London calling

[andrewb]

I was wondering if any forum member would be make a recommendation (of someone else, or, indeed, themselves).

I am trying to find someone who can do some work on my cherished T43p and who is based in London or the Home Counties. I am not after any favours and am more than happy to pay commercial rates, but have been unable, to date, to find someone who inspries any confidence. I guess I am after a TP enthusiast.

My T43p has been mothballed since I "upgraded" to a T60p last year, but I have concluded that I prefer the T43p. Yes, it might be noisy but the high res flexview screen and perfect NMB keyboard are hard to say goodbye to.

The machine is 3 years old, has a newer mobo and has been used almost exclusively as a desktop machine. What I want to do is replace the hard drive with something bigger, install a long fan and have the whole machine stripped down, serviced, cleaned, re-greased etc., tested and tuned up by someone who is expert.

If anyone could help, that would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[Robbyrobot]

A couple of things puzzle me here... for one thing, it's not hard to upgrade a HDD - all you have to do is decide what you want to install. And I was under the impression that all T4xp models were already equipped with a long fan cooler that includes a heat sink for the GPU. Is this really not the case in your machine?

As for the rest, I really don't know what you imagine is necessary, but a computer that young shouldn't require any "service" unless it's acting unusually or has an obvious defect. I suppose you could open it up and blow out any dust (mainly from the fan), and could give the screen a good cleaning, but there's really not much else to do.

My personal advice would be to take a look at the HMM and do the work yourself. That way you'd save money, learn more about your machine and never have to send it out of your own home.

[ulrich.von.lich]

About the HDD upgrade, the Hitachi 100GB 7200RPM (HTS721010G9AT00) is the best you can get for your T43 and it doesn't give the 2010 error message at startup.

I would suggest you to order a new fan from IBM. The part number is 26R9074, and it costs only 18 pounds. IBM France doesn't charge postages for thinkpad parts and I assume it'd be the same in the UK.

To clean it, please follow the advices of Robbyrobot. You need the Hardware Maintenance Manual and a can of Air Duster.

If you intend to change the fan instead of just blowing out the dusts, you'll have to reapply the thermal grease. I would recommend the Arctic Silver 5 and ArctiClean Set (Thermal Material Remover + Thermal Surface Purifier). You may experience some difficulties of taking off the fan as I did. Please be patient and try not to scratch anything on the mobo.

If I were your neighbor, I'd be glad to do it for you. But with the help of HMM, it isn't really that hard to do it yourself.

Good luck!

[Nick Y]

....I would suggest you to order a new fan from url=http://www-134.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/store ... Id=3063814]IBM[/url]. The part number is 26R9074, and it costs only 18 pounds. ..

Plus £15 postage and packing -as I have recently discovered to my cost.

[mgo]

What I want to do is replace the hard drive with something bigger, install a long fan and have the whole machine stripped down, serviced, cleaned, re-greased etc., tested and tuned up by someone who is expert.

If anyone could help, that would be much appreciated. Thanks.

I'm a T43p user myself, and I agree that the machine just has a nice "personality" that makes it fun to use.

As other respondents have mentioned, it wouldn't take much to make the T43p "happier".

As for the fan noise, I use a little program called, TPFancontrol which has been posted by a nice user in this forum. It is free. He also has newer versions that run as a service, but I prefer this older version 1.8 because it just runs "non-invasively " only when I want it to run out of the root drive. using a shortcut on the desktop. (no installation needed)

If you like I could email you the .zip file. It's tiny and easy to use. Or, you could do a search in this forum for the "light at the end of the tunnel" thread regarding this tiny application.

Adjusting the fan speed with TPFancontrol is merely a matter of tweaking the .ini file for the speed vs. noise that is acceptable to you, taking into consideration the temperatures.

Cleaning dust out of the fan is simple. Just remove the keyboard and use canned air to blow out the dust. WARNING..gently hold the fan blades so they do not spin during cleaning, or the fan could be damaged!

[Peak2Peak]

My personal advice would be to take a look at the HMM and do the work yourself. That way you'd save money, learn more about your machine and never have to send it out of your own home.

andrewb: I have changed / upgraded a number of parts on my previous ThinkPads and current T60p just by digesting and following the Hardware Maintenance Manual (HMM) - It's pretty straight forward and easy to follow (I have changed the cpu on my T60p by simply following the HMM - all went smoothly, with no prob's what so ever). ThinkPad owners are also at an advantage when it comes to buying parts for their notebooks - as every part can be ordered from screws right up to motherboards.

So as per "Robbyrobot" quote above, download the HMM and give it a go - If you do get stuck, I am sure forum members will get you going again - If you need to order any parts, here is the UK link.