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Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

Windows 8 on ThinkPads
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Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#1 Post by next » Wed Jun 13, 2012 6:23 am

I have two 1.8Ghz T42s in great condition that I was hoping to use with the upcoming Windows 8, but then I discovered that CPUs without PAE (Physical Address Extension) and the NX/XD bit (Execute Disable Bit) are not supported anymore!

I believe that both my T42s have Pentium M Dothans (SL7EN) CPUs which unfortunately don't support PAE or NX/XD. HOWEVER, I do know that there are a few 400MHz FSB Pentium M Dothans that should support these features plus all the later 533 MHz FSB, C0 stepping Pentium M CPUs. Also, The 2.1GHz Pentium M 765 SL7V3 should support the necessary features.

I have found a link to a guy that supposedly installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview on an old T42:
http://www.legendaryreviews.com/windows ... eview.html

Has anyone tried to install Windows 8 Release Candidate on a T42?
2 x T42: 1.8 GHz / 64MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 / 250GB 7200 rpm / 14.1" SXGA+

hunterman223
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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#2 Post by hunterman223 » Wed Jun 13, 2012 11:00 am

If you had a CPU with those requirements, I believe it would be similar to a T42 running W7.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=102931

What GPU do you have?
Hunter Thompson

ThinkPad T400: T9400, 8GB, LG WXGA+, Samsung 830 128GB + WD Scorpio Black 500GB, Intel 5300agn, Win7 Pro x64
Others: IBM ThinkPad R40, Sony VAIO NR Series, HP TouchPad running CM9, Jailbroken iPod Touch 4G

next
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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#3 Post by next » Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:03 pm

hunterman223 wrote:If you had a CPU with those requirements, I believe it would be similar to a T42 running W7.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=102931

What GPU do you have?
The GPU in my T42s are the 64MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9600, but that is the "least" of my worries.

I have read that CPUs are now required to have PAE and NX/XD to be able to install "Windows 8" and the old Pentium Ms found in the T42-series support PAE according to Intels website, but only a few of the old Pentium Ms support the NX/XD bit.

Since the NX/XD bit cannot be enabled in the T42 BIOS, Microsoft has provided the following potential workaround:

Download the Windows 8 Release Candidate ISO and burn it to a DVD or create a bootable USB flash drive.
Boot from the media that you created. If your CPU does not support NX you will see a code 5D bluescreen before setup starts.

This workaround may succeed because Windows contains two installers: the end user installer (setup.exe at the root of the Windows DVD) and the commercial installer (setup.exe found in the \sources directory of the Windows DVD). The commercial installer runs when the PC is booted from DVD/USB media and does not perform the NX/SSE2 checks and attempts to enable NX/SSE2 on supported systems.

I am hoping that someone will try to install "Windows 8 RC" on a T42 maybe equipped with a SL7V3 or a SL8QZ CPU - or maybe even a later 533FSB CPU taken from T43-series.
2 x T42: 1.8 GHz / 64MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 / 250GB 7200 rpm / 14.1" SXGA+

T400plus
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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#4 Post by T400plus » Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:40 am

:lol: Any success with a 400 Mhz pentium...
I have a T41 with a 2Ghz processor...and a 32*1024*1024 bytes graphics memory.
T41 1.5 Gb 160Gb 14" windows 7

systemBuilder
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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#5 Post by systemBuilder » Sat Jan 19, 2013 10:38 am

I am going to try it later this month.

I have T42's. I have purchased a dothan 750 ($3.95) to try it experimentally in my T42's. The 7x5 Dothans REALLY DO NOT have the NX feature - it was missing from the VLSI design! You need the NX memory-protection feature - it is heavily used by the Win8 kernel for security reasons and to verify that the CPU supports SSE2 !! (7x5's support SSE2 but not NX!)

If this works o.k. on my Dothan 750, I will buy 780's which should run at the equivalent of about 1.7 Ghz (= 2.26 * 400/533). I am not going to depend upon overclocking to run this OS. Dothan 780's as "pulls" from other laptops cost about $40-$50/ea. Total OS upgrade cost = ~$80-$90.

The ATI 9600 / FireGL-T2 (same guts) was a best-selling graphics card from ~2002 until 2005 or 2006, I expect it will be supported for another 3-5 years by ALL operating systems.
=======================
Lots of thinkpads (10+) but I would never be so stupid as to list them all because that would spam everybody's searches and people who *do* try to list them all would be jerks.

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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#6 Post by Oglon3r » Sat Jan 19, 2013 12:11 pm

I have not experienced any issue on a t42 15" with the x300 video card and a 1.8 pentium M processor.
I ran windows 7 on these for a while without issues windows 8 is slightly faster.
T61p 6457Y5J IC2Duo T7700 @ 2.4Ghz
Nvidia Quadro FX570M, WUXGA, 8GB RAM, Atheros AR938x, St750LX003 750GB SATA 6 7200rpm

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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#7 Post by ajkula66 » Sat Jan 19, 2013 12:25 pm

Oglon3r wrote:I have not experienced any issue on a t42 15" with the x300 video card and a 1.8 pentium M processor.
I ran windows 7 on these for a while without issues windows 8 is slightly faster.
Huh?

X300 was used in T43, not any of the T42 models...

The fact that you were able to run W8 leads me to believe that your machine has a T43 board and/or CPU...
...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

Cheers,

George (your grouchy retired FlexView farmer)

One FlexView to rule them all: A31p

Abused daily: T520, X200s


PMs requesting personal tech support will be ignored.

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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#8 Post by DaKKS » Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:00 pm

Heads up! Pentium M 765 is NOT compatible with Windows 8. I am not sure why yet, but its not.

http://ark.intel.com/products/27596/Int ... 00-MHz-FSB

wsalomon
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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#9 Post by wsalomon » Fri Feb 01, 2013 8:35 am

Yes - for one processor *only* it is compatible - that is the Intel M 765 SL7V3 Dothan.

Why only this last processor of the 400 MHz FSB series (715, 725, 735, 745, and 755) has 32-bit PAE, NX/XD, and SSE2 enabled, is beyond me.

As a partial trial, I dropped in the 533 MHz FSB 780 SL7VB realizing that the higher FSB speed would de-rate the whole CPU in being forced back to 400 Mz. The "test bed" had the ATI Radeon 7500 GPU, 2 GB of high-quality RAM, 100 GB 7200 RPM drive (Travelstar)

In actuality, the T-42 did run with 780 and was "as slow as molasses". The BIOS is clearly not written for this type of situation. In trying to use the Win 8 RTM Upgrade Assistant, the system was failed as the hardware was too slow.

I then swapped that for the 765 and passed the compatibility tests quite quickly (I'm guessing several minutes).

So... final answer - only the last of the (715, 725, ... 765) series works and appears to be as fast, if not faster, than XP.

No, I have not formally benchmarked it. I did run CPU-Z and the readout appears as expected. I also ran CPU-ID's HW Monitor and CPU temp using Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste was 33 - 37 degrees C / 91 - 97 degrees F.

Three other thoughts:
1. Recall that the T-4x series was *before* the Windows key. You can simulate it with Left Control - Escape. Some have remapped the Right Control key to the Left Windows key scan-code 0x5B or the Right Windows key scan-code 0x5C (see for specs http://download.microsoft.com/download/ ... ancode.doc)
2. Classic Shell is a freebie that immediately gets rid of the Metro UI and allows you to choose between Classic, Vista, whatever, and restore the Start key (see http://www.classicshell.net)
3. Fences is a great Desktop organizer that groups icons (see http://www.stardock.com)

Oglon3r
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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#10 Post by Oglon3r » Fri Feb 01, 2013 11:43 pm

ajkula66 wrote:Huh?

X300 was used in T43, not any of the T42 models...

The fact that you were able to run W8 leads me to believe that your machine has a T43 board and/or CPU...
That will make a lot of sense as back then I replaced the motherboard with an unknown motherboard marketed for a T42p.

Purchased it cheap from eBay could not find a FRU seller was not very experienced with it either.
T61p 6457Y5J IC2Duo T7700 @ 2.4Ghz
Nvidia Quadro FX570M, WUXGA, 8GB RAM, Atheros AR938x, St750LX003 750GB SATA 6 7200rpm

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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#11 Post by DaKKS » Fri Feb 08, 2013 6:44 am

wsalomon wrote:Yes - for one processor *only* it is compatible - that is the Intel M 765 SL7V3 Dothan

<snipped rest of post>
I have tested the 765 on two different boards (T42 and T42p) and it did not have PAE/NX active. How did you managed to get 8 running?

Johan
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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#12 Post by Johan » Thu Feb 27, 2014 7:20 am

DaKKS wrote:I have tested the 765 on two different boards (T42 and T42p) and it did not have PAE/NX active. How did you managed to get 8 running?
Hint: Try see the thread Windows 8 installed on a T42! :thumbs-UP:

Johan
IBM T42p's (2373-Q1U & -Q2U): 2.1 GHz, 15" UXGA FlexView, 2 GB RAM, 128 MB FireGL T2, 128 GB 1.8" SATA SSD, IBM a/b/g, BT, Win 7 Ultimate
IBM T42 (2373-N1G): 1.8 GHz, 15" SXGA+ FlexView, 2 GB RAM, 64 MB Radeon 9600, 64 GB 1.8" SATA SSD, IBM a/b/g, BT, Win 7 Ultimate

DaKKS
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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#13 Post by DaKKS » Sun May 04, 2014 12:35 pm

Johan wrote:
DaKKS wrote:I have tested the 765 on two different boards (T42 and T42p) and it did not have PAE/NX active. How did you managed to get 8 running?
Hint: Try see the thread Windows 8 installed on a T42! :thumbs-UP:

Johan
I've upgraded twice to two different T43 boards since then. But thanks. However late my post may be.

vpreda2003
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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#14 Post by vpreda2003 » Tue Jun 10, 2014 3:28 am

Hi! I tested a few CPU's on two different machines, a T42p and a R50p (R50p have USB 2.0).

With both CPU's (740 and 750) with 533 MHz FSB, Windows 8.1 has installed without any problems but the clock was downgraded (FSB 400 MHz). For SpeedStep I used RMClock Utility 2.35, even for voltage adjustment (it lowering temperature in idle). Without RMClock the cpu's frequency was not raised (only 6x multiplicator). With any other CPU with 400 MHz FSB has no troubles with Intel SpeedStep in Windows 7, but no success with installing a new or running an already installed Windows 8.

I have a lot of 400 MHz CPU's, even a 745 and a 765 for which Intel says thath both support PAE and NX http://ark.intel.com/products/27596/Int ... 00-MHz-FSB . So, I'm still in search of solutions, but I think that without any mod BIOS or windows patch, a SL7V3 or a SL7EN (if I remember) will not run/install Windows 8. I already have the last BIOS version. I will test the SL7V3 on a FSB 533 MHz Fujitsu Laptop to verify if truly had activated PAE and NX, then I will try to mod original BIOS with some BIOS ModTools for .img file to show in BIOS menu NX settings. Wish me luck!

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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#15 Post by TrowaBarton » Sat Jun 14, 2014 8:14 am

Hi there, instead of worrying about whether CPUs support features X Y or Z there is a patcher that has been made to disable the checks, supposedly bypassing the NX check is a relatively harmless tweak.

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thread ... -checks%29

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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#16 Post by sktn77a » Tue Aug 12, 2014 1:03 pm

I just got a T420 in good condition for under $100 on Craigslist. I loved the old T4x series computers but their day has passed - when you consider all of the issues with this model (display backlights going out, graphics chips parting company with the motherboard, etc) maybe it's time to bite the bullet and bury the old girl!
Keith
(Formerly 600E, T21, T30, T40, T41, 2xT42, 2xT61p, T420, 2x Ideapad K1)
(Currently 4xT430, 2xT460, H520S, M910q, M920q, M70q)

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Re: Windows 8 on a T42 - anyone?

#17 Post by emeraldgirl08 » Tue Aug 12, 2014 1:26 pm

sktn77a wrote:I just got a T420 in good condition for under $100 on Craigslist. I loved the old T4x series computers but their day has passed - when you consider all of the issues with this model (display backlights going out, graphics chips parting company with the motherboard, etc) maybe it's time to bite the bullet and bury the old girl!
lol@bury the old girl :lol:

For under a $100??!! Not bad! :thumbs-UP:
Thinkpad T470 | iPhone XR | mATX Comet Lake Desktop | Hackintosh Monterey | Lenovo L24q-30 Monitor

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