windows 7 and older thinkpad

[Gibson486]

I have an old Thinkpad T43 that is being handed down. It does not have an OS.

Will installing windows 7 be an issue on this?

It has an ATI X300 graphics card, but I cannot find drivers on AMD's website.

 

[lxskllr]

Specs? My daughter was using Win7 on a 3.06ghz Northy with 1gb of ram, and it worked fairly well. Not up to my standards, but good enough for web browsing, office type stuff. Personally, I'd put Linux on it. It'll look great, and use the available resources better.

 

[Gibson486]

It has ubuntu on it now, but the person who is using it will not be tech savy at all...so windows is the best bet.

I ran the lshw command:

n/m.....too much junk in that info...

see post below.

 

[Gibson486]

For Lazy, it's:

1.86 Ghz (Centrino)
1GB RAM (upgradeable to 2GB)
ATI X300 videocard with 64MB
HD 40GB

Should I just find a copy of XP instead?

 

[stargazr]

Win 7 needs more RAM than XP, which has a much smaller footprint.

I had to reload the os on my T60 and went with XP.

 

[lxskllr]

Not tech savvy is perfect for Ubuntu. It'll just work, and it'll be very hard for them to break it. For someone that isn't particularly good with computers, XP is a security nightmare. If I absolutely had to have Windows, I'd try Win7. If you have a copy, you can put it on in trial mode, and see if it works well enough.

 

[Gibson486]

It is looking like windows 7....but only because the only way we can get XP is to get it off ebay...we all know how that can turn out.....

 

[Nothinman]

I agree with lxskllr, Ubuntu is a lot better for a non-technical person who doesn't need much more than email, web and the cheesy included games like solitaire.

 

[Steltek]

It is looking like windows 7....but only because the only way we can get XP is to get it off ebay...we all know how that can turn out.....

If you aren't going to stick with Ubuntu (which I agree with lxskllr and Nothinman would work great on this machine) or even Linux Mint (which I'd also consider to be another great option), I'd invest a few bucks in a RAM upgrade. While Win7 will work with 1GB, it will bog down easily, especially if the laptop has a slower hard drive. Once you get Win7 installed, you should be able to use Windows Update to pick up drivers for the Mobility X300 graphics chipset (the X300 does support Aero with correct drivers).

BTW, here is a web page I had bookmarked that contains info on installing Win7 on a T43 - I don't know how up to date the links still are now, though, as I haven't worked on one in a while:

http://xenomorph.net/misc/guides/t43-win7/

 

[JackMDS]

Win 7 will work OK on T43 with 1GB RAM for mundane usage.

Web, email, Word processing etc.

The graphic card will not support hardware acceleration, so any graphics application that needs hardware acceleration will work slow, or if 3D is a must for the application it will Not work at all.

As an example Win 7 FreeCell will work flat, i.e., cards will disappear from their location and reappear at the destination,but the simulated movement of the cards will not be supported

 

[corkyg]

I am currently running Win 7 Ultimate on my old T60. Not a problem anywhere. It just is not as snappy fast as my newer T520.

 

[Cerb]

It has an ATI X300 graphics card, but I cannot find drivers on AMD's website.

No AMD drivers, no Lenovo drivers. Grrr.

The ATI X GPUs got stuck in some kind of hole, when AMD took over ATI. No modern driver support, and no legacy driver support. I don't know why they did it, but this has made many a used laptop only good for Linux.

Not being the biggest Ubuntu fan, my vote is PCLinuxOS.

However, do you know anybody with a Windows 7 disc? Video is the only real HW issue (aside from RAM, which is fixable), and sometimes the X series work with MS' drivers (I've only had them work on desktops, and am not sure why the laptops have been no-gos). Not gaming worthy or anything, but you might get better than a pure software GUI. It wouldn't hurt to install and update, but not activate, the OS, to test it out, if you can.

 

[Steltek]

No AMD drivers, no Lenovo drivers. Grrr.

The ATI X GPUs got stuck in some kind of hole, when AMD took over ATI. No modern driver support, and no legacy driver support. I don't know why they did it, but this has made many a used laptop only good for Linux.

Certain versions of the Mobility line are chips with slightly customized features as dictated by OEMs (i.e. in this case HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc). ATI doesn't provide drivers for these chips - they consider it the responsibility of the OEM. Nvidia does the same thing with their mobile GO chipset line.

In some cases, you can download and install the ATI Catylist Mobility drivers and they will work with the X300. I recall that the last time I worked on a T43 Windows Update had a basic video driver available that would work in Win7, along with audio and WIFI drivers. The other missing drivers are pretty much available at the links on the page I previously provided (I checked the links and they still appear to work).

 

[Gibson486]

So....I noticed that the computer still has its COA on it for XP pro. Would it be possible to contact Lenovo and get the back up disc? Or would that be illegal or something since i am not the original owner of the computer (used to belong to my previous employer)...

 

[Steltek]

So....I noticed that the computer still has its COA on it for XP pro. Would it be possible to contact Lenovo and get the back up disc? Or would that be illegal or something since i am not the original owner of the computer (used to belong to my previous employer)...

If the key is a regular OEM key and not a volume license key, you shouldn't have a problem with purchasing a recovery CD from Lenovo.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-4M7HWZ.html

However, if you have access to a retail WinXP Pro install CD, you can convert the CD to work with a OEM key.

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&...=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=62b612e93116a325