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Hardware / Re: Do Thinkpads T42 or T43 allow cardbus & USB? Is T43 noisy & hot?
« on: 2010.01.19, 21:57:54 »
I have a T43 (1871-W8M) it works pretty good, but does have a few problems. Some comments:
The machine does not work perfectly with ACPI. Suspend/resume is only a dream, but speed control, using SETGETSTATE.EXE works. That means that it can be temperature controlled. I built a REXX script to monitor for activity over 90%, and when that happens, it turns it to full speed, then watches for the activity to drop again so it can slow it down again. The difference between running at full speed , and the slowest speed (where it usually runs), according to the Reactor temperature widget, is 70C at full speed, and 45C at slow speed. This also extends the battery life, which is pretty good, even at high speed. I suspect that this approach should work with most ThinkPads that will cooperate with ACPI to a certain extent.
The screen is a 15 inch, with 1024x768 resolution. It is more than acceptable, IMO.
Noise is not noticeable, at any time (unless you turn the sound up, and play sounds).
NETWORKING: The Broadcom wired (1 Gigabit), and Intel 2915abg wireless (54 megabit) both work well with GENMAC and XWLAN. Some LEARNING is required to figure out how to make it work properly, but it does work nicely.
USB: There 4x USBUHCI controllers, and 1x USBEHCI controller. However, there are only two connectors on the case. You need a docking station to use the others.
SERIAL/MODEM: It has a built in WinModem, that does NOT work with eCS. It also has a serial port, but the only way to use it is with a docking station.
Memory: This machine has 1.5 GiB, and it works well. If I discount the memory used for disk cache, eCS almost never uses more than about 512 meg anyway. The only time I exceed that is when i run one of the virtual machines.
Hard disk: This is one weakness. This machine has a 60 GiB disk, where about 5 GB is taken by the recovery partition. That is used to restore the XP Pro, if you want to use windows. With a little work (and DFSEE) you can remove that, and restore it later, if you like. It has a DVD writer, so offloading stuff that doesn't really need to be on the hard disk, is quite easy.
MOUSE: It has both the Trackpoint, and a touchpad. I HATE the touchpad, so i turn that off in the BIOS. The Trackpoint is usable, after you get used to it. I bought a small, wireless, USB mouse, which works well with AMouse.
PCMCIA/PCCard: It has one socket for these devices. It seems to work with the driver that I have, but I am not sure which driver it really is, since nothing seems to display that information. The installer is called CARDBUS.EXE, and it is dated 08/20/2009, which I am sure is not correct (it is probably when I downloaded it). There is also a socked for EXPRESS Cards (whatever those are). I have no way to test if that actually works, or not.
The machine does not work perfectly with ACPI. Suspend/resume is only a dream, but speed control, using SETGETSTATE.EXE works. That means that it can be temperature controlled. I built a REXX script to monitor for activity over 90%, and when that happens, it turns it to full speed, then watches for the activity to drop again so it can slow it down again. The difference between running at full speed , and the slowest speed (where it usually runs), according to the Reactor temperature widget, is 70C at full speed, and 45C at slow speed. This also extends the battery life, which is pretty good, even at high speed. I suspect that this approach should work with most ThinkPads that will cooperate with ACPI to a certain extent.
The screen is a 15 inch, with 1024x768 resolution. It is more than acceptable, IMO.
Noise is not noticeable, at any time (unless you turn the sound up, and play sounds).
NETWORKING: The Broadcom wired (1 Gigabit), and Intel 2915abg wireless (54 megabit) both work well with GENMAC and XWLAN. Some LEARNING is required to figure out how to make it work properly, but it does work nicely.
USB: There 4x USBUHCI controllers, and 1x USBEHCI controller. However, there are only two connectors on the case. You need a docking station to use the others.
SERIAL/MODEM: It has a built in WinModem, that does NOT work with eCS. It also has a serial port, but the only way to use it is with a docking station.
Memory: This machine has 1.5 GiB, and it works well. If I discount the memory used for disk cache, eCS almost never uses more than about 512 meg anyway. The only time I exceed that is when i run one of the virtual machines.
Hard disk: This is one weakness. This machine has a 60 GiB disk, where about 5 GB is taken by the recovery partition. That is used to restore the XP Pro, if you want to use windows. With a little work (and DFSEE) you can remove that, and restore it later, if you like. It has a DVD writer, so offloading stuff that doesn't really need to be on the hard disk, is quite easy.
MOUSE: It has both the Trackpoint, and a touchpad. I HATE the touchpad, so i turn that off in the BIOS. The Trackpoint is usable, after you get used to it. I bought a small, wireless, USB mouse, which works well with AMouse.
PCMCIA/PCCard: It has one socket for these devices. It seems to work with the driver that I have, but I am not sure which driver it really is, since nothing seems to display that information. The installer is called CARDBUS.EXE, and it is dated 08/20/2009, which I am sure is not correct (it is probably when I downloaded it). There is also a socked for EXPRESS Cards (whatever those are). I have no way to test if that actually works, or not.