a few hours worth of Windows Update time out of the box?

IBM ThinkPad T42 (2373CYU) - My firsthand impressions...

Flexview

How does it do with action movies?

Who is online