Thinkpad T42!

[Temetka]

Yes, it is mine.

Thank you craigslist.

I've been having a PC laptop craving going on for months. I tried to satiate with a Dell D500 that looks to be dying and an Enpower P3 machine. None of them cut the mustard for in terms of speed and options.

What's a geek to do then?

I was all set to buy a unit from a member on the forum.thinkpads.com forums but a late night posting from a seller on CL grabbed my attention. I picked up a T42 2373-6YU model for $225 cash. Specs:

1.7GHz Pentium M "Dothan" 2MB L2 Cache CPU @ 400MHz FSB

1GB PC2700 DDR (expandable to 2)

40GB HD

DVD-ROM / CD-ROM

ATI Radeon 7500 32MB GPU

XGA 15" LCD

Intel b/g wifi

I went to fry's to look for laptop HD's to replace the gimpy 40GB drive. I found a Western Digital unit for $59 in retail packaging (3 year warranty) for get this:

$59.00

Sold, as a matter of fact I bought 2. Such a price! The drive is pretty darn fast and IMO the increased areal density does wonders for seek times. Sure it's 5400RPM but man it's a quick one.

Next on the list is to get the 2nd HD ultrabay adapter and go dual hard drive. This will grant me 320GB of local storage so as I can triple boot XP Pro, Linux and OS X.

I missed my old T41p that got sold in a moment of stupidity. I am really loving the T42 now although it wants to replace my AlBook as my primary unit, it will not.

 

[Cory5412]

OMG, that machine is screaming "NT4!" (They also have drivers for the T43 but not the T43p) [] ]'>

Congrats on the machine, I've heard the T42s were the best of the T4x series.

 

[Dan 7.1]

wow man thats an awesome deal there. grats.

would be interesting to see how it compares with your Powerbook in overall performance seeing as how closely matched they are spec wise.

 

[MacDan]

Awesome find!

I've been having a PC laptop craving going on for months.

I know how you feel. I've been wanting a PC for quite a while now.

 

[Temetka]

The PB will wind hands down in gaming / video performance as it has a 128MB GPU.

However T42p motherboards are cheap. They feature the ATI FireGL T2 128 chip which is very powerful and is based off their workstation offerings. It is OpenGL compliant and I am hoping it will fuel my OS X on a T42p project I seem to have started on. Although I just might pick up a T60 in the 14.1" format with IPS and that way I would have Core2Duo and better 'support' for OS X.

I love thinkpads and I love OS X.

 

[Temetka]

I wanted to try linux out the machine, but which Distro?

Fedora? Great support and good solid OS. Just not my cup of tea though.

SuSE? I downloaded and installed it. SuSE has been my distro of choice for years until I met: (I still use SuSE on other machines)

Backtrack? Great OS. Nice and slim and features all the security tools I need. However I also need office, coding, science and CAD software. So to install those from the repositories increases the install size. Backtrack wasn't really designed for this and while it does work, it's buggy.

So what next then?

I read good reviews of a distro I have never heard of before.

Linux Mint

WTF? Linux Mint? What kind of name is that? Then again what the heck is an ubuntu anyway? Moving on...

I tried the LiveCD and was blown away. All the hardware on my T42 was detected and worked OOTB. This has never happened to me before, even with the venerable ubuntu. Not only is the OS fast, it's darn stable and even accepted my screwed up attempt at installing mysql and phpmyadmin. Upon launch it noticed package disrcepencies and offer to fix it for me.

Sweet.

So installed the distro to my hard disc. Know what happened?

All hell broke loose.

The system was fast heck. Everything worked. Installing software was a freain' breeze (even easier than OS X). Suspend worked OOTB. Hibernate worked OOTB. Wifi worked OOTB and detected my network and encryption type (after I input the SSID which I do not broadcast).

This is what Linux is supposed to be. Easy to install. Easy to use. Everything works right the first time. It's easy to update. It features good security which is easy to to harden with Bastille.

I think I am in love with Linux again. This is so awesome. Heck I can install PearPC in it if I wanted to. It's right there on the menu.

Next project is to remove gnome (hate!) and install AfterSTEP (love!).

Then get the 2nd bay adapter and install my other 160GB HD and have a go a loading leopard on it. If I could do that it would be a poor mans MBP and let me run Linux, Windows (which I still happen to love btw), and OS X. Not to mention Solaris, FreeBSD and others.

Thank you IBM. Thank you.

Now go forth and make me a backlit KB and get rid of the thinklight.

 

[Temetka]

..

x2 post.

 

[Temetka]

OMG, that machine is screaming "NT4!" (They also have drivers for the T43 but not the T43p) [] ]'>
Congrats on the machine, I've heard the T42s were the best of the T4x series.

You!

We need to get together as I think we'd have a lot in common, you and I.

Anyways IBM does seem to have a plethora of NT 4 drivers. I do love NT 4 and think the best of it, but I wouldn't do that to this machine.

The IBM T series has always been their best in class business line machines. The T is a cut above. That is saying a lot too. All thinkpads are great machines. However the T reigns above them all.

I have owned a T23 unit (loved it!) and a T41p unit before. The T41p was truly a mobile workstation and far, far more powerful than the T42 I now own. (until the upgrades arrive that is).

The T4x line of machines begins with the lowly T40 series. There really are good machines. They usually feature a 32MB Radeon, a 1.5GHz Pentium M Banias 1MB CPU and a 14.1' screen, wifi, combo drive and around 40GB of HD space.

There are 4 generations of T4x. T40, 41, 42 and 43. There is also the T4x/P series which feature better GPU's and higher resolution LCD's (SXGA 1400x1050) and bluetooth, fingerprint reader and so on. You want a P, really. You do.

The T40 runs on a 266MHz FSB (133x2).

The other machines run on a 333MHz FSB and use the Dothan core of the Pentium M line. The Dothan is an evolutionary step for the Pentium M. It features and additional 1MB of L2 Cache, runs cooler and uses less power than the previous generation Banias. The Banias cores started at around 1.2GHz or 1.3GHz and featured 1MB of L2 cache. They topped at 1.7GHz. The Dothans started at 1.6GHz and went all the way up to 2.1GHz.

Now we can move on...

My T41p was upgraded to 2GB of DDR333MHz RAM, and dual 120GB HD's. The machine featured the ATI FireGL T2 128 M2 GPU which is the mobile FireGL card with 128MB of VRAM. This GPU is OpenGL certified and is crazy fast.

The differences bsides speed and GPU between my T41P and T42 is the T42 features a 15" LCD instead of 14.1". This means I can add a 1600x1200 LCD and upgrade the GPU to the FireGL. Man on man, OS X would love it. Linux would love it. Windows would love it. I would love it. I also upgraded the CPU to the 2.0GHz CPU. The 2.1GHz is crazy overpriced and does not really offer a performance increase of more than 2%. Save your dollars. I also had a multibay battery, DVD burner, LS-120, and weight saver.

Yes, the T4x line was not only a home run for IBM, it picked up the bar and threw it 2 miles down the street. When comparing machines, the T4x series is what most are compared to. Their reilability is legendary. Their support is awesome. They truly are, a cut above.

 

[twocargar]

A buddy of mine GAVE me a T42 with docking station a while back! It's a really nice laptop (for a PC--ha ha). I put OSx86 on it and it ran okay, but now I'm running XP and Ubuntu. Sweet.

 

[oneboyarmy]

I love my T40. 1400x1050 is so great compared to the 1028x768 res on my iBook G4. Not to mention better graphics capabilities!

I will disagree with you that all ThinkPads are great - but the fair majority of them are pretty damn awesome. My first TP was an i1400 which I still miss to this day - minus the fact that it had a passive-matrix 800x600 screen. The i1300 series machines were just an abomination and suffered from lousy hinges that broke, useless shared graphics (seriously, nothing ran worth a damn on them, at all) and just lousy performance in general. I guess that's what happens when IBM let Acer make the motherboards for them.

Yeah so I'm rambling, but good for you on the new gear. The T-series machines are just excellent.

 

[Temetka]

The iSeries was not built by IBM, but was instead contracted out. The entire line is plagued with design problems, construction problems and weak materials.

I liked them when they came out, but they have failed the test of time whereas the T4x line has stood that test.