Subj : Thinkpad T43
To   : All
From : Kurt Weiske
Date : Thu Dec 17 2015 09:16:09


I got my hands on a Thinkpad T43 with 2 GB of RAM and a 40 GB hard drive. It's
going to be a pleasant upgrade from my T42. I'd worked hands-on with each of
these as a tech, so I have a sweet spot for old pre-Lenovo thinkpads.

The T42 has one annoying issue -- while it supports Physical Address
Extension, or PAE, it doesn't report that it does. Newer OSes can't install on
it. The latest Ubuntu that will install is 12.04. So, you'd need to install
12.04, then install fake-pae, then install 12.10, then 13.04, then 13.10, etc.

The T43 advertises PAE, so I was able to go straight to 14.04 LTS.

I have a couple of third party drives, an SSD and a 160 GB Samsung drive. Both
were formatted and work on the T42, but not on the T43 -- I get a blinking
cursor. I may need to try to re-install the OS on them while in the T43.

I found a hacked BIOS that turns off the errors when you install a third-party
hard drive or network card; mt T42 was unplugged and popped up an 1802 error
when I booted it, complaining about the network card not being certified for
use with the laptop.

The T43 comes with a 2915 ABG WLAN card, my T42 had the older 2200 BG WLAN
card, which was always problematic.

The build quality on these old laptops in incredible -- no flex, everything
feels right, and it's got what I would argue is the best laptop keyboard ever
made.
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