T43p and my 'back to XP' story

[lukee]

During last days, I got spare Hitachi Travelstar 7k60 hard disk. I checked his condition (which is perfect by the way) using HDTune and during this phase of testing I had put Windows XP on it. After the installation and activation, I've managed to install all updates from Microsoft and Lenovo on the laptop, so I got well prepared setup for my work. Need to say that prior this time, I've been using Windows 7. After my today's experience I can definitely say, that Windows XP's performance on ThinkPad T43p is STILL! much more better than performance of Windows 7 on the same machine. System temperatures are lower about 1 - 5 degrees of Celsius in all performance modes. With my 9cell battery the laptop lasting about 3,5 hours with 'Maximum Battery Life' scheme and Power Manager says that original wattage of the battery was 77 Wh, now it is 66 Wh (the battery is manufactured in 2005!). I really love ThinkVantage software, especially Access Connections and Power Manager, where I can define multiple customized power schemes. Difference between using those applications on XP and 7 is easily noticeable, at least everything starts faster on XP. With regard to fact, that Windows XP will be about two years yet supported with security patches from Microsoft, I decided to downgrade from 7 to XP on my T43p... Or is this downgrade an upgrade actually?

I just wanted to describe my feelings of today's using of Windows XP system with my T43p after the long time with Windows 7...

[jdrou]

I'm no fan of Win 7 in general but I really wouldn't recommend it for hardware from 2005.
The major reason I can see to 'upgrade' to Win 7 (or Vista) would be if you have a 64-bit CPU that you want to take full advantage of (because XP 64-bit has some significant issues as well).

[lukee]

Yes, you're right jdrou. Windows 7 runs well on T43p, but Windows XP better. It is nice, that 6 years old laptop can handle most of today's tasks yet

[ajkula66]

Your experiences pretty much mirror my own.

My biggest pet peeve was a lack of a proper graphics driver, though. I strongly suspect that the rise in temperatures while running W7 had plenty to do with that fact.

I love my ATi CCC which is a no-go in 7. So..goodbye W7 until further notice.

[lukee]

Hi George, I've posted 'how to' about ATI CC and Windows 7 here (last post):
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=94564

It works on T43p with Windows 7, if you follow that instruction.