Thinkpad T42 -- is mine a lemon?

(I tried posting this to the ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad group but appears to
never have made it)

I just got myself a whiz-bang T42 (2378R4U), based in part on the "warm
and fuzzy" reviews I read about IBM Thinkpads in general and the T42 in
particular. I must confess it's a lot lighter than my old trusty Armada
M700, but...

Why is this thing so gawd-awful slow in loading my profile? Seems like
that takes forever, as well as doing all that disk-churning while
booting up (I haven't even had a chance to install all my apps yet, and
am already nervous about how that'll bog things down). Oh, I presently
have 768MB RAM installed, so I don't think it's a memory issue. Is
there any consensus in this group about just dumping the IBM
pre-installed image with all its bells 'n whistles, and doing a clean
XPP install? Does anyone have a web-page on the subject?

Perhaps more irritating is the video quality--this screen has the bluest
tint of any I've ever seen. Is this normal, or do I have a lemon? The
blue tint in supposedly "white" areas makes text difficult to read
because of the drop-off in contrast, unlike the color saturation on the
Armada which results in a parchment-white color which is real easy on
the eyes.

I'd appreciate any suggestions for possible improvements, since I'm
already contemplating putting this one out to pasture on eBay.

TIA.

Reynard

Reynard wrote:

> (I tried posting this to the ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad group but appears to
> never have made it)
>
> I just got myself a whiz-bang T42 (2378R4U), based in part on the "warm
> and fuzzy" reviews I read about IBM Thinkpads in general and the T42 in
> particular. I must confess it's a lot lighter than my old trusty Armada
> M700, but...
>
> Why is this thing so gawd-awful slow in loading my profile? Seems like
> that takes forever, as well as doing all that disk-churning while
> booting up (I haven't even had a chance to install all my apps yet, and
> am already nervous about how that'll bog things down). Oh, I presently
> have 768MB RAM installed, so I don't think it's a memory issue. Is
> there any consensus in this group about just dumping the IBM
> pre-installed image with all its bells 'n whistles, and doing a clean
> XPP install? Does anyone have a web-page on the subject?
>
> Perhaps more irritating is the video quality--this screen has the bluest
> tint of any I've ever seen. Is this normal, or do I have a lemon? The
> blue tint in supposedly "white" areas makes text difficult to read
> because of the drop-off in contrast, unlike the color saturation on the
> Armada which results in a parchment-white color which is real easy on
> the eyes.
>
> I'd appreciate any suggestions for possible improvements, since I'm
> already contemplating putting this one out to pasture on eBay.
>
> TIA.
>
> Reynard
>
You do not mention any attempts to call IBM (I am assuming your machine
in under warranty, no ?). You first need to determine whether there is
something wrong with the hardware or with the OS. From what you are
saying, I would first lean towards a faulty installation. Although I
support the idea of dumping a good part of the preloeaded image, I would
only do a clean XP install if I have a good reason to restart from
scratch. If for some reason you do not want to call IBM, reinstall from
the IBM image after checking the Bios settings are what they should be.
And let us know then where you stand.

Good luck

--
John Doue

Make sure you run the IBM update connector to bring all your software
components, including BIOS and embedded controller, up-to-date. This could
just fix the speed issue.

I would not dump the IBM image, but that's up to you. I found nothing they
did to really slow down the pc, I'd say it's more likely to be the HD, which
in the light-weight laptops, tends to be slow (I think 4200 rpm). You want
faster you usually have to carry around more, although I don't know why.

The only service I feel safe in recommending that you turn off is the XP
file indexing service, since no one really uses it, and it means that your
file searches might be a little slower at worst case.

What software have you added of your own (especially anti-virus)? Some of
that can start a complete scan at bootup, and that can make booting up
rather slow.

hth,

Chip


"Reynard" <> wrote in message
news:3zeYd.893$ .net...
> (I tried posting this to the ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad group but appears to never
> have made it)
>
> I just got myself a whiz-bang T42 (2378R4U), based in part on the "warm
> and fuzzy" reviews I read about IBM Thinkpads in general and the T42 in
> particular. I must confess it's a lot lighter than my old trusty Armada
> M700, but...
>
> Why is this thing so gawd-awful slow in loading my profile? Seems like
> that takes forever, as well as doing all that disk-churning while booting
> up (I haven't even had a chance to install all my apps yet, and am already
> nervous about how that'll bog things down). Oh, I presently have 768MB RAM
> installed, so I don't think it's a memory issue. Is there any consensus
> in this group about just dumping the IBM pre-installed image with all its
> bells 'n whistles, and doing a clean XPP install? Does anyone have a
> web-page on the subject?
>
> Perhaps more irritating is the video quality--this screen has the bluest
> tint of any I've ever seen. Is this normal, or do I have a lemon? The blue
> tint in supposedly "white" areas makes text difficult to read because of
> the drop-off in contrast, unlike the color saturation on the Armada which
> results in a parchment-white color which is real easy on the eyes.
>
> I'd appreciate any suggestions for possible improvements, since I'm
> already contemplating putting this one out to pasture on eBay.
>
> TIA.
>
> Reynard
>

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:38:55 GMT, Reynard wrote:

>there any consensus in this group about just dumping the IBM
>pre-installed image with all its bells 'n whistles, and doing a clean
>XPP install? Does anyone have a web-page on the subject?

Check out this one, it is a very comprehensive and detailed
description on how to do a fresh install of XP on a Thinkpad
and how to make sure you have the latest IBM drivers.

http://www.4saad.com/WhatsNew/Fresh_...tall/index.htm



Lars
Stockholm

In "Thinkpad T42 -- is mine a lemon?", Reynard <> wrote:

>
>Why is this thing so gawd-awful slow in loading my profile? Seems like
>that takes forever, as well as doing all that disk-churning while
>booting up (I haven't even had a chance to install all my apps yet, and
>am already nervous about how that'll bog things down).

A profile can be slow to load because the system's trying to re-establish a
nonexistent network connection (check you don't have a roaming profile set, for
example) or if you have placed any folders containing a lot of data (eg. images)
directly on your desktop. (Shortcuts are ok, but not the actual data.) There may
also be some bug that's worth checking Microsoft's Knowledge Base or IBM's
support website for. I don't think the problem is with the hardware, though.


>
>Perhaps more irritating is the video quality--this screen has the bluest
>tint of any I've ever seen. Is this normal, or do I have a lemon? [...]

My Thinkpad A21p also has a rather bluish tint. I wasn't aware of it at first,
and only noticed it when I happened to compare scans of a couple of my kids'
drawings side-by-side with the originals. People made a lot of fuss at one time
about dud pixels (which Thinkpads didn't suffer from too much), but I've never
seen any comments about poor colour rendition, so it's hard to know how
prevalent this condition might or might not be. Unlike good LCD monitors,
Thinkpads don't seem to have a simple display colour temperature adjustment, but
it is quite possible to achieve a neutral display via desktop "Properties"/
"Settings"/ "Advanced", even if Ati drivers have (IMHO) a very clunky way of
adjusting the colour balance.