Is running Win. 7 on a T30 smoothly possible?

[614joe]

I would like to put Win. 7 on here but ive heard that this laptop's video card isn't up to par in able to run Win. 7 smoothly. I don't wanna go threw all the hassle of putting Win. 7 on here an it don't run right.
Whats your guys' opinion on this?
I have a 40gb HD an 1GB Ram...

[Harryc]

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=82274

It will run fine, but if you are a big Aero fan than pick a more modern machine for W7. The video driver defaults to VGA for the ATI7500 GPU in the T30.

[monkeybagel]

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=82274

It will run fine, but if you are a big Aero fan than pick a more modern machine for W7. The video driver defaults to VGA for the ATI7500 GPU in the T30.

+1

No Aero, but will run okay. Need dual core/HT to run at its best though.

[ashleys]

Just make sure you've got enough RAM.
I upgraded my T30 to have 2GB and installed Windows 7 Professional over my XP system.

Runs really well, boot time is even faster than my (XP) desktop.

As already stated, obviously no Aero but I'm not interested in that.

I've actually installed the ATI 7500 Driver from XP which works fine.

[emeraldgirl08]

Just make sure you've got enough RAM.
I upgraded my T30 to have 2GB and installed Windows 7 Professional over my XP system.

Runs really well, boot time is even faster than my (XP) desktop.

As already stated, obviously no Aero but I'm not interested in that.

I've actually installed the ATI 7500 Driver from XP which works fine.

Hi Ashleys. Do us a big favor and right-click on desktop>>pick Screen Resolution>>choose Advanced.

If you have something like this vvv



This will show us that you are using something other than VGA (should say Radeon Mobility 7500 or something similar) as it will help many people.

Thanks!

[A31]

You can only run x86 on 1GB, but you're processor is probably only x86 anyway.
I'd upgrade your RAM to 1.5GB or 2GB for Windows 7, though on very minimum it will run OK on 1GB RAM - I ran Vista Ultimate on 768MB RAM once, and it worked fine...

You need a better video card/display driver for Aero, but Aero only slows you down!!

[ashleys]

Hi Ashleys. Do us a big favor and right-click on desktop>>pick Screen Resolution>>choose Advanced.

I checked that after I installed the driver. It says ATI Radeon 7500 with the correct driver details.
Moreover, once installed, when you run a Windows Update it will pull out an optional fix for the Lenovo ThinkPad 1024x768 Color Profile. I installed that as well.

Can't produce a screen shot as I'm quite a long way (in miles) from my ThinkPad

[ashleys]

Not sure how to add an image so here goes in writing ...

Device manager shows ATI Mobility Radeon 7500
Properties of device confirms this with driver date of 06/02/2007 and level of 6.14.10.6547

Screen resolution details show ThinkPad Display 1024x768 on ATI Mobility Radeon 7500

Driver can be downloaded from here,
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-41918

Run .exe to extract files to C:\Drivers\Win\Display
Do not run setup.exe found there but install through Device Manager, selecting option to pick driver location manually.
Reboot.
Upon reboot display looks poor but this is because the default High Color (16 bit) mode has been set.
Go into Screen Resolution -> Advanced Settings -> Monitor Tab and select True Color (32-bit) and you're done.
The next Windows Update will include the Thinkpad 1024x768 Color profile update.

Other points of interest for installing on T30 and possibly other older machines.
Windows Update will initially find drivers for Unav and PowerManager. I installed these through Windows Update.
However, you can find them on the T30 driver page.

The T30 driver page does not include Windows 7 versions of PowerManagement Utility,
Unav Utility or the HotKey utility. If you pop over to the R61 Downloads and Drivers page you
can find versions there and they install and run correctly.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... idate=true

[emeraldgirl08]

^^^

Thank you ashleys. I was darn well sure when I had my T30 and installed W7 7100 I had the exact same issue- just a VGA driver. It was just a horrible experience and somewhere along the way of searching I found an answer. I try and keep track of what drivers I've used and save them for reference and safekeeping. I did not do so with the T30 and it's Windows 7 video driver.

and double thanks for laying out all the steps!

[sncdrvr]

Got the aero themes, transparencies and 3d screen savers working smoothly on a T30 at 1024x768 resolution by using the DNA driver http://downloads.guru3d.com/DNA-ATi-4.5 ... -1329.html. Unfortunately, youtube videos wont play full screen unless right click on them when small and disable flash hardware acceleration and Media Player is pretty much nonfunctional. Because Media Player is nonfunctional Media Experience Rating wont complete. Perhaps a earlier version of Media Player and Flash would solve problem. Note that the DNA driver must be installed under XP compatability by right clicking on the extracted file and going to Properties>Compatability. Installing under Vista compatability resulted in black screen, and required reboot in safe mode. Also tried the Omega drivers, but no screensavers would work. Would like to try the HarryC driver but haven't found a usable link that doesn't require me to give out personal info. At this time the Lenovo driver appears to be best, but still disappointing, as no 3D and lousy DVD play. T30, 2.0, 2gb ram, 7 Ultimate build 7600.

[ashleys]

At this time the Lenovo driver appears to be best, but still disappointing, as no 3D and lousy DVD play.

I'm using the Lenovo ATI Video driver from XP and used WinDVD to play a DVD. Worked pretty well. Stable image etc. and worked in both fullscreen and normal reduced mode. There was a very slight loss of colour along the bottom edge of the image but nothing to affect viewing.

I installed the WinDVD Version 8 upgrade for Windows 7 to be able to test it, link here,
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-73907

I previously had Version 5.0.11.1268 installed on my old XP system so tried the upgrade and it worked.

[sncdrvr]

Thanks Ashleys, got DVD up and running as you suggested on WinDVD8. Weird how even a codec pack from CNET Downloads wouldnt enable Media Player, guess its because of lack of WDDM video driver. A real disappointment as 7 runs so well and looks so good, but slightly crippled using the XDDM driver. From searching for driver I see this has been a long running issue since Vista, and still not resolved by ATI, Intel or Microsoft. Really cant see myself sending anymore of my hard earned money thier way when a "beta" driver would work for us who run old equipment. I wont be running 7 on my very capable Dell desktop computer and the new video card I plan to purchase will be a Nividia. XP on t30 from the IBM restore disks. Big corporate, are you listening? "For want of a nail the kingdom was lost".

[ashleys]

Yes, it's a pity the video driver issue was never dealt with for Vista, never mind Windows 7.
I'm just pleasantly surprised how well Windows 7 runs on a (in my case) seven year old machine.

Note to other interested parties:
I've had two situations of BSOD's (Page Fault in non-paged area) with the XP Video driver. The failing module is ATI3DUAG.DLL. In both cases the failure could be re-created.

Firstly, with BitDefender Free installed, the system will BSOD when it attempts to display the default screen saver (3D Message text).
Removing BitDefender Free resolves the problem.
Secondly, BSOD when trying to start Rescue & Recovery.