R40e slow and BIOS settings

[kennylands84]

I've just become the owner of a ThinkPad R40e laptop, it's the first IBM laptop I've ever used, and I don't have any manuals with it.
When accessing the "Access IBM" bios settings, there seem to be no bios set up for hard drive, processor, on board video or memory settings, as in with other laptop bios's like Dell.
Is this something perculiar to IBM or I'm just not looking in the right place ?
The bios verison is 1.38 and the embedded controller bios is 1.04.
Also, I benchmarked the laptop against my old Dell Latitude c510 (1ghz celeron, 1gb ram) and the Dell came out with an overall higher benchmark score, even though the R40e has a 2.4ghz celeron (although it has only 512mb of ram at the moment). What's wrong ? PC-doctor 5 passes everything ok, it's just slow. an extra 512mb of ram would help I'm sure, but I was expecting the Thinkpad to blow my old Dell away, and it doesn't.
cheers
Peter

[jronald]

The R40 was built by Acer for IBM, they are typically a little slower than "regular" IBM units. That said you have an "E" unit, as in economy. Coupled with and old install of any OS, Im surprise it will boot. If you got it cheap, or have money to burn. Change it over to the P4 from the Celeron, put at least 1 gig of memory in it, and a new OS. That should get you up to acceptable.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 46397.html

Look at the link above.
Ron

[kennylands84]

Thank jronald
Oh dear, sounds like I've acquired a pup. If I change the processor from the 2.4ghz celeron to the 2.2ghz P4 mobile, do you know what the spec of the P4 should be ? I've taken a quick look on eBay and there seems to be literally hundreds of different models.
I have a gig of pc2700 to install, and a quicker hard drive spare, so hopefully that should make a difference.
thanks in advance for the info.
Peter

[jronald]

Here is the repair manual:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-45899
Go down to part number 18 on this page. This will give you the IBM part number for your CPUs.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 45953.html
Not really what you asked for, but using the IBM numbers will get you a cross reference to the standard Intel numbers.

Ron

[kennylands84]

Hi again
Ok, I've managed to pick up a P4M 2ghz processor off eBay for a couple of dollars, (http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL6V9.html) and with the faster drive and 1gb of pc2700 memory we'll see what the improvement is.
Thanks for your help.
Peter

[jronald]

Just for the sake of argument (I thought about mentioning this earlier) remove the primary battery, and the power supply. Then pull the CMOS or BIOS battery out for a few hours. What Im wondering is: Has someone monkeyed with the bios settings and is that slowing something down? Pulling the battery will reset it to factory. It wont hurt anything, but you will need to reset the date and time.

Ron

[kennylands84]

I'll give it a try.
Is it IBM standard bios though that there are no settings visible or editable for on-board video, memory, and especially hard drives ?

[jronald]

Should be all sorts of things listed in the bios. Going by memory but from the first page, should be 6 additional pages. Umpteen sub-pages after that.

Ron

[kennylands84]

More issues. Now I know why I don't use IBM kit.
I've a minipci wireless lan card spare, an Intel 2200BG card, works fine in my Dells, the Thinkpad complains on boot that there is an "unauthorised mini pci lan card installed, please power down and remove it".
So, are there only specific minipci cards you can use with a thinkpad r40e ?
Next time, I'm sticking to Dell.

[jronald]

Normal
Google the 1802 hack
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_w ... twork_card

I have worked on several other brands of laptops, NOTHING is as repairable as the Thinkpads. The R40 is a [censored] that was built by Acer, then you managed to get the economy version of the already economy built laptop.
Or
From IBM to Walmart to Big Lots
There is a world of difference!
Keep your eyes open for a T30. Built like a tank and basically the "same" laptop as the R40 (old-timers don't freak on that statement). The T30 is a true Thinkpad.

Ron

[kennylands84]

I beat you to it, I googled the error message just after my post, and downloaded the bootable cd version of the hack.
I take it back. The no-1802 bios whitelist hack worked fine and the minipci card is up and running.
T30 eh ? I might just do that. We'll see what the ram and processor upgrade do to the r40e first though.

[jronald]

You should be fine after the upgrades. its not a bad unit, and I have refurbed and given away my fair share of them.
Thats a different story for a different time, but I basically can donate a complete R40 machine, not maxed, but decently equipped for $50 to $60.

My own machine is a T30 2.0gig CPU with 1.25 gig memory and a 7200 RPM HDD.

let me know what happens
Ron

[kennylands84]

Now I'm REALLY confused. I upgraded the cpu (SL6V9) and installed the 1gb PC2700 ram (got the 4-beep error but found a fix - ThinkPads again !) but haven't received the faster disk yet, so benchmarked the r$0e again. By the way, the guy who was selling the P4M also had a P3M for the Dell Latitude C510 so bought that for a couple of dollars (literally) and upgraded the Latitude as well. So, here's the scores using the Passmark Performance Test v7 software:

R40e C510
Overall 181 207.7
CPU 245.7 289.5 P4M 2ghz vs P3M 1.1ghz
2D graphics 184 193.1
3D graphics 43.8 50.5
Memory 221.7 138.8 1gb Pc2700 vs 1gb sdram 133mhz
Disk 105.7 252.9 Hitachi DK23DA on its last legs vs Seagate 120gb new
CD 198.1 198

so, I'd expect the disk to be slower on the Thinkpad, and the ram to be quicker, but what's the story with the CPU and the graphics. The Dell has the mobile radeon 16mb, the thinkpad also has radeon igp 330m 16mb.
Maybe the new processor is bad, but it passes all the tests from the PC Doctor 5 for Windows that I downloaded from Lenovo.
Any ideas ?

[kennylands84]

The formatting didn't come out too well did it. Here's another try:

...................R40e.....C510
Overall..........181......207.7
CPU.............245.7....289.5.................P4M 2ghz vs P3M 1.1ghz
2D graphics...184......193.1
3D graphics....43.8.....50.5
Memory.........221.7....138.8................1gb Pc2700 vs 1gb sdram 133mhz
Disk..............105.7....252.9................Hitachi DK23DA on its last legs vs Seagate 120gb new
CD................198.1...198

Ok, the disk in the Thinkpad is on its last legs, but the graphics and cpu are really strange results.

[kennylands84]

Just a quick update. Put the old celeron 2.4ghz processor back and the benchmark on the CPU jumped from 245 to 287.
So maybe the 2.0ghz P4M was a bit of a white elephant. What's the quickest chip you could put in the R40e ? Is it the SL6VC 2.4ghz P4M ?
Either way, to be beaten by the P3M 1.13ghz in the Dell is a bit shocking. Maybe the mobo in the ThinkPad is shot ? It passes all the PC Doctor test though.
It's an interesting project but a bit of a money pit. Are most of the parts from an R40e usable in a T30 ?

[jronald]

Not making excuses, but you are running an economy machine.
Im not the one to ask on the CPU, but I believe its a 2.4 or a 2.5 that will run. Go back to the parts page and do a little looking. That is the official line.
No one on the forum, as far as I know, really runs these machines full time. Im only quasi-knowledgeable because they are cheap and plentiful, I can build them easy, and give them away cheaply.

Ron

[kennylands84]

thanks for your help. One last favour ? Would you awfully mind downloading the Passmark Performance Test v7 software and let me know what the summary benchmark results for a "regular" T30/R40 are ?
The new hard drive is in the post, and when it's installed I don't think there is much else I can do to the ThinkPad bar live with it.
cheers
Peter

[jronald]

This computer 225.2
CPU mark 259.2
2D 205.4
3D 96.7
Memory 262.2
Disk 299.1

See my specs in above posting
Ron

[merkle]

What's the quickest chip you could put in the R40e ? Is it the SL6VC 2.4ghz P4M ?

The best would be the Intel Pentium M Dothan 755 SL7EM. Runs @ 2ghz/400mhz fsb w/2mb cache. A step up would be the Dothan 765 2.1ghz. Price difference between the two makes you sick. SL7EM is best bang for the $$

[ajkula66]

You can NOT put ANY PM chip in R40e...

The fastest one would be P4M 2.6...Northwood core only.

[kennylands84]

Would that be the SL6WZ ?

[merkle]

You can NOT put ANY PM chip in R40e...

The fastest one would be P4M 2.6...Northwood core only.

That's very odd 'cause my R40 runs the 755 and now I have a 715 in it. Works great! 755 was much faster with larger cache.

[merkle]

Oops, my bad, didn't realize the subject was the R40e. Two completely different machines.

[ajkula66]

merkle wrote:

That's very odd 'cause my R40 runs the 755 and now I have a 715 in it. Works great! 755 was much faster with larger cache.

I very much doubt that.

T40, absolutely.

R40, no way. The BIOS limits the use of CPUs to 1.7 Banias on Pentium M boards.

BTW, PM715 and PM755 have the same amount of cache - 2MB. They are both Dothan Core CPUs.