Extending the life of my trusty T41P +some CF/SSD questions

[fongalv]

Hi everyone,

I have been using my workhorse T41P for the last 6 years, going through a dead HD, a fried mobo, and a quirky fan while it was still under warranty. To cut the long story short, I'm currently in the market for some sort of upgrade so that it becomes a more comfortable machine to work with for the next year or 2. I've done extensive reading at the various subforums here before posting and have shortlisted a few of the main items. I am currently looking at changing the 9cell battery, the 60gb 7200HD, and probably some ram.

For the battery, I am currently looking at the boston power green series. Was contemplating whether to return to a 9 cell battery or to downsize to the normal T41 6 cell ones so as to reduce weight and some bulk. Would there be a drastic difference? Mine last about 45mins now with wifi.

As for the ram, is there anyway to max out to 2gb? As far as I know, only 1 slot is accessible for ram uprades and I currently have a 512mb stick there, giving a total of 1GB.

Finally the main reason for starting this thread was to enquire about upgrading the HD to SSD. I have read through the lengthy threads over at the X4x series regarding this and was wondering if I can get some advice in this aspect. I have narrowed down to 3 options:

1) getting a factory SSD, a 32gb MLC IDE Transcend/Kinspec goes for between $110-180
2) getting the latest Sandisk Extreme Pro 16gb SLC 90mb/s read and write that cost about $180(my current choice)
3) getting a sata SSD and fitting it into a SATA ultrabay slim HD caddy(not sure if this works, probably not since I have not seen anyone doing this)

For 1, the only issue I have is futureproofability. It feels kinda weird paying a substantial amount for a IDE based component that would probably not work in any current/future system. This is also probably the more convenient method since it is a direct drop in replacement for the old HD.

For 2, I know that I will have to go thru a certain level of hassle to set up an OS on the CF, but thats ok for me. This is of course a more usefull item as it can be used in other equipment(when I upgrade to another DSLR, etc). Since this CF was supposed to use SLC and have better wear levelling, I don't suppose there will be much of an issue with the lifespan of it. What I'm more concerned of, was whether the OS drive will benefit from the 90mb/s write(which is probably why it cost so much). I could actually settle for the new Extremes 60mb/s if writing speeds are not that much of a concern especially since it will be EWF protected? Any advice on this?

Also, performance wise would the SSDs trounce the Extreme Pro? Have not seen much benchmarking with the new CFs but from older benchmarkings, most of the CFs performed rather badly on the small cluster random writes. Of course the question here is whether the OS drive will benefit from the faster random writes.

Please bear in mind that the main stuff that the laptop does are photoshopping, cadding, sketchup, and some rendering. I am intending to do the CF/SSD upgrade together with one of the modern samsung/WD drives inside the ultrabay.


Thats about all I can articulate for now, any advice or comments would be appreciated!

[Tasurinchi]

As for the ram, is there anyway to max out to 2gb? As far as I know, only 1 slot is accessible for ram uprades and I currently have a 512mb stick there, giving a total of 1GB.

If memory serves well I think the chipset limitation is 2GB. I know that in R50 and T43 models you can change the RAM sticks in both slots. One is located under the keyboard and the other one at the bottom of the laptop. I asume it will be the same in your T41p. Check the Hardware Maintenance Manual, which can be downloaded from the Lenovo site (don't have a link at hand right now)

3) getting a sata SSD and fitting it into a SATA ultrabay slim HD caddy(not sure if this works, probably not since I have not seen anyone doing this)

I'm also thinking about this. I think it's technically possible, since I've seen in Ebay some ultrabay adapters SATA/PATA designed for the T6x series that seem to work in T4x as well. So basically you could put any SATA device in it.

Now, for performance reasons, I think it makes more sense to have an SSD/CF as bootable drive (your options 1 and 2) and put a big (let's say 500GB) SATA drive in the ultrabay, you would have a fast OS and lot's of storage space. The best of both worlds...

My 0,02 cents...

Cheers

[Neil]

It is my understanding that putting a SATA drive in a converter will actually perform slower than a good PATA drive that the machine was designed for. Because the IDE controller will still be operating at the same transfer rate it was designed for, but now, the data has to go through the converter, adding another step in the process and slowing down the data transfer.

The best option is to use a 250 or 320GB PATA drive, and just enjoy the performace boost.

And yes, 2GB is max. for the T41P. 2 X 1GB PC2700 sticks, one in each slot. The keyboard is almost as easy to remove as is the cover over the bottom RAM slot.

[sojourner]

RE: SSD
check out ebay for Super Talent SSD's
e.g. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0392555119
also google reviews on the new generation of these. If I recall correctly they use a new Jmicron controller but worked out bugs which caused the awful 'stutter' people talked about.

RE: memory upgrade
as stated above you can go to 2GB. On bottom of TP, remove access cover and install 1GB stick. It's quick, easy. That will give you 1.5GB total which is plenty for XP. Here's some movies to help with some updates you'd like to do.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 50233.html

RE: battery
choosing one is a matter of preference. Do you want a light TP with say 4-5hrs runtime on (a new) battery, or can you live with a heavier TP and 7-9 hrs runtime?

I own both batteries but seldom use a 9-cell. If you are on the go a lot, or a student away from a nearby AC outlet perhaps a 9-cell is a good choice. What do you want, long operational time or a lighter TP?

BTW, welcome to the forums!

[underclocker]

There are PATA SSD's, I've used a Transcend 32GB and performance is better than a 60GB 7200rpm drive.

I'd say you should be cautious about spending $200+ on a six year old machine when you can buy (at least in the U.S.), many Core Duo ThinkPads in the $300 range, even with high resolution LCDs. The performance gain is dramatic between a T41p and a Core Duo machine.

I'd consider selling the T41p and buying a good used ThinkPad T60, R60, R61 or Z61m.

[fongalv]

Thank you all for the comments/advice.
Yikes! I can't believe I just unscrewed the keyboard for the first time in 6 years and found the hidden dimm slot, will up it to 2gb as soon as I can!

...
Now, for performance reasons, I think it makes more sense to have an SSD/CF as bootable drive (your options 1 and 2) and put a big (let's say 500GB) SATA drive in the ultrabay, you would have a fast OS and lot's of storage space. The best of both worlds...
...

Right, thats what I was inclined towards initially, getting a speedy CF for OS and slapping a quiet PATA(~250gb) into the ultrabay

It is my understanding that putting a SATA drive in a converter will actually perform slower than a good PATA drive that the machine was designed for. Because the IDE controller will still be operating at the same transfer rate it was designed for, but now, the data has to go through the converter, adding another step in the process and slowing down the data transfer.

Hmm...I believe there should be a bottleneck at the harddisk(ie. the IDE controller is much faster than the HD connected to it)? I just ran CDM and the current 7200rpm IDE drive gave these results:
--------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
--------------------------------------------------

Sequential Read : 24.789 MB/s
Sequential Write : 25.932 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 18.795 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 23.428 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 0.401 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 0.828 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB
Date : 2010/01/15 1:00:16

I suppose the primary master and the secondary(ultrabay) controllers should have the same specs? If that was the case, wouldn't a 'slowed' sata drive +ide converter still have lots of potential within the IDEs bandwidth(~100mb/s)? Not sure about this tho, I guess it depends on how much the converter slows down the data transfer. But yea, it sounds like a risky gamble.

RE: SSD
check out ebay for Super Talent SSD's
e.g. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0392555119
also google reviews on the new generation of these. If I recall correctly they use a new Jmicron controller but worked out bugs which caused the awful 'stutter' people talked about.

RE: battery
choosing one is a matter of preference. Do you want a light TP with say 4-5hrs runtime on (a new) battery, or can you live with a heavier TP and 7-9 hrs runtime?

I own both batteries but seldom use a 9-cell. If you are on the go a lot, or a student away from a nearby AC outlet perhaps a 9-cell is a good choice. What do you want, long operational time or a lighter TP?

BTW, welcome to the forums!

Thanks for the welcome!
Yes, there are some pretty affordable IDE SSDs over evilbay, but anything 'new generation' will tend to be in SATA, or be out of my price range. That was the reason I considered the Sandisk CF because that has really impressive read/write speeds. The CFs lack of cache tho, like the lower cost SSDs is my concern. Does it matter if I'm running purely OS on it?

As for the battery, was the 9cell supposed to last 7-9 hours?!?!? Even when it was new, mine ran for ~3hrs. If the 6cell can last 4-5hours when new, I would just get it and be extremely happy!

There are PATA SSD's, I've used a Transcend 32GB and performance is better than a 60GB 7200rpm drive.

I'd say you should be cautious about spending $200+ on a six year old machine when you can buy (at least in the U.S.), many Core Duo ThinkPads in the $300 range, even with high resolution LCDs. The performance gain is dramatic between a T41p and a Core Duo machine.

I'd consider selling the T41p and buying a good used ThinkPad T60, R60, R61 or Z61m.

This is new...I never knew that used TPs, even a T43P goes for <$300 over the bay...dang, mine was like 3k+ when I first got it!
I'm not so sure about the dramatic performance gain of the C2D tho(using one in my desktop), and I have come to believe that the FIREGL sure does help in the work I run on the TP. From a technological perspective, and judging on the amount I'm gona spend, selling it does make sense, yet somehow...I'm not sure why but, selling this TP for a standard C2D just feels like a downgrade?

[Tasurinchi]

slapping a quiet PATA(~250gb) into the ultrabay

Why only 250GB? There is a WD model with 320GB for a couple of extra bucks. I have it in my X31 and it's worth going for the extra mile

selling it does make sense, yet somehow...

SELLING??? DID YOU SAY SELLING??? I would never sell a TP!

Giving it to a friend (that will appreciate it): Yes. But you never sell a TP!! Buy a new one if you want, but keep the venerable T41p!

My 0,02 cents...

[sojourner]

regarding battery life ... they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a pic:

Read the wonder at such long battery life so went to the closet, took a stored 9-cell off the shelf, removed the DVD drive, put the battery in the T41 and booted. WIFI is on, BT was turned off. With WIFI off and a 100% battery charge, life will go to 9 hours!!!



And just a quick comment on the CF flash drive. I used an RiData 32GB CF in a dual CF PATA adapter in an X31. That thing was fast, noticeably faster than a WD320 HDD, BUT there are 'delays' sometimes because writes can be slow. There is a software utility (forget the name right now) that takes care of that but sometimes causes corruption so, stopped using it. FOR sure, CF or even better, SSD is the way to go.

Be sure to check out sjthinkpader's post here:
what a treasure of information he's posted on HDD and CF speeds
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=71881

[fongalv]

SELLING??? DID YOU SAY SELLING??? I would never sell a TP!

Giving it to a friend (that will appreciate it): Yes. But you never sell a TP!! Buy a new one if you want, but keep the venerable T41p!

My 0,02 cents...

I just thought 320gb was kinda overkill. I figured I have, after all survived on 60gb all these while Still looking into this tho, gona check some prices before I commit any further.
Hey I get what you mean! Somehow it just doesn't feel right to sell it for 10% of the price I paid for it. In any event, it will probably go to my neices/nephews/cousins!

regarding battery life ... they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a pic:
Read the wonder at such long battery life so went to the closet, took a stored 9-cell off the shelf, removed the DVD drive, put the battery in the T41 and booted. WIFI is on, BT was turned off. With WIFI off and a 100% battery charge, life will go to 9 hours!!!

And just a quick comment on the CF flash drive. I used an RiData 32GB CF in a dual CF PATA adapter in an X31. That thing was fast, noticeably faster than a WD320 HDD, BUT there are 'delays' sometimes because writes can be slow. There is a software utility (forget the name right now) that takes care of that but sometimes causes corruption so, stopped using it. FOR sure, CF or even better, SSD is the way to go.

Be sure to check out sjthinkpader's post here:
what a treasure of information he's posted on HDD and CF speeds
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=71881

wow, thats really impressive, I'm not exactly sure whats the cause for my low battery life, might it be the fireGL? the 7200rmp HD? or because of windows?
The program you are referring to is flashpoint right? Told ya I have been reading up
The delays you talk about, are they the 'stutters' people talk about for CFs/SSDs, or are they just slow write speeds? Do they occur during normal operation or when you are specifically writing to the drive(saving something there maybe?).

I was initially intending to install my main programs in the secondary HD, keeping the CF solely for OS, would placing them all in the CF increase the performance of these programs? Or would that result in having more writes to the CF and ending in more stutters...I do know that as of now, getting a SSD is the simplest option for me tho, but I am quite keen to explore the CF route for now.

Yup I've read sjthinkpader's thread a couple days ago, but found it a little lacking when it comes to the more modern CF cards. The HDs tested there were also 1.8"(for X series?)

Btw does anyone know an easy way to trim the TPs default installation? Ive found the entire installation to include a host of unnecessary stuff.

[ajkula66]

fongalv wrote:

Btw does anyone know an easy way to trim the TPs default installation? Ive found the entire installation to include a host of unnecessary stuff.

Personally, I install XP from a retail disk on all of my machines, and then add drivers and utilities per my own liking...

Over the years I've come to like the aforementioned approach better than doing a clean install from recovery media and deleting stuff afterward...

My $0.02 only...

[qviri]

wow, thats really impressive, I'm not exactly sure whats the cause for my low battery life, might it be the fireGL? the 7200rmp HD? or because of windows?

Batteries degrade with both age and use. If you've got the battery utility installed, click on the battery icon, select "Battery information", and compare "Full charge capacity" on "Status detail" tab with "Design capacity" on the "Information" tab. The first is how much power your battery can hold now, the second is how much it was supposed to hold when new.

[sojourner]

and to followup on what qviri said, how many watts is the TP drawing even after sitting for a few minutes?

[Tasurinchi]

Btw does anyone know an easy way to trim the TPs default installation?

There is nLite for WinXP and vLite for Vista. I don't know if there is a specific program for Windows 7.

I've used nLite for my XP installations and it works great!

I just thought 320gb was kinda overkill

Well, you never know! Pictures, movies, files and generally everything takes more diskpace with time...

[fongalv]

Alright, what I meant to ask was whether the 6cell battery that last 4-5 hours was the original battery or the boston power series? Even when brand new, my 9 cell lasted only 3hrs+. Right now, it only can last me 45 mins, but I have grown to accept that since its been such an old machine.

I just realised that Im gona be taking out the 7200rpm drive completely so I don't think i will have an issue of bringing over the service partition.

Currently testing nlite as suggested by Tasurinchi and if everything works well, I'l first swap in a PATA 80gb HD that I have lying around for test installations first before getting the CF/SSD!

One question tho, are there any essential drivers/updates that the service partition installs that would be missing in a typical install from a WinXP Pro CD? Would I still be able to use the "FN" function buttons that switches the wireless networks, projector mode, and even the brightness of the screen?

[sojourner]

Alright, what I meant to ask was whether the 6cell battery that last 4-5 hours was the original battery or the boston power series? Even when brand new, my 9 cell lasted only 3hrs+. Right now, it only can last me 45 mins, but I have grown to accept that since its been such an old machine.

What brand etc makes no difference for what we're talking about, it's a matter of numbers. Here's what I mean:

A typical 6-cell battery has a rating of 10.8v 4.4AH. That equals 47.5 watts (v*A=w or 10.8 * 4.4 = 47.5). A typical laptop has a current draw which varies (i.e. 15w one second, 13w another, down to 10,9,8.5w, then up again another second), but lets say the AVERAGE draw is 8.5wh (8.5 watts per hour). We take the battery capacity (47.5w) and divide by the draw (8.5) and the resulting figure is the amount of time the battery should last. In this case 5.5 hours.

In your specific case, figuring your 9-cell was the lower capacity model (6.6ah), that it lasted 3.5 hours, the average current draw would have been 20wh. VERY HIGH!

This and some of the other questions about what software would have to be installed, makes me wonder if your TP had IBM's APM software installed! Apparently your system is not utilizing power saving functions to your advantage. Is APM installed? And what are your BIOS settings? Have they been 'tinkered' with or are they at defaults?

Two of the biggest power hogs on these PC's are the CPU and LCD. The LCD should dim when on battery. Does your's dim? Do you then manually lower the screen brightness to the lowest level to prolong battery life? Have you checked the advanced display settings to see if ATI's 'powerplay' kicks in on battery? Powerplay lowers GPU core and memory frequency which helps tremendously to save power. And are your various ports setup to turn off when not needed when on battery? Does the CPU throttle down to 600MHz or less on battery? Have you checked task manager to see if CPU hogs are running keeping CPU usage high? Is anything constantly hitting (seeking or writing to) your HDD spiking power consumption? Do you use BT (bluetooth)? BT is a power hog and best turned off unless you need it when on battery.

Well, there's more but you get the idea; a lot of things affect battery life. The above will give you a start, a list of things to look at to start trimming that HIGH power consumption!

You should easily be able to get over 4 hours runtime on a new 6-cell battery, and easily get nearly 7 with a new 9-cell doing non cpu intensive work.

Let us know what you find!

[fongalv]

Hi sojourner, thanks for the detailed reply!

For the record, whenever I do a fresh install, I always disable the fanciful graphics on XP, and also disable the sleep on lid close setting. While I also disabled the HD from spinning down when idle, I don't think this affects it much? I do this because Ive had several bad experiences leaving the HD to spin down and it would refuse to spin up after that.

Apart from that all programs were stock IBM. I just checked the 9cell battery and yea, it was 6.6ah, yet back when I didn't tweaked with too much of the settings, I don't remember it lasting so long. Anyways, I might have remembered wrongly, whatever it is my point is that I would very happy if my TP could last 5hrs on a new batter, more so if its a 6cell instead of the 9cell.

The above software questions were asked because ajkula66 suggested doing installation via retail XP CDs, and I was wondering if the "FN" buttons would still function with this method? This, I'm attempting this very moment replacing the 7200rpm with an old PATA drive I have lying around.

While I'm not so familiar with the term APM, never have I tinkered with the BIOS on the TP.
As for the LCD, yes it dims when its on battery power,
BT is always off,
Not so sure about ATI powerplay, would have to check this when I swap back the default 7200 HD,
I'm also pretty sure the CPU throttles down when on battery, the programs I run can get graphically intensive at times and they become laggy when on battery, in fact this has cause my system to hang several times, but works fine on wallwart. I have never tried to work around this tho, hence the few times I was actually on battery, I am usually either surfing or text processing. I also avoid dimming the lcd because the lowest brightness is almost unusable in a decently lit environment.

[ajkula66]

For the Fn combinations to work, hotkey drivers must be downloaded from the Lenovo's site. That will likely be the case with audio, video and wireless/BT drivers as well, along with presentation director...

On another note, let's not forget that you have Fire GL T2 GPU which contributes significantly to overall power consumption. Undervolting it via NHC might not be a bad idea if maximum battery life is desired.

My $0.02 only...

[fongalv]

Oh alright, found that out the "hard" way...just did an install from retail disk and found some of the basic functionality stuff missing.
For the record, I slipstreamed SP2 using nLite created a new install CD from the retail cds I had(to test how nLite worked).

I visited IBM/Lenovo's T41P driver/support page and found a huge page(3 pages to be exact) of drivers and updates that is probably not installed with the retail disk. While I can guesstimate most of the essential drivers, the list is still very long, am I supposed to get everything I think i need from here(?):
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... idate=true

As of now, I kinda feel that it is easier/better to do the install from the hidden partition.

To set clarify things, what I'm trying to do now, is to install a "basic" working XP system into an empty drive so that I can clone an image of it and transfer it to the new CF/SSD(whichever I eventually decide to buy fot the TP).

[goofyGAguy]

Install System Update. This will save you tons of time.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-66956

[Tasurinchi]

Install System Update

I concur, as I'm typing this lenovo system update is being installed in my new T43p. Allthough windows update (win7 ultimate), detected things like the graphic card and infrared port automatically!

[fongalv]

I concur, as I'm typing this lenovo system update is being installed in my new T43p. Allthough windows update (win7 ultimate), detected things like the graphic card and infrared port automatically!

Hi goofyGAguy and Tasurinchi,

In my current system state, I had to install windows installer, followed by the .Net framework before I could install the Lenovo system update(did I mess up something in the installation?). And even then, most of the core functions were still not installed, especially important now are the wireless drivers/"Fn F5" since most of the downloads were found online via my desktop. Were these supposed to detect themselves, or do I have to manually install them from the IBM/Lenovo T41P downloads page? Sorry about all these silly sounding questions, of the dozen of times I manually install desktops, which usually only requires me to install(via provided CDs) the mobo drivers and graphic card drivers and was good to go. This is the first time I'm not using the hidden partition for the TP.

Thanks!

[Tasurinchi]

And even then, most of the core functions were still not installed, especially important now are the wireless drivers/"Fn F5"

That's weird... In my case, the ATI and WLAN drivers were found automatically by Win7, the rest (like the Hot Key Software) were installed by the lenovo's system update.

Some time ago, when I was installing Win7 in my X31, I had to install the ATI drivers manually. Basically you download the drivers from the lenovo site, (this link is for your T41p), extract the files to your harddrive and then update the drivers from the device manager. The detailed instructions are in this topic.

Hope this helps...

Cheers

P.S. The topic has instructions for Win7, but it should be similar in XP

[fongalv]

Right,

After a week of twinking, Ive managed to get Win7 to run quite decently on my system. Have got most of the stuff up so I will probably clone it to the SSD when it arrives.

Meanwhile I have already bumped the ram up to 2X1gb, and have received the 3rd party Ultrabay Slim SATA-PATA HD caddy/adapter and fired up some results with the few HD I have on hand. Here are some results for those curious about the SATA-Pata adapter:

IDE Hitachi 60gb 7200rpm in T41P Main Bay(NTFS)
Sequential Read : 31.032 MB/s
Sequential Write : 29.985 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 20.100 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 21.737 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 0.443 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 0.779 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB
Date : 2010/01/21 16:27:39

IDE Samsung 80gb 5400rpm in T41 Main Bay(NTFS)
Sequential Read : 31.823 MB/s
Sequential Write : 32.717 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 18.355 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 24.641 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 0.427 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 0.844 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB
Date : 2010/01/26 18:28:59

SATA WD Scorpio Blue 500gb "ZAT0"(250gb platter X2) 5400rpm in Ultrabay SATA-IDE(FAT32)(Not sure if the FAT32 would affect results but it belongs to my sister and I was just testing the performance of the caddy/adapter.)
Sequential Read : 69.905 MB/s
Sequential Write : 66.640 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 34.935 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 45.342 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 0.582 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 1.680 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB
Date : 2010/01/26 18:34:37


What can I say, I'm extremely pleased with the HD caddy/adapters throughput(more than 2X the IDE speeds!) and it works flawlessly on my 6yr old machine! The results are also similiar to tests run on SATA capable machines which proves that the IDE bandwidth can still handle the transfer rates of some of the modern spinning drives.
The stock hitachi 7200rpm seems kinda on par with the Samsung(I expected it to be better?) so I guess it will stay as another "backup" HD outside the system from now...

I'm gona be looking out for the ART0 320gb platters for myself over the next few days...might even be faster than this!

[Tasurinchi]

and have received the 3rd party Ultrabay Slim SATA-PATA HD caddy/adapter

Wow! That's really good news!

May I ask you which adapter are you using? I should do the same with my T43p!

I read some opinions in other threads were people were not advising to use the adapter because of the IDE channel being a bottleneck. But your results prove the opposite! That's really good news for old thinkpads like ours...

Let us know about the tests with SSDs...

Cheers

[fongalv]

...
the IDE channel being a bottleneck. But your results prove the opposite!
...

IIRC, the theoretical maximum throughput of a typical IDE bus(not the desktop IDE133 type) is ~100mb/s, and would take a really fast(non SSD) spinning platter type harddisk to exceed...I must say I'm really impressed with some of the modern 2.5" drives because even my desktop 3.5" SATA II 640gb 7200rpm WD Blue(I think?) registered only:
Sequential Read : 93.304 MB/s
Sequential Write : 94.608 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 36.857 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 69.837 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 0.806 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 2.410 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB
Date : 2010/01/27 3:22:07

So while this is nearing the IDE throughput ceiling, its still kinda far for the IDE to be considered bottlenecking. Of course, my raptors in raid0 busts that easily, but thats another story...

This is the one I bought http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 5775wt_940
(psst: I offered 10GBP and was counteroffered 12.50, which in any case is still quite a steal since it includes shipping, took 8 days in total )

Not that I have any first hand experience with T43s, but from all the 2010 errors and what nots I keep coming across in this forum, my guess is the T43 might be a little different from the T41 in terms of the HD interface. While both physically use IDE harddisks, I believe the T43 actually runs on a SATA interface, connecting to the IDE harddisk via a SATA-PATA bridge. Therefore if this HD caddy/adapter was used, there will effectively be 2 bridges between the system and the HD itself, ie. HD > SATA-PATA bridge(within the drive caddy) > PATA-SATA bridge(in the system) > system.

I think this was advised against because the unnecessary additional component MIGHT affect the effective throughput of the drive. Even then, I personally do not think it would be drastic enough to get the kinds of slow IDE speeds I have here with a 7200rpm IDE spinning disk. I mean comon guys, unless I'm missing something else that is critical in HD performance, the throughput I'm getting now doubles as compared to before, how can that be bad?

That said, I kinda took a chance with this caddy because I too ran the risk of something bottlenecking the modern SATA harddisks on my old system. With the 2010 error and the additional bridges between, theres a higher chance of not getting an ideal throughput, but the 12.5GBP was IMO an acceptable risk especially since I had access to modern drives without actually having to buy one only to find that it does not work as I wished.

I have got a 32gb PATA SSD(didn't want to invest too much in a EOL soon product) coming my way and hopefully it will perform as well as I hope. Come to think of it, if I had known that this caddy works this fine, I should have gotten a SATA SSD and used it as primary within the caddy instead...at least that would have a higher chance of being ported if/when I upgrade to a new machine

[ashat]

Just to give my contribution to the thread I want to say that my T41p, which is more than 5 years old, has a 9 cell battery that actually show a Full Charge capacity of 48.46 Wh (between 3 and 4 hours) while the desing capacity was 71.28 Wh.

the current "health state" is yellow and the software shows an hint about "reconditioning the battery"

I never heard about it, does it really improve the capacity?

Annalisa

[Tasurinchi]

I believe the T43 actually runs on a SATA interface, connecting to the IDE harddisk via a SATA-PATA bridge

That's correct, I forgot that... silly me

Thanks anyhow for the very informative post! Maybe I should consider getting a T42p, or any 14" model with 1400x1050

[goofyGAguy]

the current "health state" is yellow and the software shows an hint about "reconditioning the battery"

I never heard about it, does it really improve the capacity?

It certainly couldn't hurt. Not much to lose at this point.

[fongalv]

Just to give my contribution to the thread I want to say that my T41p, which is more than 5 years old, has a 9 cell battery that actually show a Full Charge capacity of 48.46 Wh (between 3 and 4 hours) while the desing capacity was 71.28 Wh.
Annalisa

wow my machine is probably about the same age as yours, but NHC reported my 9cell to carry a full charge of 12.25Wh In fact I'm mostly on AC!

That's correct, I forgot that... silly me

Thanks anyhow for the very informative post! Maybe I should consider getting a T42p, or any 14" model with 1400x1050

Wouldn't you be better off with one of the newer machines? SATA HD/SSD off factory !
If your feeling adventurous, take a 12.5GPB leap and hope for the best!

Anyways I learnt most of the stuff over the last week while the need to tinker with the TP arised, and most information was from this forum and I just recompiled them for my own reference. I'm generally more of a desktop guy, and always had the mis-conception that laptops were not very tinkerable, now I know I'm wrong!

The main reason for this exercise was to pimp this TP so that it can support my desktop at least for the next 1-2 years before I get back to work(currently back to studies) and get the $$$ to properly fund an entire machine. Now I can leave one machine for rendering works while I can do other stuff concurrently on the other! Really see no point in getting a 2nd hand T4x/T6x for the moment now.

[Tasurinchi]

Wouldn't you be better off with one of the newer machines? SATA HD/SSD off factory

True, I think I should start lurking for a X6/T6 series...

But making experiments with my "old" TPs is also fun... Actually I don't really need them as I have my desktops home which are more powerful. I'm normally taking my X3/X4s with me when on holidays, bought the T43p more or less to play around...