Want to buy X41 - what should I watch out?

[lukee]

Hello, I am thinking about buy of ThinkPad X41 (no tablet) as my faitful travel mate. I got a deal:

- Pentium M 1.5 GHz
- 1 GB of RAM
- no HDD (thinking about CompactFlash SSD)
- XGA LCD in good condition (no scratches, no dead pixels)
- Battery 8cell in a good condition

Seller asking for $147 shipped. Is this a good deal? Are there some known defects related with X41 series? I want to use this machine with Ubuntu Linux.

[topmahof]

i have 3 x41's. non tablet. i haven't had any problems with any of them. do yourself a favor and max out the ram. there's one ram slot. x41's have ram imbedded on the board itself, usually 512mb. sometimes 256. the system will read 2gb total. you can use pc-4200 but i've been using pc-5300 coz in my area a 2gb stick of pc-5300 is a little cheaper.

i've never run linux but i hear it works ok in x41's.

the sd slot uses a lot of cpu and has a fairly slow data transfer rate.

make sure you get a cf card that won't give you the 2010 error at boot up. search this forum for posts on that.

the standard hard drive for an x41 is a 1.8 4200rpm drive which is very slow. i'm running xp in the laptop drive, 60gb and i'm running windows 7 ultimate in a 250gb sata drive in the x4 base. 7 runs very well from the base drive.

you might want to check out the marketplace here before you commit to the one you're thinking of. you might find one that's already set up the way you want it reasonable.

[lukee]

Thanks, topmahof. Are you sure that exists CF cards which not triggers 2010 ERROR? I was thinking to use SD slot as additional storage instead of internal CF card (for some music and photos) but is the SD slot really so unusable?

[topmahof]

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=41568

here's a feed on cf cards.

[topmahof]

http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-Lenovo-41W0736- ... _968wt_698

or you could use one of these. no error, fairly quick. i have one of these in an x40, works well. i put it in as an experiment, coz i really don't trust ssd's yet. but that's just me.

[lukee]

Thanks for the link, I need to decide that yet as price for that SSD is almost equal to my X41's price. I don't want to do bigger investments into it because I have fine working T43p with FlexView screen.

[topmahof]

t43's are nice. wish i had one.
the sd slot in that x41 isn't really that unusable. the read times are faster than the write times.
photos and music are fine.

the stock hard drives for the x41's are okay to me. you can still get a 40 gb for about 30 bucks. you'll find that you will get long run times from batteries and the laptop will run nice and cool. they're also very lightweight, easy to carry around. and fairly sturdy. very good build quality.

the cf cards that i know about will give you the error at boot up but you can boot past the error and they work fine.

[topmahof]

oh yeh, 147 for an x41 is a good price IF the battery is good and there are no defects.

[lukee]

Yes, I know the 2010 ERROR from my T43p too Thank you for information! I will update this topic when the X41 will knock on my door - possibly on Tuesday next week.

[Tasurinchi]

If you don't want to spend a lot of extra $ in the X41, you may want to search for a 60/80GB ZIF drive, they are quieter and have much better performance that the old & noisy stock drives. Check the Marketplace here, I recall seeing some good offers...

My 0,02 cents...

[billp117]

The X41 is a good laptop...but base your buying decision on how much the HD will cost you.

[lukee]

I've studied the X41's motherboard and I've one question: is possible to use 2.5" HDD in X41 instead of PCMCIA cage and buy/deploy ATA cable from original ATA connector? I can sacrifice PCMCIA slot as I don't need it.

[mediasponge]

I've studied the X41's motherboard and I've one question: is possible to use 2.5" HDD in X41 instead of PCMCIA cage and buy/deploy ATA cable from original ATA connector? I can sacrifice PCMCIA slot as I don't need it.

I doubt there is room for a 2.5" drive. A 1.8" iPod-style PATA drive might fit, with a ZIF-to-IDE adapter in the original HDD bay, but I don't think you'll gain much over the original. There are 30GB and 40GB iPod drives that are 5mm thick, but the 80 and 120GB drives are 9.5mm thick, which might be too tight, even with the PCMCIA cage removed. There is a 100GB that's 8mm. All are 54x71mm with the ZIF on the short side. A regular 2.5 IDE laptop drive is about 70x100x9.5mm. The PCMCIA slot is only 54mm wide and 5mm tall. I have a scrap MB and some dead iPod drives I can play around with, but I think the hard part would be getting a long ribbon cable for the ZIF connector. Some links:

Toshiba 1.8 specs
Seagate 2.5 specs

[topmahof]

well, there is one other thing you can do. i bought an x4 ultrabase for 9 bucks, a sata hard drive adapter for the base for 10 bucks and a 250 gb 5400 rpm hard drive for 37 bucks all on ebay and i put xp on the laptop hard drive and windows 7 on the base drive. you can boot from the base drive. you lose a little portability coz of some extra weight but it runs quiet and smooth. i'm getting ready to do it with all 3 of them.

[mediasponge]

I tried a few drives on for size, having opened my X41 up for another reason (not much of an excuse). Believe it or not, an iPod style 5mm thick 1.8" drive actually slides right into the PCMCIA slot on an X41. No need to remove the cage! Of course, it has nothing to connect to in there. You would have to mod the cage to run a ZIF cable over to the original drive bay. A ZIF to 2.5 IDE adapter like this one would probably fit in the original drive bay. I do not have one of those adapters lying around to try, however. Like I said, the problem would be sourcing a longer ribbon cable for the ZIF. The sellers of the adapters only provide a short cable or two with the adapter. As for an actual 2.5" laptop drive, you can probably forget it. There really is no room in an X41 for one of those.

[sjthinkpader]

Except for the original 1.8in Hitachi PATA (pin versions) that are 3.3V/5V dual voltage, most 1.8in ZIF drives and the X40/X41/X41t slots are 3.3V. So you can plug in a 2.5in 5V drive but it will not work in a X4x machine.

Accordingly, only the Hitachi 1.8in pin version drives will work in Ultrabay trays. Other 1.8in ZIF drives, thru a ZIF-PATA adapter, will burn up if the adapter doesn't have a voltage regulator.

If you don't want to spend a lot of extra $ in the X41, you may want to search for a 60/80GB ZIF drive, they are quieter and have much better performance that the old & noisy stock drives. Check the Marketplace here, I recall seeing some good offers...

Yes, I have these listed in the Marketplace.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=90243

[lukee]

As I am thinking about CompactFlash-based SSD, I want to ask you what CF adapter will I need:

1. standard? http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00bB ... daptor.jpg or
2. adapted for X41's bay? http://www.getprice.com.au/images/uploa ... -1-big.jpg

CF card I'm thinking about would be Pretec 233X 16GB.

[sjthinkpader]

I have the CF adapter in item 1 and it works fine. 233x rating for the Pretec is read speed. YMMV for write speed.
See Feb 18th post here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 1&start=60

[lukee]

Well - X41 is at home at this time... finally. However after first power-on I registered weird behavior with keyboard. Some keys seems don't work properly, I disassembled the laptop, turned it on with keyboard outside (only connected) and after I've pressed motherboard in place where KB connector is located, some keys started to work - but not all of them. So it seems I will return this X41 to seller and will require another one or money refund.