Resuscitating my R40 [Hard Drive & Battery]

[AugustusRookwood]

Hello!
I'm working on resuscitating my old Thinkpad R40, and could use a bit of advice.

For the last few years it's lived on a shelf in the basement, after a series of hardware failures served as the excuse to upgrade to a newer T61p.
The battery is 100% dead, the USB ports no longer work due to motherboard issues... Oh, and it has no hard drive.

However, through the magic of a Linux live CD, I've recently been able to coax some life back into it -- and (apart from the broken bits) it seems to more or less run okay.

I've been toying with the idea of fixing it up properly and using it as a basic note-taking laptop that's easier to lug around than my big ol' widescreen T-series. I figure that even after I shell out for a new hard drive, battery, PC-slot USB port, etc. -- I would still be better off than buying a netbook or something, especially given the Thinkpad's full-size keyboard. Plus I'm completely hooked on the trackpoint mouse -- I can't stand fiddling with touchpads.

So, step #1 is to get a hard drive. Speed and capacity don't really matter (I'll be using mostly cloud applications like Google Docs, or switching to my T61p for any serious work); it mainly just needs to fit my penniless-student budget.
My question is -- how do I know which hard drives are compatible with the R40? I've found some reputable-seeming e-bay stores with R40-compatible drives listed -- should I go with that, or are there actual name-brand laptop hard drives on say, Newegg.com that would work?

Similar question regarding the battery -- again, I just need something basic. I imagine my choices here are more limited, given the specificity of the battery compartment shape.

Thanks!

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the forum.
You can put in any 2.5" hard disk, as long as it is ATA/PATA/IDE/EIDE (all the same) and NOT SATA!
As to batteries, you'll need to scrounge a new/used one up on eBay or place an ad in our Marketforum.
The R40 was made for IBM by Acer, and is/was not of the best quality.
Failing motherboards are very common.
Don't invest any more than absolutely necessary in this oldie.
Rather, buy a decent (and more recent) used Thinkpad.
14.1" IBM R51 with integrated 'Intel Extreme' graphics comes to mind, when you want to stay low in price.
See e.g. http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-Thinkpad-R51-Wi ... 0630351998

[AugustusRookwood]

Thanks for the advice. I'll hold off on a complete overhaul, but I'll keep an eye out for a cheap non-SATA HD.

[Aikimox]

@RealBlackStuff
I'm not too sure about Acer and failing mobos. Could you provide some links?
I worked for IBM (IT) at that time and hundreds of ThinkPads went through me.
Earlier models (ex. T2x) had faulty mobos, about 5% of them.
But I have never seen a single R40 with serious hardware issues.
In fact, I own one R40 personally, for 7 years. It was built for IBM in UK.
0 hardware problems ever, and you can call me an ab-user, as I played all major games on it (from BG to NVN, Diablo's and America's Army 2.x) and that's about 10,000 hours of stressing the system to and beyond its limits.
The laptop was off maybe 7hrs during each 2-4 months, as it was used as a file server
as well as a music player, since I never sleep without music.

I'm looking forward to upgrade this (2723) model with the following:

CPU: Pentium M 1.5 (Banias) ---> Pentium M 2.1 (Dothan) - requires a BIOS hack.
RAM: 512MB (2100) ---> 2x1GB (2700) - will work as a 2100 but is cheaper
HDD: 40GB original Travelstar ---> Samsung 160GB - I could go up to 320GB, but really don't need that much space now as have an Alienware M17X with 2 HDDs to serve as a data server
I'm considering upgrading the screen to a better res. (mine is 1024x768) but this will stress the Radeon 7500 too much.

Also doing a cooling overhaul. It will include modding the CPU/GPU/HDD heatsinks, especially the passive GPU and HDD cooling, replacing TIM, etc.

Suggestions are welcome!

<<<Maybe I should start a new thread for that?

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum, Aikimox !

The "opposite side" power jack mount is a dead giveaway for Acer-built ThinkPads.

As for R40s, they're prone to "blindness" to media drives, occasional freezing at boot which becomes permanent after a while and just dying out of the blue, not unlike some of their early T4x siblings.

Of course, not all of them will suffer a mobo failure. But if you browse through this forum, as well as Lenovo's own, there's quite a few "woke up this morning and found my R40 dead" bluesy tunes...

I actually happen to like R40 as a concept and have owned dozens of them in all shapes and forms imaginable. Having said that, they were not the "high noon" of ThinkPad range by any stretch of imagination.

Do bear in mind that the fan in your machine is not upgradeable. Even if you manage to get the PM765 working, you'll have a portable oven with an IBM logo. Not to discourage you, but heatsink mods on ThinkPads have proven to be counterproductive in most cases.

My $0.02 only...

Good luck.

[Aikimox]

Welcome to the forum, Aikimox !

The "opposite side" power jack mount is a dead giveaway for Acer-built ThinkPads.

As for R40s, they're prone to "blindness" to media drives, occasional freezing at boot which becomes permanent after a while and just dying out of the blue, not unlike some of their early T4x siblings.

Of course, not all of them will suffer a mobo failure. But if you browse through this forum, as well as Lenovo's own, there's quite a few "woke up this morning and found my R40 dead" bluesy tunes...

I actually happen to like R40 as a concept and have owned dozens of them in all shapes and forms imaginable. Having said that, they were not the "high noon" of ThinkPad range by any stretch of imagination.

Do bear in mind that the fan in your machine is not upgradeable. Even if you manage to get the PM765 working, you'll have a portable oven with an IBM logo. Not to discourage you, but heatsink mods on ThinkPads have proven to be counterproductive in most cases.

My $0.02 only...

Good luck.

Thank you Ajkula,
Wish I could have discovered this forum earlier.
I'm really surprised with the R40's ill fame.
I've never seen a single faulty R40.
In fact, non of the mentioned symptoms ever occurred to my machine.
Maybe there were few different batches in Europe and North America...
I worked for IBM in Europe and as I said, my system was built in UK.

Regarding the CPU upgrade,
The system has some reserves as far as I see it, -
CPU "Office" temps ~45C, max ~65C.
PM705 has a TDP of 24.5 which is actually higher than that of the PM765 (21W).
Even though the TDP is not exactly = heat, it's also not linear that higher frequency
always produces more heat.
If I understand correctly, PM765 will probably run a few degrees warmer if at all.
As for the cooling mod, -
there's a lot of room between the keyboard and the heatsinks
to shove a bunch of small copper heatspreaders and replace
the thin aluminum with better quality plates/shims/etc.
Anyway, we'll see the results soon enough.
I'll be testing the new BIOS in a couple of days, -
BTW, does anyone know a good place to look for a PM765 other than eBay?

[ajkula66]

Post a WTB ( want to buy) ad in the forum's Marketplace...

Good luck.