Buying a used T400 - sorting out the penryn whiners

[Orclas]

As my beloved T40 is showing some first signs of the infamous GPU/MB-problem, I am looking at buying a used T400 and have identified two for sale in the area where I live.

Thing is, I am a tad noise oversensitive and therefore concerned about the so called penryn whine. Current rig is - thanks to an SSD, an upgraded and cooler CPU plus undervolting CPU & GPU and fan control via NHC - absolutely quiet most of the time, and I want the very same again. So, anyone have any hands on advice on how to safely identify or rule out the whine problem on a T400?

From what I've gathered, the problem is the most obvious when running on battery and/or balanced power scheme (speedstep), so my general plan is to remove the existing HDD (to minimize noise), run some CD based OS, such as Linux/Parted Magic from UBCD, jog the CPU a bit and listen.

Should this do or any other suggestions from you good folks?

[mnowell69]

i bought a used T400 on ebay a week ago and i am "over the moon" about it. It's a 2767-31G model, a 2.4 ghz with switchable graphics and it is so quiet you would think there was no fan. In green mode the battery lasts for and indicated 7 hours but i imagine it would only last 7 hours if i didn't actually use it (what would be the point in that?)
I am still using all my Thinkpads.

[Orclas]

I'm not really worried about the T400 as such, from what I've read it's a cool and quiet machine. Good to hear you're happy with yours

My concern is instead about the, from machine to machine, randomly present penryn or cpu whine, as discussed for example here.

Edit: Spelling

[mnowell69]

All i can say is that there is no whining from my machine, which is , i think, 2 years old now. As you say, it must be a random thing from machine to machine. I am running a HDD not an SSD if that helps.

[Q-Ball]

If you can, ask the seller about it. Or, ask them if you can use the thing for a couple hours, or have it for the day to make sure it all checks out.

There's no positive way to rule out the Intel CPU whine.
Every Lenovo laptop after the T400 has it, it seems, or at least I just seem to get bad luck with 2 T510's and a W520 that all did/do it- ThrottleStop helps, but I haven't figured out how to use it to enforce a certain multiplier since the noise is caused by the CPU hunting up and down its frequencies- making the VRM's physically bounce as they give the CPU more or less voltage. Since the CPU does this upwards of 2000 times per second, it makes the constant ringing sound. It can be fixed soldering a capacitor *somewhere* on the power regulation circuitry- a guy hacked his T510 to stop whining with a single added cap- but if you can set a constant multiplier (or at least slow down the amount of times that the processor spools up and down) for your processor you very likely won't have that problem.

But you need to listen to it- because if the seller is older he/she probably won't hear it as they no longer have the capacity to.

[Orclas]

But you need to listen to it- because if the seller is older he/she probably won't hear it as they no longer have the capacity to.

I have asked him actually, but he claims that he frequents "loud night clubs with a regularity that makes his hearing less than perfect". This in turn leads me to believe I'm about double his age, but with my hearing indeed intact

I wonder if NHC (Notebook Hardware Control) may have a part solution? NHC can be used to manage both voltage (I have my T40 heavily undervolted) as well as dynamic CPU functionality. The part I'm particularly thinking about is the delay setting for dynamic CPU (which I assume is speedstep), where you can set a value for how fast speedstep/NHC controller should react to a change in CPU load. IIRC it can even be controlled for both up and down, but can't verify that since my T40 is only a home computer. Further to that, I don't know if NHC works on a T400.

[makaveli559m]

I have a T500 pretty good laptop

[mnowell69]

hey makaveli, how is the hybrid drive? i am trying to decide wether to get the XT or a travelstar 500gb. Your comment would be appreciated.

[Colonel O'Neill]

My T400 with a P8700 used to do a few seconds of whine during the Windows 7 bootsplash, but at no other times. It's long since stopped doing even that. I have it constantly undervolted with RMClock.

As for a hard drive, I'd recommend you check out a Scorpio Black. If you insist on a solid-state cache, tack on eBoostr and an SD card (size of your choosing) and it should end up being about the price of a Momentus XT with fewer issues and a 7200RPM drive. The Scorpio Black is a bit whooshy though.

[Orclas]

I have it constantly undervolted with RMClock.

Which would indicate that underclocking works/helps. Do you use speedstep/dynamic CPU, or static?

[mnowell69]

my vaio had 2 scorpio blacks in it and they were always failing. Got tired of them and didn't really trust them after 2 failures.
Have read that the 7k travelstar is quicker than the scorpio. Just don't know.