Thinkpad T440p Ultimate Buyer's Guide

Jérôme Loisel Devops Feb 13, 2023

OctoPerf is JMeter on steroids!

Like most people, I like fast laptops. But damn, those can be really expensive! Is there an alternative? The short answer is: Yes.

Unknown to most people, the Thinkpad T440p is a classic business laptop made in November 2013 (5 years!) by Lenovo. It’s one of the most customizable Thinkpad T Series I’ve ever seen!

Let’s see how we can mod and upgrade a used T440p to build a cheap but powerful laptop (about 500€) that can match nowadays high-end laptop performance.

Buying a Unit

Since I discovered the joy of upgrading and modding laptops, the T440p standed out of the crowd as the best laptop for my needs. Of course, if you don’t like to mess with hardware, you won’t feel comfortable here. But, trust me, there is a huge satisfaction when you entirely tear-down a laptop, mod it, reassemble that beast and see it boot again as if nothing happened.

The first thing to do obviously is to acquire a used T440p. And there are many things to check when buying a used laptop. That’s why I wrote this article!

Why the 440p?

This model also rapidly caught my attention because it’s:

Rock Solid: it’s been designed to meet military specs (MIL-SPEC) including extreme vibration, humidity, temperature and altitude tests. Much more resistant than any crappy laptop you can buy for 500€,
Easily Upgradable: installing a new Intel Haswell CPU, RAM or SSD is like a breeze,
Dirt Cheap: you can grab a used unit with an i5 / 4GB RAM / spinning HDD for around 150€ on Ebay,
Powerful: well, once CPU, RAM, Disk and LCD have been upgraded,
Proven Reliability: when you buy new hardware, you’re never quite sure if it will last. When it’s 4 years old and still working like a charm, it’s a different story,
Repairable: laptops today are increasingly difficult to repair, that’s a shame. I want something I can fix myself without any special tools (other than screwdrivers) needed,
And Quiet: I don’t like to work near a Jet Turbine constantly spinning up and down each time I press a keyboard key,

But, there’s also some bad news:

The factory hardware sucks. The dual-core i5 is completely outdated and the HD+ 1600x900 TN LCD Panel is completely garbage. Needless to say 4GB RAM is pretty tight nowadays too. The spinning HDD is terribly slow.

The good thing is it’s awesomely upgradeable laptop base which supports high-end mobile CPUs, Sata 3 SSDs and tons of RAM (well 16GB max, but that’s still good enough) for almost nothing. Plus, I like the idea of reusing old hardware instead of throwing them in a landfill.

Overall, the T440p build quality is great, even better than the T430 for several reasons:

Faster CPUs,
Better build quality,
Option for a 1080p IPS display without mods,
Better on-board graphics,
Better thermals with quad-core,
And Much easier to service.

Where to Buy

Fortunately, that’s pretty easy. There are tons of them on Ebay. In the USA, you can find some on Craigslist too. In France, we have Leboncoin which is pretty similar.

Ebay is my favorite place to scour for used laptops:

Tons of sellers: while ebay has widely declined in use, it’s still an awesome place for used computer hardware. You can find pretty much every single piece of hardware there. There are private used as well a companies selling there,
Secure Transactions: always make sure to pay via Paypal. If you don’t have any Paypal account, go create one now. Paypal protects you in case you never receive the good or if it’s damaged.

If you see items listed on ebay with a price too low to be true, with Wire Transfer payment, this is probably a scam. Don’t buy anything on Ebay without Paypal or you could end up being scammed.

If it’s too good to be true, then it’s too good to be true.

Reputable: I’ve used Ebay for years without any issue. Plus, you can check the sellers credibility by checking his selling history. Make sure to buy from people with tons of good reviews and selling hardware for years.

Tip: scammers sometimes buy account with an already existing history. Pay attention to the items priorly being sold. Someone mostly selling baby clothes and suddenly selling tons of shiny new laptops for 1/3 of the price is suspect.

Another Tip: occasional sellers who sell their own hardware can be great deals, especially with auctions. Make sure you can pay them via Paypal. Those sellers have fewer transactions as obviously these are private people selling their own stuff.

I made the greatest deals by buying stuff via Free Auctions or Make an Offer options. Free auctions is when the lower price is not protected. If you’re the only one to auction, you can get the item for as low as 1€.

Which Price

A used T440p with Intel I5 4300m, 4GB RAM and an HDD (usually 320GB) can be found around 150€ shipped to your home. You will see many units sold as Immediate Buy for much more. Simply ignore them.

Greatest deals are around 100€ shipped for a used unit in good condition. (more about that later)

Tip: when looking for items on ebay, use the search Show Only > Sold Items option. Example: Sold T440p. That way, you can estimate the current price at which items are sold.

It seems like this guide is transforming into an Ebay buyer’s guide! Just to make things clear: I’m not endorsed by Ebay in any sort. It’s just that Ebay is a great place to buy used computer parts.

Always be vigilent when the price seems too low. Double-check the description of the unit. Usually, lower priced units have either been damaged or missing parts. That naturally brings us to the next part:

Pay attention to used computer Grade.

Used Laptop Grades

Used Laptop Grades is a letter (A, B or C) which defines the overall state of the laptop:

Grade A: usually as new, or in mint condition. Safe to buy but usually much more expensive (because obviously rarer),
Grade B: fully functional but may show some minor signs or wear, cosmetic damages like scratches, used keyboard, dents on covers and more. The unit is perfectly working but shows minor signs of use. While those are usually safe to buy, always check the pictures provided along with the item description to make sure it’s not damaged too much,
Grade C: major signs of wear or damaged. Although fully functional, you may expect to replace some parts of the computer case to bring it down to a Grade B. Screen may be blemish and worn out, keyboard keys may be missing.

Try to stick with Grade A or B items. While great deals can be found on Grade C items, those items can quickly be expensive to fix. Covers and others body laptop parts can be expensive.

Cheap, but no battery and no optical drive are provided

If you intend to buy a damaged laptop (but fully functional), make sure it’s less expensive to repair it than a unit in better condition. Beware of missing components (like a battery or an AC Adapter): it can quickly add up to the bill.

Local or Foreign Units

Don’t be afraid by items described in German or any other language. The wider you expand your research field, the most likely you are going to find the greatest deals. You just have to be aware that:

Keyboard may need to be replaced: In France, we have AZERTY keyboards, in Germany it’s QWERTZ and most other countries use QWERTY keyboards,
Power Adapter may be needed: UK units for example may need a replacement power cable as the electrical norms are not the same. Check the AC adapter supports both 110v and 220v input,
Operating System language: while Windows 10 Pro language can be changed, beware of Family Edition which cannot.

Other than those points, laptops should be identical between countries. Make sure to add the price of those changes into the balance when evaluating an item total price. Laptop Keyboards are usually expensive (50€+). If you are keen to use a QWERTY keyboard, it’s can save you quite a bit of money.

Hardware Upgrades

Let’s see all the components which the T440P contains and how each can be upgraded.

Disassembly

Disassembly is easy: only 2 screws to get access to almost all the components!

Thinkpad T440p Disassembly is an extremely easy process:

Unscrew the two screws on the back,
Remove back-panel,
Done!

You instantly gain access to most of the components:

CPU: The central processing unit is the brain of the computer, performing all the computation. Performance varies depending on the type of CPU you use. Can be upgraded up to I7 4910MQ,
CPU Heatsink: removable without tearing-down the entire computer,
RAM: 2 sodimm DDR3L (1.35v) supporting up to 16GB 2133Mhz DDR3 (See Corsair Vengeance 2133Mhz DDR3 Sodimm),
Storage: supports one SATA3 HDD or SSD. Prefer the later one, performance difference between HDD and SSD is like night and day,
And WLAN card: contains an Intel card by default, people willing to hackintosh it will use DW1560 wifi card instead (compatible with macOS).

CPU

The factory CPU is usually a boring I5 4300m, sometimes an I7 4600M. Both are dual core CPUs who lack a bit horsepower, but come with a nice 37W TDP.What is that exactly?

CPU TDP is an estimation of the heat being generated by the CPU while running at full throttle. Given we’re in a laptop with limited cooling capabilities, 37W TDP is nice to keep temperature low (as well as fan noise).

The T440P supports Haswell Mobile family CPUs on socket FCPGA946. Basically, any mobile I7 4XXXMQ will do just fine. there are pretty interesting replacement CPUs to consider:

I7 4702MQ: 4 cores, 8 threads, 3.2Ghz Turbo, 37W TDP. This is a reduced TDP quad-core CPU which is topping at 3.2Ghz turbo boost. A very good performance to heat ratio,
I7 4712MQ: 4 cores, 8 threads, 3.3Ghz Turbo, 37W TDP. Slightly faster than the 4702MQ, 100Mhz more. Also a great balance between CPU power and heat.

Those CPUs have 6MB SmartCache and all support up to 32GB RAM (4x slots needed, thought). Both can be found around 100€ on ebay. But, those are pretty rare. If you want a bit more horsepower, you can take a look at those CPUS:

I7 4810MQ: 4 cores, 8 threads, 3.8Ghz Turbo, 47W TDP,
or even I7 4910MQ: 4 cores, 8 threads, 3.9Ghz Turbo, 47W TDP.

I’m not even mentioning the intermediate CPUs like 4700MQ, 4800MQ or 4900MQ. All those have a 47W TDP: they generate more heat, which means more fan noise to cool them down. While the T440P can handle those CPUs, I strongely recommend you to use a good thermal paste like Artic MX4.

A word on Grizzly Thermal Conductonaut: while providing much better thermal conductivity, this thermal paste is electrically conductive. Any leak from the CPU core and it can short the motherboard. I wouldn’t recommend it: if it leaks from the CPU, it could short the motherboard.

On the other side, Grizzly Thermal Kryonaut is one of the best thermal paste available with 12,5 W/mk thermal conductivity. See expected gains for more information.

Those CPUs have an integrated 4600HD graphic card which is plenty enough for a development workstation, web browsing, video and photo editing.

The Extreme variants like the 4940MX should be avoided: with a 57W TDP, those beasts are running pretty hot. The T440P simply cannot cool them properly (but they fit). Also, you will have to upgrade the AC Adapter if doing so (135w or 170w AC Adapter recommended, look for Thinkpad w540 AC Adapter).

The 4702MQ or 4712MQ are sweet-spot. They provide a great performance boost over dual core CPUs with the same 37W TDP. From my point of view, 4800MQ or higher are not worth it: there is only a marginal performance gain but those CPUs dissipate much more heat.

Officially, those CPUs are not listed by Lenovo as compatible. But all have reported to work fine.

There is always a trade-off. Faster CPU means more heat, which in turn means hotter operational temperature. This could lead to thermal throttling, thus reducing performance gains to nothing.

HD4600 or GT730m

The T440P is available in 2 versions:

Intel HD Graphics: the graphic card used is the one integrated to the CPU. In this case heatsink with part number 00HM902 is used,
Intel HD4600 + NVidia GT730M: using Nvidia Optimus, graphic card being used is dynamically switching from HD4600 to Nvidia GT730M depending on the load. Heatsink part number 00HM903 is used.

Some users reported the GT730m was only slightly faster than the HD4600, while still being unable to run most video games. Given GT730m is an added component prone to failure (and graphic cards fail often), it’s probably better to stick with an HD4600 only motherboard. The simpler the better!

If you plan to install macOS, it’s better to stick with the HD4600 version only. Nvidia Optimus GPU switching isn’t supported on macOS (they use a proprietary equivalent named GMUX).

Meanwhile, you can still upgrade the fan to the Nvidia variant at the same time ;)

Heatsink / Fan

According to Lenovo T440P specs, they have four iGPU versions: 004X1853 (Toshiba fan, deprecated), 00HM902 (Toshiba), 04X3915 (AVC) and 04X3917 (Delta). The dGPU version are: 004X1854 (Toshiba fan, deprecated), 00HM903 (Toshiba), 04X3916 (AVC) and 04X3918 (Delta).

From user experience, the Delta and Toshiba variants are the quietest. Toshiba fan, deprecated should be avoided as those are fans reputable for making a lot of noise.

With Nvidia GPU cooling left, and iGPU only on the right

According to a user who upgraded the heatsink:

The only problem for me is that the dGPU (Nvidia Discrete GPU) fan makes a terrible noise in my opinion, so I decided to replace it by the iGPU (Intel only) fan.

So the best solution is probably a mix: use the iGPU fan, while using the dGPU heatsink.

RAM

The T440p supports So-dimm DDR3L (1.35v) RAM modules with up to 16GB Total RAM (2x 8GB). Max supported speed is 2133Mhz according to some users who successfully ran G-skill 2133Mhz 8GB CAS11 sticks.

G Skill 2133Mhz RAM installed and running!

While 2133Mhz RAM can increase performance a bit, those sticks are extremely hard to find and very expensive (be prepared to pay up to 200€ for 16GB RAM). Standard 16GB 1600Mhz 1.35v Sodimm cost about 80€ on Ebay.

If you find cheap 2133Mhz RAM, go for it. Otherwise, given RAM speed barely improves performance, 1600Mhz sticks will be fine. There is no point in paying more for the RAM than for the entire laptop.

HDD and SSD Storage

If you have an HDD (Mechanical Disk Drive), Upgrade to a SSD asap. Like said before, that’s the single most important bottleneck on the computer: disk speed. SSDs are easily 10x to 30x faster than HDDs, at the expense of storage space. SSDs cost nowadays about 80€ for a 500GB SATA III disk. 1000GB (1TB) HDD can be found around 50€.

But I have even better news:

Thinkpad T440p supports up to 3 storage devices.

How? By using the following tricks:

WwAN M2 Port: the WWAN card m2 port support an m2 2242 SSD. You can easily find a 256GB m2 2242 SSD for about 50€,

M2 slot can be filled with an M2 2242 SSD (up to 256GB)

2.5 inches disk bay: it’s the built-in disk bay which can be used to either put an HDD or an SSD,
Optical Drive Replacement: by using an an HDD Drive Caddy Adapter, you can mount a second HDD or SSD by removing the optical drive (which has no more use nowadays).

SATA Bay

Removing Optical Drive to fit an HDD bay

Generic SATA bay aren’t usually of best quality. According to saperkus, after a year or two of usage the HDD may not be recognized every few reboots. He suggest ThinkPad 9.5mm SATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter IV may be a much better deal. A gallery on imgur shows how to install it.

Generic (Chinese) SATA Bay which replaces the optical drive

ThinkPad 9.5mm SATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter IV (FRU 04X1602)

That makes it pretty easy to fit 2x1TB SSD along with a 256GB m2 SSD inside the machine for a whopping 2TB SSD Storage! Or, you could fit 2x 2TB HDDs to reach more than 4TB or storage inside a 14 inches laptop. This way, you can for example setup a RAID1 using mdadm on linux with the 2x1TB HDDs while enjoying the lightning speed of the SSD for the operating system.

Keep in mind M.2 2242 SSD with only SATA interface are supported. Forget about NVMe ones. Some models to consider:

256GB ZTC Armor M.2 NGFF,
or Transcend TS256GMTS400.

AC Adapter

The T440p comes with a 135W AC Adapter (part number 20AN000GUS) by default. There is also a 170W AC Adapter. It can be wise to upgrade to the 170W adapter when using Intel Extreme Edition CPU, especially if you have an Nvidia GPU.

LCD Panel

Most T440p come with the crappy 1366x768 or 1600x900 TN LCD Panel. This TN panel has really poor colorimetric results and view angles. Most people change it for a better panel. According to a LCD list found on reddit, these are the panels you could use:

Make	Model	Type	Size	FRU	Coat	Color	Resp.	Cont.	View Angle	Bright.	Power
AUO	B140HAN01.1 (AUO113D)	IPS	FHD	?	Matte	16.2M	25ms	700:1	89	300 cd/m²	5.4W
AUO	B140HAN01.2 (AUO123D)	IPS	FHD	Y	Matte	16.2M	25ms	700:1	89	300 cd/m²	5.4W
AUO	B140HAN01.3 (AUO133D)	IPS	FHD	?	Matte	16.2M	25ms	700:1	89	300 cd/m²	5.4W
AUO	B140HAN01.4	IPS	FHD	?	Matte	16.2M	25ms	700:1	89	200 cd/m²	NA
LG	LP140WF3-SPD1 (LGD046D)	IPS	FHD	?	Matte	262K	25ms	700:1	80	300 cd/m²	4.6W
Innolux	N140HCE-EN1 Rev. C2 (CMN14D2)	IPS	FHD	?	Matte	262K	25ms	700:1	89	300 cd/m²	3.98W

Showing LG LP140WF3-SPD1 LCD panel whose FRU is 04x5916

It’s an IPS panel. IPS panels have much better colorimetry and view angles than TN panels, but higher response time. After discussing with someone customizing a lot of T440p and selling them on Ebay, he suggested the LP140WF3-SPD1 (LGD046D) (FRU 04x5916) is the best for this laptop. Several users have reported better brightness and much better colorimetry, even compared to B140HAN01.2 or B140HAN01.3.

TN Panel (left) vs IPS Panel (right) on a Thinkpad T420. TN looks blueish while IPS is much more natural!

This is definitely a must have upgrade since the original TN panel is really awful. Those panels can be found around 50€ including shipping on Ebay too. If you plan to buy N140HCE-EN1 (CMN14D2), make sure to get Rev. C2 (thanks daftguy) as Rev C1 and Rev B3 have screws holes placed differently. The screen won’t fit in that case.

My two cents on how to find a good panel:

Avoid non-IPS: some sellers are selling non-IPS screens. IPS screens have better view angles and much better colorimetry,
Avoid Compatible Brands: compatible LCDs are usually cheaper chinese copies with issues like backlight bleeding, dead pixels or bad color calibration. Double check the seller’s description doesn’t include something like You may receive a compatible LCD if out of stock,
Seek 72% Color Gamut: the LCD panels mentioned above have 72% color gamut (which is pretty good). If you find another brand, use PaneLook to check the LCD specs,
Be prepared to pay a higher price: original LP140WF3-SPD1 or N140HCE-EN1 Rev. C2 are usually more expensive than compatible brands. But always double check, some sellers buy compatible screens at high prices too,
Buy on different websites: If you can’t find any on Ebay, try AliExpress.

Always make sure the item description doesn’t talk about compatible LCD. Here is a video explaining how to replace the LCD (takes about 15 minutes).

T440p LCD can be replaced easily!

You can also Download the T440p maintenance manual and check the instructions from Chapter 9, sub-section 2010.

Trackpad

Some people complain about the flat touchpad introduced on the T440 series. The T450s touchpad can be retrofitted on the T440p.

Old vs new trackpad (see reddit topic)

The thing is the touchpad exists with two brands:

Synaptics (preferred),
And Alps.

Here is how to differentiate them: look at the back.

Synaptics vs Alps Trackpad

Let’s see the differences between them.

Thinkpad T450 Synaptics Trackpad

Also a Thinkpad T450 Synaptics Trackpad

Synaptics. Notice the (red/blue) buttons at the top, the double-lined sticker with B149220xx, the ‘dots’ in the metal backplate, the embossed number near the bottom. The Synaptics trackpad has rugged metal backplate and visible button clips. Sadly, it’s even more complicated than that.

Thinkpad T450 Alps Trackpad

The Alps trackpad has smooth metal backplate.

Alps or Synaptics?

This is either another Alps Crap-Pad or a Synaptics Knock-Off. It has the dots, but wrong buttons, wrong sticker, no embossed number.

Make sure to always buy the Synaptics trackpad. Unfortunately, many trackpads sold on Ebay by chinese sellers are Alps. Ask the seller if not sure, but also double-check the item pictures.

You will possibly have the following issues:

Drivers on Windows 10: For W10 drivers, you need to change the Group Policy to stop W10 from updating drivers all the time. Otherwise, on each reboot, Windows 10 will overwrite the driver with the broken one rendering the trackpad unusable,
Difficult to replace: the touchpad replacement requires you to tear down the computer completely.

Most users report the Synaptics touchpad works better than Alps. Here is a possible fix to the trackpad driver issue on Windows 10. If you’re using Linux or even macOS on your T440p, you won’t experience the drivers issue faced with Windows 10.

Thanks to T440/p CLUNKPAD: Pics and installation of T450 Synaptics and Alps Touchpad+buttons, here are the procedures to install those trackpads (after replacement) on a t440p on Windows 7/10.

Disable Windows 10 Drivers Update

Only Works for Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Enterprise Edition:

Open Device Manager:

Right-click on the Touchpad (not the network adapter like shown) and select properties,

Select the Details tab and Hardware Ids from the Property select box,

Copy those ids into a text editor to keep them for later use,
Open Windows Group Manager via Start Menu, then type gpedit.msc,

Select System > Device Installation > Device Installation Restrictions and setting Prevent Installation of devices that match any of these Device IDs,

Windows Device Installation Restrictions

Then switch it to Enabled, then click on Show... button to edit devices IDs,

Put the previously copied hardware ids of the touchpad:

Click on ‘OK’.

You should then get an error message when Windows Update tries to install a new driver for that device. That’s expected! For more information, see How to Prevent Windows from Automatically updating drivers.

T450 Synaptics Driver in a T440/T440p

Setup

Download the latest Synaptics T450 driver from Lenovo, do not install yet!
Go to Control Panel\Programs and Uninstall your current Synaptics/Alps drivers,
Reboot,
Doubleclick the T450 driver you just downloaded, run it, but UNtick the option to install now. It will unpack to C:\DRIVERS\Win\UNAV,
Go to C:\DRIVERS\Win\UNAV\WinWDF\X64\SynPD.inf for 64-bit (or X86\SynPD.inf for 32-bit),
Edit SynPD.inf: Find and delete all lines with LEN0036 in it. Find all lines with LEN200E and change LEN200E into LEN0036. Save the file. LEN0036 is the T440 hardware ID for both clunkpad and touchpad+buttons. LEN200E is the T450 hardware ID for the touchpad+buttons,
Go to C:\DRIVERS\Win\UNAV and doubleclick on Setup.exe. When Windows complains about unsigned stuff, click on Install anyway,
Reboot.

ALPS driver in a T440/T440p

How to install an ALPS touchpad+buttons driver in a T440/T440p:

Download this (Lenovo Yoga 14) ALPS driver: gh09ww.exe, do not install yet!
Go to Control Panel\Programs and Uninstall your current Synaptics/Alps drivers,
Reboot,
Doubleclick the ALPS driver you just downloaded, run it, but UNtick the option to install now. It will unpack to C:\DRIVERS\Win\ALPSUNAV,
Go to C:\DRIVERS\Win\ALPSUNAV\Vi64\Apfiltr.inf for 64-bit (or Vi32\Apfiltr.inf for 32-bit),
Edit Apfiltr.inf: There are NO lines with LEN0036 in it, so we use another (not needed) LENxxxx one. Instead, find all lines with LEN002D and change LEN002D into LEN0036. Save the file. LEN0036 is the T440 hardware ID for the clunkpad. LEN002D is an UNKNOWN TO ME hardware ID, but it’s not needed here,
Go to C:\DRIVERS\Win\ALPSUNAV and doubleclick on Setup.exe. When Windows complains about unsigned stuff, click on Install anyway,
Reboot.

Keyboard

Keyboards can be replaced too. I’m going to replace the QWERTY backlit keyboard with a French Azerty (FRU 04x0112).

There are four keyboard vendors who made keyboards for the t440p:

Chicony: FRU 04x0101,
LiteON: FRU 04x0139,
Primax,
And Sunrex.

According to a user:

I was able to compare two of them - Chicony (FRU 04x0101) and LiteON (backlit QWERTY US layout, FRU 04x0139). LiteOn was superior in case of build quality, typing feeling and backlit (it wasn’t hurting my eyes, like Chicony’s keyboard).

You can also find a comparison between Chicony and LiteOn Keyboard where the user prefers the Chicony. I think this is really a matter of personal taste. I guess most people will be fine with both of them.

Wi-fi Card

Wifi card is easy to physically replace

The most commonly replacement card being used is the DW1820A, especially if you want to hackintosh the T440p. Other than that, you may want to replace the original wifi card because it doesn’t support the 802.11AC protocol, which claims up to 867Mbps bandwidth.

The thing is, you probably need a bios mod otherwise the laptop may reject the wi-fi card due to Wi-fi whitelist. Not sure why Lenovo annoys the users with Wi-fi white lists, anyway I found bios 2.32 to 2.35 may have buggy whitelist:

There is a bug in 2.32-2.35 BIOS versions on T440 and T440s that allows to use an unbranded Wi-Fi (looks like the whitelist isn’t checked due to the bug). Most probably there is the same bug on T440p.

If your bios is older, try to upgrade it to 2.32 and put the new wi-fi card in. Also, avoid upgrading the bios to the latest version as usually there is no possiblity to downgrade it, or downgrades may be restricted.

Battery

There are 3 different batteries available:

6 cell (48Wh) so called 57. This battery was primarly shipped with Thinkpad L440 and L540,
6 cell (56Wh) called 57+,
and 9 cell (99Wh) called 57++. This battery is slightly bigger than the battery slot, creating a convenient handle.

With the 9 cell battery, you can expect up to 7h battery life (14W per hour are consumed on lowest brightness).

Software Upgrades

Bios Mod

Remember the bios mod I did on the Helios 500? You can do the same on the T440p. Another forum to look for is Bios Mods. Dude2002 is a well known guy who can mod you bios within 30min once submitted!

Bios chip is located near RAM sticks, directly accessible by removing cover

Bios mods are for a good reasons:

Wi-fi Whitelist: if you wish to install a new wifi-card (to replace the stock Intel card) like the DW1560. By default, the bios blocks any unauthorized wifi card which is not white-listed by Lenovo,
Advanced Menu Unlock: advanced menu unlocking can enable features like CPU and RAM overclocking and other very advanced features (like adjusting DVMT memory for hackintosh).

In most cases, modding the bios is useful to install macOS on the T440p. Undervolting the CPU directly from bios is a plus too: you don’t have to mess with Intel XTU or ThrottleStop to lower the CPU voltage.

Intel XTU / ThrottleStop

Intel XTU and ThrottleStop are useful software to tweak the CPU settings. Most people use it to undervolt the CPU.

Undervolting consists of lowering the CPU voltage to decrease CPU power consumption. Main benefits are high battery life, cooler CPU operation and lower fan noise.

Of course, you can’t lower the CPU voltage beyong a certain threshold because the CPU will become unstable. Your system may crash. The good news is you can’t harm the hardware by doing so. Better than 1000 words, here is a video explaining how to undervolt your CPU.

Lowering CPU Temp is interesting to extend CPU and battery life

Hackintosh

The T440p is also popular because macOS can be installed on it thanks to Rehabman.

High Sierra 10.13.6 and Mojave 10.14.1 have been reported to work fine too!

There is an excellent guide on TonyMacx86 and you should also find tons of help on InsanelyMac.

the T440p will easily match the performance of a 2018 MacBook Pro 13 inches which costs 1800+€ with a quad core Intel 8th generation 8259u. All of that for about 500€, which is about 4x cheaper than the macbook.

The downside? It requires advanced technical knowledge to get a t440p working on macOS. It’s not unfeasable, but it’s difficult for beginners. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, I encourage you to buy a macbook pro. Much easier, but costly.

When you build a hackintosh, you essentially trade ease of use for money.

Funny thing, some people are even ditching their Macbook to get used thinkpads. The reason?

I just missed being able to upgrade my laptop and the T440p offered that.

Final Thoughts

I hope I haven’t missed anything important related to the T440p possible mods and upgrades. It took me some effort to build this article, neverless I think it’s worth it! While all those information was readily available from various websites, I felt it would be really useful to have them all in a single place.

The Thinkpad T440p is a fantastic machine which really deserves to be known by the folks. If you feel like something is missing or incorrect, feel free to post a comment!

Tags:

Comments (115)

Jaroslav Benc Thursday, Nov 15, 2018 at 14:27 UTC

Hi Jérôme, Thanks heaps for this post, made me buy one T440p on ebay and fine tune it using your suggestions!

One question regarding CPUs, any experience with aliexpress in this regards? eg. https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20181115062349&SearchText=I7+4702MQ Can’t find many CPUs on ebay so aliexpress looks like a good option?

Thanks again! Cheers, Jaro
- Jerome Friday, Nov 16, 2018 at 09:25 UTC
  In reply to Jaroslav Benc
  
  Hi Jaroslav, There are a lot of CPUs available on Aliexpress. It’s always worth looking on several websites to find good deals. I think mobile Core i7 4th generation are currently a bit overpriced, certainly because those CPUs are still performing well nowadays. Ebay is a bit starved on those CPUs these days.
  
  I have ordered many items on Aliexpress without any issue so far. Never ordered CPUs there, but should be a problem if they are genuine. Make sure the seller has already sold some units with good reviews.
Jaroslav Benc Monday, Nov 19, 2018 at 14:45 UTC

Hi Jerome, cool that sounds good, thanks again for all the information!
Sigi Wednesday, Nov 28, 2018 at 08:02 UTC

Hi Jerome,

I’ve tried to pull the BIOS using the SOP8/SOIC clamp but I can’t seem to get a grip on the chip.. I am not sure if these are my fatty fingers or I need to disassemble the whole unit to get the mobo out? I’d assume there’s enough space without it, but seeing as the clamp is constantly ‘slipping off’ I was wondering how did you do it?
- Jerome Wednesday, Nov 28, 2018 at 08:09 UTC
  In reply to Sigi
  
  Hi, I haven’t modded the bios yet. I haven’t had the need to. I think there is not enough space to clamp the clip, you need to remove the entire backpanel.
- Sparda Monday, May 3, 2021 at 11:35 UTC
  In reply to Sigi
  
  There’s not many space for the clip, but even with my big fingers, i managed to put it on the chip, to dump and modify it then flash it back.
  
  No need to remove the backplate,but there’s definitely not much place. This is tricky.
Trov Thursday, Dec 6, 2018 at 05:11 UTC

There is one more interesting mod I’ve only seen in a couple posts here and there:

Supposedly, some sellers on Taobao are selling the Haswell CPUs (i7-4770HQ, 4780HQ) used in the 2015 Macbook Pro, soldered onto an LGA adapter board. This allows what are normally BGA CPUs to be installed into the T440p, granting Intel Iris Pro integrated graphics. It should be a notable boost over the GT 730M.

I’m going to try it for myself and see what happens.
- Jerome Friday, Dec 7, 2018 at 09:25 UTC
  In reply to Trov
  
  Hi Trov, I haven’t mentioned this upgrade because this upgrade is risky. Out of 3 people who tried the upgrade on Reddit, it did only work for one. I wouldn’t advise this upgrade for this reason. Also, Taobao is in chinese, which makes it difficult to order a CPU. Anyway, let me know if you could upgrade it successfully!
- Marcin Wednesday, Apr 17, 2019 at 16:39 UTC
  In reply to Trov
  
  hello,
  
  please, tell me, how to put i7-4980hq into T440p? Is there any suitable adapter?
Graz Saturday, Dec 8, 2018 at 08:46 UTC

Hello, I’m glad I found this blog because it corresponds to what I experienced independently. We have the same vision of things, it’s nice. I do not like 2 things about the T440p: The m.2 slot is not full The loss of the HDD led Do you know any changes to add the activity led? Thank you.
- Jerome Wednesday, Dec 12, 2018 at 09:18 UTC
  In reply to Graz
  
  Hi Graz, the wan card slot can be used with a m2 SSD up to 512GB. I don’t mind having no HDD led, it’s not really useful especially with SSDs.
Bart Tuesday, Dec 18, 2018 at 15:48 UTC

Hi Jérôme, your post sealed the deal and I bought T440p as replacement for X230 last week. I bought my unit on eBay from German seller in basic config i5-4300M/4 GB RAM/320 GB HDD/768p screen for €117. Unit is in almost perfect condition, there are white points on screen but since it is low resolution one I will be changing this to FHD IPS sometime soon. It came with 90W power adapter and my unit doesn’t have fingerprint reader. HDD was clean and there is a Windows 7 license sticker underneath battery. Battery lasts for ~2 hours on medium load. Security chip was Inactive. Intel AT Enabled and Computrace disabled. I tried to look for genuine screens that are recommended but it is not easy thing. I came across a lot of auctions where seller was offering replacement for genuine part which sucks and make the search for good part more difficult. Maybe it will be worth to mention this somewhere in your post, alongside with information to check if there are passwords set up and AT and Computrace activated. Same goes for the touchpad, most of them are crappy ALPS. It is possible to find Synaptics but price is higher, of course :) Anyway, great job with detailing what can be upgraded and what parts are best to use.
- Jerome Tuesday, Dec 18, 2018 at 16:03 UTC
  In reply to Bart
  
  Hi Bart, That’s a good price for a used units nowadays. You will also have to replace the keyboard as the German t440p have QWERTZ keyboards. You’re right: it’s important to check there is no bios password set within the auction description. It’s very difficult to get ride of a bios password. Usually, it ends with a motherboard replacement.
  
  I also had a hard time finding a Synaptics T450 Trackpad and paid almost 35€ for a used one pulled from a T450 (thankfully, in good condition). Mine came with a 65w AC Adapter from a UK seller.
Bart Friday, Dec 21, 2018 at 15:49 UTC

Hi Jérôme, update to my previous post: I bought other parts and now I am awaiting deliveries :) Also I noticed that coils in my unit are whining, but only when I am booted to Linux. In Windows they are quiet. Breakdown of prices: *Item bought outside Poland are shipped to Ireland, where I live currently. It made more sense this time of year when I could missed delivery because it took longer than during less busy time of year. Parts bought in Poland are shipped domestic (flying home on holidays). T440p: €117 + €25 shipping (ex-office, Germany) SSD 2.5: I am using one I had lying around HDD 1 TB (in optic drive bay): as above Screen: €70 + €6 shipping (it is darn hard to find LG screen in Europe. Eventually I bought brand new B140HAN01.3 from UK seller) Keyboard: €40 + €17 shipping (US layout, backlight, used, Germany) T450 touchpad (genuine Synaptics): €33 + €2 shipping (used, Poland) CPU - I7 4702MQ: €80 + €2 shipping (used, Poland) Dock station: €27 + €2 (used, with keys, Poland) Total: Laptop + parts = €367 | £331 | $419 shipping = €54 | £47 | $62

Shipping cost from Germany are crazy. It is recommended to check with store if the offered screen is the model you really want to buy. I went through many offers advertised as LP140WF3-SPD1 and send few email to find out that most of them are in fact B140HAN01.3 or similar. When comes to keyboard I found out that sometimes seller describes one as unit with backlight but after asking for details turns out it is 3rd party keyboard without backlight. So frustrating. I bought as well programmer and SOIC8 clip for €11. Planning to do BIOS mod in near future.
- Jerome Friday, Dec 21, 2018 at 19:00 UTC
  In reply to Bart
  
  Hi Bart, Thanks for the update! Which hdd bay did you use? I ordered one from China and sadly got a defective / non-compatible one. Mine only works with an old 250GB 2.5 inches hdd. It doesn’t work with a 1TB hdd: the disk is recognized but not readable. In France, we use AZERTY keyboard which are rather expensive: it’s about 50€ + shipping for an azerty backlit keyboard. Thankfully, I could sell the original QWERTY keyboard shipped with my T440p for about 30€ + shipping to cover part of the expense. I ended up ordering the keyboard on AliExpress and got a brand new azerty keyboard with backlit for 38€ shipped. Sadly this seller stopped selling them after.
  
  You got a pretty good deal on the CPU! Most Haswell mobile CPUs are well overpriced on Ebay from my opinion: they range from 100€ to 150+€! Overall mine costed me a bit more: 500€ for the laptop with 4712MQ, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD, FHD IPS Panel (LG). I upgraded it with: T450 trackpad (35€), azerty keyboard (38€), TP-Link Nano Wifi (8€), hdd bay (6€). That’s about 560€ for the upgraded laptop, after selling replaced parts.
  
  If you plan to mod the bios, ask Dude2002 on bios-mods, he’ll mod your bios within a few hours if you donate some money for the work.
- Bart Sunday, Dec 23, 2018 at 15:36 UTC
  In reply to Bart
  
  Hi Jérôme, €500 isn’t that much considering that you planning to buy, upgrade and use this laptop for next few years. I would pay the same final price as you, if I would decide to buy m.2 drive and 16GB RAM. It is a pity that I cannot use msata drive because I have one I bought sometime ago. Few weeks of saving money and I’m buying m.2 drive.
  
  I’m using some cheap sata bay that I bought for T410. It is not compatible - there is a bit of plastic that needs to be removed in order to fit into T440p bay, but few minutes with nail file does the job perfectly. On the side note: my laptop was equipped with dummy sata drive and it’s perfect tool to keep the screw in groups while dissembling the device :)
  
  I’m planning to mod BIOS so thanks for tip, I will contact that guy when I will receive programmer (I hope it won’t take few months).
TayGumi Wednesday, Jan 2, 2019 at 19:37 UTC

Hey Cool Overview, short question. Is the Heatsink of the T440p and from the T540p the same or is the Heatsink on the T540p bigger?.
- Jerome Friday, Jan 4, 2019 at 09:08 UTC
  In reply to TayGumi
  
  Hi TayGumi, the Thinkpad T440p and T540p doesn’t have the same heatsink. T540p heatsink is bigger and the same as the w540 and w541 (the last one having the physical buttons trackpad).
  
  That being said, the T540p can be upgraded and modded as much as the T440p. It’s just a bit heavier (2.49kgs vs 2.13kgs) and has a bigger screen (15.4 vs 14.1 inches). The T540p supports up to 4 drives, which is pretty insane for a laptop! If you need to carry the laptop often, I would rather go for the T440p.
ThiccpadUser Saturday, Jan 5, 2019 at 11:01 UTC

Hey, I just wanted to ask, is this the last CPU upgradeable ThinkPad, and is it worth getting over the T430 (also greatly upgradeable) ?

Thanks ahead !
- Jerome Sunday, Jan 6, 2019 at 08:39 UTC
  In reply to ThiccpadUser
  
  Hi ThiccpadUser, the T440p supports the fatest Haswell Mobile CPU: the 4910MQ. Some people also report it works with the 4980HQ, which has a much better internal graphic card (Iris Pro 5200).
DarConall Wednesday, Feb 13, 2019 at 23:34 UTC

I got a T440p with the i7-4600M and 16GB of Ram for a total of 115. No SSD/HDD and there’s some slightly more white spots on the screen (they don’t actually bother me).I just ordered a 128GB SSD for 25 euro and a B140HAN01.3 for 50 euro (from China). Had the guy make me several pictures and confirm that he’ll be sending an exact model and not a copy or compatible panel (really wasn’t too sure he understood what I was saying).

The laptop is actually surprisingly fast with just the dual core i7, wasn’t expecting that. For a total of 190 including the (hopefully genuine) screen and ssd I can say it’s totally worth it.
- Jerome Monday, Feb 18, 2019 at 07:43 UTC
  In reply to DarConall
  
  You got an awesome deal!
Ross Sunday, Feb 17, 2019 at 15:23 UTC

I tried a new WiFi card on my t440p with 2.32 bios. Unfortunately the whitelist does work (I.e. I get the unauthorized WiFi card message). So I guess I’m looking at flashing the bios. Also, the WiFi card linked to above DW1560 will not work in the t440p - you need one with two slots in the connector edge like this one: DW1820A
Peter Tuesday, Feb 19, 2019 at 17:28 UTC

Hi i have 1 question, I have oportunity to buy NEW 20AN00E3GE for 680euro, but iam aftraid about nvidia card because ai i undesrtand if nvidia card fail i will be unable to run whole laptop right?
- Jerome Thursday, Feb 21, 2019 at 08:38 UTC
  In reply to Peter
  
  Hi Peter, I think it’s a bit pricey for the specs. For about 600€, you can build a grade A T440p with a 4900MQ, 16GB RAM, 512GB to 1TB SSD, FHD IPS screen and T450 Trackpad. That being said, the Nvidia GT730M doesn’t perform much better than the HD4600 integrated within the CPU, but adds up to power consumption (and heat). Also, the GT730M is another component prone to failure, so that’s another point to consider.
  
  I would prefer a T440p with the HD4600 only: better battery life, possible better reliability and overall same performance.
Carlos Carrillo Saturday, Feb 23, 2019 at 06:45 UTC

I’ve just bought an used T440p, because equipment renovation in my job. I supposed that a RAM update and replacing the HDD unit with an SSD is enough, but this laptop has great potential. Thank you and greetings.
- Jerome Monday, Feb 25, 2019 at 08:45 UTC
  In reply to Carlos Carrillo
  
  Hi Carlos, Glad you like your T440p! The upgrade which provide the greatest performance boost are, as you already know, replacing the HDD by a SSD and upgrading to 8GB or even 16GB RAM. The i5 4300m is very close to a 4700MQ in single threaded tasks, which makes it a good choice when you only use the laptop for internet browsing, light photo editing and writing.
volmanal Saturday, Mar 2, 2019 at 01:36 UTC

I currently have a L440 I have upgraded the screen to an IPS 1080p, SSD, hard drive caddy and 16 gb of ram. Will the M2 2242 SSD work in the L440’s also?
Kris Wednesday, Mar 6, 2019 at 20:21 UTC

Thanks for the information you shared on your site! I upgraded the LCD to the LG 1080p display and it a huge improvement! One problem I had was that the display worked during the BIOS boot screen but would not work in Windows, the solution was to change the video memory in the BIOS from 256MB to 512MB now it works fine. Hope it can help someone else!
Carlos Carrillo Friday, Mar 8, 2019 at 05:43 UTC

Hi: as you said in your answer to my previous comment, my T440p has a Core i5 4300M. But I’ve founded an used Core i7 4600m CPU, the seller’s description says that runs at 3.60 GHz with a TDP of 37 W. You don’t talk about this CPU in this page, so I want to know: it’s a good CPU updating option? Thanks for your information.
- Jerome Friday, Mar 8, 2019 at 07:11 UTC
  In reply to Carlos Carrillo
  
  Hi Carlos, The i7 4600m is a dual-core CPU, like the i5 4300m. You won’t see any major improvement upgrading to this CPU from the i5 4300m. Seek for a i7 4700MQ (or any other haswell quad core), those are usually the cheapest Haswell quad-cores you can get. The price will probably be close to the i7 4600m, but the CPU has 4 cores instead of 2.
  
  That being said, the i5 4300m is surprisingly good if you don’t need higher multi-threading performance.
Neal Saturday, Mar 9, 2019 at 17:09 UTC

Hi Jerome, GREAT webpage you have here! (Thumbs up!) I actually live in the U.S. (Texas, to be exact), where these computers, and parts, are cheaper. I currently have 5 of the T440p ThinkPads, including my “Daily Driver” ( I collect ThinkPads, and have 50, or so)

i7-4700 (soon to be i7-4810) nVidia GeForce GT730m HD4600 16gb/PC3-12800 512gb SamSung EVO 860 SSD 1tb HGST/7200rpm HDD in the drive bay Backlit keyboard 1600x900 panel. Total invested? $325 USD.

IMHO, The T440p, is the best computer ever built, by anyone, at any, given time.

I bought mine three years ago, broken, off Ebay for $100 USD. I haven’t changed the display, simply because I use it with a 32" HP Gaming Monitor. Speaking of gaming, I do a lot of it, and I’m going to disagree with you here JUST a LITTLE bit :).

The HD4600 isn’t half bad for just about any older games. Sims 2 is smooth as glass on high settings, as is Mass Effect, and Mass Effect 2, among many others.

I find the GT730m Graphics chipset to be 25-30% better than the on-board graphics, which means 25-30% better performance, and 25-30% more games you can play with great frame rates, if you tweak your nVidia software, even a little better. I play Skyrim, Sims 3/and 4, Mass Effect 3, The Long Dark, and several other decent games with VERY comfortable frame rates, with no hitches, or problems.

If you’r GT730m goes out, it’s because the heat sink to the GPU is slightly bent. Some come from the factory that way. This causes poor contact between the heat sink and GPU. You NEED to closely examine the heat sink on ANY T440p/nVidia you purchase, and either carefully adjust it, or replace it with another one. I’ve been repairing computers since 1978, and when on-board GPU’s came out, a bent heat sink was almost ALWAYS the culprit.

All my T440p’s have the nVidia chipset. I’ve NEVER had any problems with throttling, or excessive heat. All perform beautifully. Check your heat sink!
- Jerome Saturday, Mar 9, 2019 at 19:07 UTC
  In reply to Neal
  
  Hi Neal, First of all, thanks for your awesome feedback! It makes sense for most people to stick with the HD4600 because they don’t game with such laptop. The T440p is great, but not well suited for gaming. But, it’s still good to know the GT730m is providing a nice graphics performance boost. Have you heard about the 4980HQ? Some people put a 4980HQ in their T440p. The Iris Pro Graphics is even faster than the GT730m.
Ragnar Friday, Apr 5, 2019 at 17:08 UTC

I bought my old work laptop T440p last year, which is decently specced with 16GB, SSD, Nvidia graphics, 4810MQ and fullhd IPS display. The trouble is (and the reason I got a new one, bought this one for low price) that the display has brownish/yellowish hue around the edges. The middle area is fine. It’s usable for normal work, but this is annoying. I wonder if anyone has seen this happen? I will replace the display and the mousepad which I passionately hate.
- Jerome Tuesday, Apr 9, 2019 at 05:55 UTC
  In reply to Ragnar
  
  Hi Ragnar, This is pretty usual. Most T440p come with the TN 1366x768 14 inches panel. It seems like this panel doesn’t age very well. I have bought multiple t440p with worn out displays: I don’t really care since I immediately replace it with the FullHD one.
Jack Monday, Apr 15, 2019 at 17:02 UTC

Hi, very nice article, that convinced me to purchase a t440p! I bought a trackpad from ebay (alps version unfortunately, but if it works its ok for me ). The problem is that it is stuck at lenovo boot logo without giving chance to get into bios, with old trackpad instead it works perfectly, any suggestions on what to do? Google it’s not my friend in this case as I can’t find any help online. Thank you !
- Jerome Friday, Apr 26, 2019 at 08:41 UTC
  In reply to Jack
  
  Hi Jack, not sure what happens in your case. Maybe you have a defective trackpad and need to replace it. Both Alps and Synaptics trackpads should work fine.
Cesar Marzan Monday, Apr 22, 2019 at 21:25 UTC

Nice writeup, I love this laptop, just wish I could stuff an NVMe drive somewhere… but no PCIe Lanes available…

Also wish I could keep the keyboard backlight on.
- Jerome Friday, Apr 26, 2019 at 08:43 UTC
  In reply to Cesar Marzan
  
  Hi Cesar, NVMe SSDs are indeed very fast. But, you won’t really feel any difference compared to a SATA SSDs unless you need to move large files on a regular basis.
Corky Saturday, Apr 27, 2019 at 18:28 UTC

Great write up ! Is there a WiFi card that includes a GSM mobile sim card slot ? And are any of the DVD player / burners better or worse than the original ? Are the DVD players locked to a region? Thanks for your help
gheorghe Wednesday, May 1, 2019 at 15:08 UTC

Hi, thanks for the good manual. I bought myself a t440p and I am starting to upgrade it slowly to the spec you have recommended here. I have such a question: did you tried to install 32 or 64 GB of RAM? I have 16 GB installed, but something is telling me that t440p might support more than this. I am asking because I realized today that my older thinkpad x201 can support 16 GB, although everywhere is mentioned only the use of max 8 GB RAM.
- Jerome Monday, Jun 3, 2019 at 08:29 UTC
  In reply to gheorghe
  
  Hi gheorghe, It’s not possible to install more than 16GB RAM in the T440p. The Intel CPU simply doesn’t support more. Some people already tried putting 32GB RAM and it failed.
Luis Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 23:34 UTC

Hi Neal!,

Do you have some pics of the heat sink to the GPU bent?, i would like to see any pic of this to be alert in case an t440p with nvidia come to my hands! My t440p doesn’t have nvidia card, but I begin to put another 8GB RAM, in the weekend will change the display…just to begin the mods!!…Yes it’s a great laptop!
- Jerome Monday, Jun 3, 2019 at 08:31 UTC
  In reply to Luis
  
  Hi Luis, there are pics of the GPU heat sink already within this article. The T440p with Nvidia graphics is only slightly faster than integrated Intel HD Graphics. It’s not worth it.
Sara Friday, May 24, 2019 at 14:59 UTC

Hello Jerome, looks like this screen is the one that you recommended, but i can’t find the FRU. Is this ok for a t440p? Thank you!
- Jerome Monday, Jun 3, 2019 at 08:53 UTC
  In reply to Sara
  
  Hi Sara,
  
  Make sure to ask the seller if it’s a genuine LCD panel (and not a compatible one). Ask them which LCD they have in stock (if any). Don’t buy any compatible LCD as those are generally of poorer quality. I bought mine on Aliexpress but got one with several dead pixels, so I wouldn’t recommend the seller which I bought the unit from.
  
  Finding a genuine / good brand LCD panel requires some luck and lot of patience.
SY Wednesday, May 29, 2019 at 23:08 UTC

Hi Jerome, Thanks very much for a very detailed guide about the T440p. After reading through your guide I acquired a T440p (i5-4300M) recently and just started to tweak the system.

I would like learn more about about your experience on using the Intel XTU to undervolt the T440p. When I load XTU, I got a warning saying that the machine does not support Intel Watchdog. Did that happen with your machine? Could you advise on how might it be possible for me to deal with it? Without the Intel Watchdog I am very reluctant to try and test different configurations for undervolting since I am afraid it would break the machine.

Also, is it possible for you to post the processor model and the undervolt config that worked for you ? I understand that it’s different for each processor, but would like to get a sense of what the numbers may be like since I am new to undervolting CPU.

Thanks in advance for your help.
- Jerome Monday, Jun 3, 2019 at 08:36 UTC
  In reply to SY
  
  Hi SY, I’m not using Intel XTU as mine was running on Ubuntu Linux. There is an equivalent software to undervolt on linux called Undervolt. Most of my Haswell mobile Intel CPUs could be undervolted about -50mV to -75mV. Those chips seem not well suited for undervolting.
  
  As an example, my recent Intel Coffee Lake 8750h runs fine with -200mV undervolt (through bios this time).
  
  The T440p works just fine without undervolting so I wouldn’t bother tweaking the CPU voltage. That being said, you can expect to squeeze a little bit more battery life by doing so.
Roger Friday, Jun 7, 2019 at 09:12 UTC

I have a T440s that I purchased in 2014. The only upgrade I’ve done so far is a Samsung 1TB SSD. That alone made a huge difference. I am also considering upgrading the original 1600x900 screen to a 1920x1080. However, I am wondering how much of the details you have written about for the T440p can be applied to the T440s that I have. Also, I have an i5 and was thinking about upgrading to an i7. Would your instructions/recommendations apply to my laptop as well? Thanks so much for the details!
- Jerome Thursday, Jun 20, 2019 at 10:05 UTC
  In reply to Roger
  
  Hi Roger, I don’t really know the T440s, however it seems quite different because it relies on a ULV Intel CPU. The chassis is also a bit different (thinner). You can’t swap the CPU of a T440s, but you can definitely swap the LCD panel. However, the screens suitable for the T440s might be different. I suggest you to ask on Reddit Thinkpads. It’s the single most valuable resource regarding Thinkpads.
jack Sunday, Jun 23, 2019 at 21:54 UTC

Can t440p use eGPU?It seems ngff m2 wifi card can link eGPU.But I searched this on Google found no tutorial.Thanks!
- Jerome Wednesday, Jan 29, 2020 at 14:16 UTC
  In reply to jack
  
  Hi Jack, Sorry for the late reply, I think it’s possible to use an eGPU on the T440p but haven’t found anything relevant too. Many people asking how to do it on Reddit, but none of them sees to tackle it. Anyway, I’ve seen a few videos of eGPU on laptops on Youtube and it seems like it’s painful to setup when you don’t have thunderbolt. Many compatibility issues too. So I would advise against doing this.
Dean Sioukas Sunday, Jan 26, 2020 at 04:24 UTC

Thank you so much for the amazing write up. It helped me make great choices when building my T440P. I wanted to share my USB-C mod for the T440P which came out great.

https://2000c43.com/blog/usbct440p
- Jerome Wednesday, Jan 29, 2020 at 14:11 UTC
  In reply to Dean Sioukas
  
  Hi Dean, That’s a nice mod! It’s quite difficult since it requires some tools and soldering skill. You could sell USB-C charging cables as a drop-in replacement of the original ac adapter cable.
Giannis Mavridis Wednesday, Jan 29, 2020 at 11:11 UTC

I just wanted to thank you for your nice work and efford. You inspired me to get rid of my desktop and use T440p as my only machine.
- Jerome Wednesday, Jan 29, 2020 at 14:09 UTC
  In reply to Giannis Mavridis
  
  Hi Giannis, Glad you enjoyed this tutorial! The T440p is really a versatile laptop. A bit heavy to carry, but it’s really tough. I keep one for holidays. That way, I don’t need to take my expensive workstation laptop when on vacation.
Lars Thursday, Feb 20, 2020 at 15:49 UTC

It seems there is another screen compatible with the t440p : the BOE NV140FHM-N41

More info here :

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/dds6cn/opinions_on_t440p_fhd_panels_i_think_ive_narrowed/
- Jerome Friday, Feb 21, 2020 at 08:26 UTC
  In reply to Lars
  
  Hi Lars, Thanks for the info! The BOE NV140FHM-N41 seems to have only 262K colors, which should position it at 42% sRGB coverage. With a max power consumption of 4.1W (vs 4.6W for the LG panel), it’s less power hungry.
  
  It seems like this panel equips the Lenovo Yoga 510. I wouldn’t recommend it as it has a PWM frequency of 350Hz (screen flickering) which may result in eye strain. On the other side, the LG panel has a PWM frequency of 21370Hz (see Razor Blade 2017 Review).
  
  Given the specs of this panel, I would still recommend the LG panel.
Cla Thursday, Feb 20, 2020 at 23:57 UTC

Hi - I bought a used T440p, followed the guide to replace some parts, but it turned out that the sim card socket/slot was completely destroyed - I removed the metal case and the plastic underneath from the system board. Now, it is all blank and the contacts are visible, but I wonder what I could buy to solder there now (the sim card socket has no FRU I am afraid). What could I do? Is there anyone who could fix a similar problem?
- Jerome Friday, Feb 21, 2020 at 08:29 UTC
  In reply to Cla
  
  Hi Cla, I would simply replace the motherboard in that case. The sim card socket / slot cannot be purchased separately.
Lars Saturday, Feb 22, 2020 at 09:04 UTC

I talked to a redditor that said : “the NE140FHM-N61. It should be the best FHD panel for this laptop for now since it’s the low power 400 nits T490 panel.”

http://www.panelook.com/modeldetail.php?id=38601
- Jerome Monday, Feb 24, 2020 at 08:07 UTC
  In reply to Lars
  
  Hi Lars, according to Lenovo T490 review on notebookcheck, this panel has PWM too (2427Hz). While it provides an excellent color coverage (92.2% of sRGB), the response time is between 44ms (black to white) and 71ms (grey to grey).
Daniel Sunday, Feb 23, 2020 at 15:25 UTC

ThinkPad T440p i7-4800MQ 8GB DDR3 240GB SSD Video Card: Intel HD4400 14.0" HD TN anti-glare (1366 x 768) 6 months warranty

Is this a good deal for 265 euros?
- Jerome Monday, Feb 24, 2020 at 08:13 UTC
  In reply to Daniel
  
  Hi Daniel, It seems a pretty decent deal considering the CPU alone is already worth about 100€.
Jim Sunday, Feb 23, 2020 at 19:54 UTC

Hi Jerome,

Thanks for the extensive review. I am on the lookout for building a T440P. The only thing that is not clear to me is which screen is considered the best so I would like your thought on this. Could you also elaborate on this: “Always make sure the item description doesn’t talk about compatible LCD”.If you could send me some links that would be great. Thank you!
- Jerome Monday, Feb 24, 2020 at 08:16 UTC
  In reply to Jim
  
  Hi Jim, Just make sure you get the advertised panel, not a “compatible” one. Compatible LCD panels are equivalent to branded LCD but have usually lesser quality (lower color coverage, higher response time). Definitely not worth the money when you spend a lot to get a genuine LG panel and receive a cheap chinese copy instead.
  
  So, always double-check with the seller the panel he has in stock to make sure this is what you want.
Victor Friday, Feb 28, 2020 at 09:27 UTC

Are screens listed as 72% NTSC without the brand are safe to buy as good replacements? About 25 euro more than the “compatible” IPS screens. Sellers probably know most people won’t be able to measure the gamut for themselves. I notice that a few of the cheapest panels list themselves as being made by AU Optronics but I have a feeling they aren’t. If they were, then they wouldn’t be so coy about showing the labels on the back of the screens.
- Jerome Monday, Mar 2, 2020 at 09:46 UTC
  In reply to Victor
  
  Hi Victor,
  
  Always double-check with the seller which screen is sent. Even thought the screen is marked as compatible (with the initial advertised screen having 72% NTSC), there is no guarantee the compatible screen has the same color coverage.
tkdwkthr Friday, Mar 6, 2020 at 13:40 UTC

Hello,

I have been looking everywhere to buy a replacement screen LG LP140WF3-SPD1 on places like ebay, alibaba, aliexpress, even contacted some suppliers on “panelook.com” but all I could found were compatible screens. Could you please provide me with some websites I could look into? Or maybe even specific listings? That would be a huge help.

Thanks in advance
Dave Sunday, Mar 8, 2020 at 15:22 UTC

Thanks for the lovely guide!

At first I was skeptical but later I decided to buy it… and it was my best decision ever! Story: I actually had enough money for a brand new notebook but I like the idea of getting a used one. More environmentally friendly and the performance is sufficient. …and as a student you always want to save money. more beer for me

Currently I have the T440P ~150€ with the basic I5-4300MQ. Upgraded it with 16 GB RAM (HyperX DDR3L ~2133MHz) ~80€ + 500 GB SSD (Samsung 860 EVO) ~70€ + FHD IPS Display (LG LP140WF3-SPD1) ~80€. There are still a few things coming in for the future. ♥
Noxemo Monday, Apr 6, 2020 at 13:25 UTC

Thx for very helpful article about this laptop. I was looking for desktop like computer and this buyers guide convinced me to buy t440p. Got one for around 260$ (1100PLN) with i7-4702mq, 16gb of ram (1600) and 480 ssd with dedicated graphic. Recently upgraded the screen from 1600x900 TN to B140HAN01.3 and added extra 1TB in hdd caddy. I’m very satisfied with this machine.
James Friday, Apr 17, 2020 at 05:44 UTC

Thanks for a great article, it’s an inspiration and gives me a project! I’m in Australia so we tend to pay a bit more for things so don’t freak out about the prices ;) I’ve ebayed the stuff I need - had to go with a compatible >.< screen BI40HAN01.3 but at least they are upfront about it and are in Australia. So I’m really looking forward to putting this all together. All up it’s about AUD 770 and I’ll be turning it into a dev laptop dual boot Linux and W10 Pro

AUD 250 - Lenovo Thinkpad T440p 14" Intel i5-4300M @2.60 4GB RAM 500GB HDD Win 10 Pro AUD 118 - Intel I7 4712mq CPU AUD 130 - IPS Full-HD Laptop LED LCD Screen panels B140HAN01.3 AUD 150 - Kingston 480GB A400 Internal Solid State Drive 2.5'' SATA III SSD PC
AUD 13 - 9.5mm SATA3 2nd Hard Drive HDD SSD Caddy Tray for Thinkpad T440p T540p W540 AUD 110 - 8GB DDR3 Notebook RAM SoDimm PC3 Laptop Memory 1333 1600 - looks pretty dodgey haha

Will get this up and running as an MVP and then get a backlit keyboard.
Loick Tuesday, Apr 21, 2020 at 14:31 UTC

Hi after the bios mod can we use eGPU ?
Claude Wednesday, Apr 22, 2020 at 10:29 UTC

Great indepth article. Thank you. my T440p… 1080p LCD: I had a B140HAN01.3 in a T430s before and found it a little dull, not bright enough. So I gave a try to the Innolux N140HCG-GQ2 rev.B1. VERY happy with the Innolux 400cdm brightness. Almost no color adjustments. BUT this Innolux does not have tabs on the rim, no way to screw it in place. My work around: (this Innolux is a lot slimmer) took the metal rim from a broken screen, did some trimming at the bottom, put 3M dbl-side tape on the rim, screwed the rim in place, and aligned the Innolux onto the rim. (Innolux is a few mm less wide than original lcd) Put back the bezel. There is light gap between the bezel and the front of the LCD, which I could get rid off by adding some shimming between the tabs and the top cover… but I did not bother… gap is not noticeable. I’m really satisfied with the screen and the installation.

i7-4800MQ CPU: from a duo to a quad-core… obviously noticeable. But I am a bit disapointed with video encoding. It does take half the encoding time compared with a T440s 2-core i7 CPU. But it is not using the full capacity of the CPU, because of the 45W limitation. Let me elaborate: the 4800MQ, according to hwinfo, based at 2700MHz, turbo 3700MHz (but only for short time)… while encoding video, it tops at 2700MHz, @ 0.9V, 83C, because it exceeds power limit. Which is not the case with a 2-core i7. I have not yet fiddled with undervoltage, nor anything else, YET! So… my point here, is that, in my context, I doubt that a higher CPU (like a 4900MQ) would make a difference… moreover, I bet that a 4700MQ would give the same results (and be a little bit cheaper)

Your taughts are welcomed. Thx again.
- Tiago Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 12:35 UTC
  In reply to Claude
  
  Hi Claude,
  
  Can you tell me a bit more about the solution you did to ameliorate the space between the lcd and the bezel? I also have the same problem on the bottom part of my bezel. I suspect I might have damaged a plastic connector from the bezel that is not able to stay in place when I put it back together.
  
  Thanks!
  
  Cheers
matt Monday, May 11, 2020 at 13:47 UTC

Please note undervolt or overclock is not available in unlocked bios as stated in the guide, custom TDP values do work however.

see https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/f3vc8s/t440p_unlocked_bios_undervolting/
Mau Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 20:40 UTC

Thanks for this stellar article Jérôme! I bought a t440p in 2014 and I simply love it. It has a resolution of 1600x900, which is OK but I am considering upgrading to FHD. I tried to follow your advice and find a genuine panel (AUO or LG) but the only option I found is through the Lenovo website for >$300. I can’t spend that much.

I was wondering if you (or anyone else) knows where to find genuine panels (I have contacted sellers on eBay, aliexpress, etc but they all carry the “compatible” panels). Alternatively, do you know if the quality of compatible panels has increased since you first wrote this?

Thanks!
Jeff Leos Sunday, May 17, 2020 at 01:42 UTC

Here is a T440p question not answered anywhere on the net. I’ve searched for hours and it’s not online.

I want to buy the T440p because it has VGA & RJ45 which will connect nice to the Lantronix Spider KVM device for BIOS level remote control. I used the online bios simulator for T440p and it allows the bios menu to project on the VGA at startup.

My question is will the T440p send the video signal to BOTH the VGA port AND internal screen from bios bootup and OS ? ?

Can someone plug in an external monitor into the VGA port and tell me if you can see the bios & OS in both the internal LCD and external VGA monitor at all times ?

Thank you ! ! !
Ralf Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 10:52 UTC

Thanks a lot for this awesome guide. After reading it, 3 weeks ago, I purchased a unit with 4210m, 8gb, webcam, illiuminated keyboard in my language, 500GB HDD and the 1366x768 HD Display for € 129,-. Additionally, an activated, licensed Windows10 was found on the HDD. Seemed to me like a completely unmodded system. Seller spoke of “noise” while starting up. Additionally the DVD doesn’t spin up. Don’t care though, I’ll add a 2nd drive bay, like I did in my previous T400. Haven’t used DVD anymore in years. So I kept the T440p and consider myself lucky since the casing of the unit is in good B-shape.

And I’m getting happier day-by-day! As I don’t have very much money I first began by installing another cooling unit to get rid of the noise. Check! Then I installed the Crucial MX500 SSD from my old T400. Check! Yesterday I changed the display to a new Innotec 140HCA Full-HD display. Check!

To be done will be the trackpad which I tried to familiarize with, but failed. Really need to have one with oldschool physical buttons. Additonally I’ll consider some i7 cpu, although as of now computing power seems to be acceptable as it is right now. I’m running Gentoo-Linux, which means a lot of compiling tasks to do. So, when upgrading from my T400 Core2 System, the T440P i5-4210m already reduced compiling times considerably.

I really like the idea and possibility to upgrade the unit step-by-step, that is awesome! So I’m looking forward to get a trackpad, an i7-cpu and a drive-bay in the upcoming weeks.

Thanks again for the work you have put in this guide. Saves a lot of money and enables good hardware to live several more years.
Carlos Carrillo Wednesday, May 27, 2020 at 20:52 UTC

Hi Jerome: Last year I get a T440p, with Core i5 4300 CPU and 4 GB of RAM, and your page has been very usefull for me. I’ve upgraded my laptop with a 512 GB SSD and up to 16 GB RAM. Now, I’ve just buyed a 4810QM processor. Checking for info about CPU upgrade in your page, I noted that a CPU like this will demand more power and you sugest to change the AC power adapter. My laptop came with a 90 Watts, 20V and 4.5 A, but in my country I couldn’t find, at this moment a 170W AC adapter with the rectangle shape point. I’ve founded a 170W, 20V and 8.5A AC adapter, with rounded point for earlier Thinkpad series and an adapter for using it with rectangular shape power input laptops. So my questions are this:
1. The 90W AC adapter will perform fine with 4810QM CPU?
2. If my original AC adapter can’t deal with the 4810QM CPU, can I use an older rounded connecting pin like I’ve found, with a rectangular point adapter? Once again thank you for your page and your answers. Greetings.
- Mono Sunday, Jun 14, 2020 at 07:32 UTC
  In reply to Carlos Carrillo
  
  I am running a 90w adapter with my t540p (4800mq, nvidia 730m, 3k screen) without any issues. It will get a bit hot, but survived so far :)
David Monday, Jun 8, 2020 at 20:19 UTC

Hi Jerome, I’d like to inform you that the T440p BIOS mod is now 100% FREE, here is the method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjvwpOnc1MY

This is the page where I found out about the BIOS mod for the T440p, so I’m assuming lots of others found out about it here as well. They do not need to pay some shady forum user $15 to unlock the BIOS anymore. Please update the guide. Thank you.
Arek Thursday, Jun 11, 2020 at 17:35 UTC

Hi! After reading your article and some helpful posts from r/ThinkPad I’ve decided to buy a T440P I’ve bought mine for about $115 with a 4300M CPU, 1600x900 screen and no RAM or HDD (It was the cheapest working T440P that I could find for sale in my country, and I’ve had 16GB of 1600MHz RAM and a 240GB SSD laying around, so didn’t really care about the lack of these components). I’ve found an incredibly good deal - a synaptics T450 touchpad for $12 and I’ve bought this display: It’s apparently an “Exact model”, so I hope it is the real deal. I’ll also upgrade the CPU in the future, probably to an i7-4800MQ. The computer also had a really outdated BIOS, so maybe I’ll be able to hackintosh it without having to buy a programmer. Big thanks for writing this article, it’s very helpful!
- Arek Sunday, Mar 7, 2021 at 15:08 UTC
  In reply to Arek
  
  Quick update: the display arrived shortly after writing the first comment and IT IS MAGNIFICENT. It is the real deal, and using it is an absolute pleasure
Malinga Sunday, Jun 21, 2020 at 04:23 UTC

Helo bro.. Im very interest to read your full article..that was really helpfull.. With that i have faced issure on my t440p.i need help to figure out.. “Very nearly i have upgraded my ram ,8gb ×2 rams and its same , 1st,ddr3 8gb 2xr8 pc3l 12800s-11-13-fp & 2nd, ddr3 8gb 2rx8 pc3l 12800s-11-11-fp Now even i upgrade 2 ram i feel the laptop bootup speed same and there is no improment, Pls advice is there any think i must do.. I have windows 10 pro. While i have single ram also startup timing almost similar… WHY????????
- Jerome Tuesday, Jul 7, 2020 at 08:15 UTC
  In reply to Malinga
  
  Hi,
  
  In most cases, having 2x ram sticks, hence double the memory bandwidth, only leads to marginal performance improvement unless the workload is heavily dependent on RAM bandwidth / speed. Factorio is a game which heavily uses the RAM, thus sees much higher performance gain when switching to dual channel ram.
  
  I guess Windows booting process doesn’t care much about RAM speed. It’s much more linked to your storage speed. For example, switching from an HDD to an SSD improves load time dramatically.
Lee Sunday, Jun 28, 2020 at 21:28 UTC

Thanks for the excellent instructions! The Transcend m.2 SSD drive you mention has now been updated and is less expensive. The new part number is Transcend TS256GMTS430S (256GB). There are also 128GB (TS128GMTS430S) and 512GB (TS512GMTS430S) units. I found a local T440p for sale that already has 16GB of RAM and a i7-4800MQ processor. Should I avoid this laptop because the i7-4800MQ is 47W? I like quiet.
- Jerome Tuesday, Jul 7, 2020 at 08:09 UTC
  In reply to Lee
  
  Hi Lee,
  
  The 4800MQ is fine. It will heat a bit more than the 4702MQ / 4712MQ but should stay pretty quiet under light load. You can get the 4300M is you really care about having a silent laptop. It’s still a well performing CPU despite being 2 cores only.
Claudio Friday, Jul 10, 2020 at 10:21 UTC

HI Jerome,

Based on your article, I was able to get for free a t440p laptop (i5, 4GB RAm and 500GB hdd) with already fullHD screen. I changed the proc to i7-4810mq (120€ from UK), 16GB of RAM and 2 SSD (250 + 480, one inside the bay). Battery is a standard one and charger is 90w. I’m thinking in M.2 hdd but I’m not sure if performance will improve too much. Next upgrade will be the battery. Laptop is working like a charm. No throttle issues so far. Boot under 12 seconds. Forget to mention OS: W10 pro… Used for design, some plex, some network simulations… Heavy load under GNS3, but still no throttle. Temp on idle around 49ºC. Under heavy load - 70-75º. Even on benchmark doesn’t go over 75ºC.

Thank you for your article… Was very helpful.

Regards
Raul Sunday, Jul 12, 2020 at 10:21 UTC

Hi, Jerome!

I would like to upgrade my screen on T440p with the panel from T495, some told me that it will fit and with double side tap you are good to go. Now the questions is, how about the bezels? I will have the entire screen-free in the front because T440p has bigger bezels that T495.

I found the screen here: https://www.laptop-lcd-screen.co.uk/shop/CHI-MEI-N140HCG-GQ2-REV.B1-14.0__390757.asp

I would like to know your opinion regarding the installation and the bezel, and also what do you think about the price?
Thomas Wednesday, Jul 15, 2020 at 07:17 UTC

I have a ThinkPad T540p, which is similar to the T440p. I have two questions:
1. What display do you recommend IPS for this model?
2. Can I replace the internal camera with one with better resolution and white balance? If you need to modify something, I can do it. For me it’s very important.
Dirk Tuesday, Jul 28, 2020 at 18:29 UTC

Hi! The guide did help round out some of my build (4712, 16gb hyperx 2133, transcend 256, Han1.3), and I’m loving the ability to fix small parts when they do break (the frame for the display was cracked in a corner, easy fix). I also replaced the clunkpad with the T450 trackpad (found a synaptics for a fair price).

Here’s my question: since the 2004 Win10 Pro update, can’t find any information on how to make it work properly now. Thoughts or ideas who might have a solution to make it work?
Kaelzharon Friday, Jul 31, 2020 at 17:42 UTC

I just found this awesome buyer’s guide. There is a company in my area that has been retiring their T440P and T440S models. I’ve been getting these for $25USD per unit. Most have only 4gb RAM, 120gb SSDs, etc but after reading through your guide here, I plan to buy as many of these as I can get! Kudos to you for making such a wonderful and concise buyers guide!
Oz Wednesday, Sep 9, 2020 at 19:32 UTC

Hi Jerome, First off i have a bone to pick with you :) A casual search for a new business laptop and i ended up in this website and since then you are costing me alot of money. :) Bought the laptop of off ebay .check Seller gave a vague explanation but as a busines seller over 11.000 reviews and a 30 day moneyback i said what the hell … Check. Got the T440P in perfect condition just little over 5000Hrs on HDD count , clean no marks and seems very lightly used /business machine in immeculate condition.. Even back cover seems not have been opened / inside not touched ..Check Win 10 Pro.activated Check, Ordered with 4GB ram I5 Got 2X8GB :) Sweet !!! check Fingerprint reader , Sd card reader Ericsson WLan card :) Check. Booted up first time to a LiteOn backlit keyboard Wow! not even listed by seller. Check Came back to website for some tinkering and mod’s i can do, the hunt begins.:) Boot SSD and HDD caddy ordered , happy as a kid waiting for parts , but What the hell is this Clunky little thing covering the bottom part of this beauty ? Clunkpad you say, yeah i figured that from your site and thinkpad forum. I am off to aliexpres for a synaptics then right ? Finally Got the ‘‘original '’ synaptics but price seems not quite right ? Is this original or not ?Is it Alps or Synaptics. Comments say it is , users say it is . Pics match with two line code with unique serial number line. Here it is https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32717498840.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.15184c4dXnxgh5 Since then i am about to loose my sanity, i have tried every available driver, from T450 to Yoga, from Win7 to Win10. Nothing is working. there is a driver from one of your links from reddit, n10gx25w get it sort of working, freezing up on me , sometimes completely no response from boot till next boot. nope!!!, I now have followed a lot of driver installations, Last count is 11driver downloads in a folder on desktop. I am sure at one point i have seen ACPI change from a short LEN0036 line to ACPI\VEN_LEN&DEV_0036. Even i can install an alps driver which brings thinkpad tab all greyed out but settings tab is ok and can make some changes. Lost both trackpoint and touchpad.Or works partially on some synaptics. All this time i am on device signature tester mode , after every boot put the Device Id to group policy so that i say p..off to microsoft, Change Lenxxx files to erase LEN0036 but nothing worked, i am at my witts end. I figured since you lured me into this T440P , i am holding you accountable. :) Now where is that damn DHL driver so i can send this off to my newly made but equally responsible friend Jerome :) What was the adress please? :) P.S: a new hunt for an IPS screen , a new AC wifi and a 135Watts charger is added . See i told you you are costing me money:)
- Jerome Monday, Sep 21, 2020 at 08:58 UTC
  In reply to Oz
  
  Hi Oz,
  
  I suggest to stay with the original touchpad since Windows 10 2004. The driver trick is apparently not working anymore since this update. It works fine under linux only (which doesn’t care the advertised touchpad ACPI version). Otherwise, you might have better luck finding an answer on Thinkpad sub-reddit.
Timo Sunday, Oct 4, 2020 at 09:47 UTC

Thanks for this great article! I have a Thinkpad T440p with some of the upgrades you describe above: i7 - 4702MQ cpu 16 GM RAM SSD drive (500GB) New HD screen (HD Graphics 4600) Everything works fine, but when I start up Steam and play a game (like Euro Truck Sim 2) it lags or tries to discourages me from setting graphics to anything above low/medium quality. Any ideas why that might be the case?
- W Friday, Oct 30, 2020 at 00:28 UTC
  In reply to Timo
  
  Well the problem is that Euro Truck Sim recommends a GTX 760 as minimum, you have intel 4600 integrated which is around 12x worse. So you are trying to run the game on a GPU that is 12x under the MINIMUM requirements. Lucky if it runs at all hah
Juan biscaldi Wednesday, Oct 21, 2020 at 01:27 UTC

Hi jeromme, my im very excited of been found this buyer guide, i bougth a t440p and im upgrading some stuffs, i found a tocuh screen with frame and digitalizer, if i buy it, i only have to remove the top of the notebook an put the new one. Now thats my question, i cant find antrhing on the net that speaks about this modd i want to do, and i guess that all the lenovos t440 that were touch came with full hd resolution. Sorry my english, thats not my native languaje. Best regards!!
Calvin Walton Friday, Oct 30, 2020 at 20:39 UTC

For touchpad replacement with a Synaptics touchpad, there’s a much easier way to install the drivers! You can just install the latest T440p touchpad driver, even automatically through Lenovo System Update is fine, and then apply a registry file to change the touchpad settings to the correct model. You can find more information, and the registry file, here: https://blogs.ethz.ch/heim/2017/01/02/enhance-a-thinkpad-t440p-with-physical-trackpoint-buttons/

Just save the registry file so you can re-apply if after driver upgrades :)

I installed an N140HCG-GQ2 screen in my T440p (from a seller who included mounting brackets), and it works very nicely.
HostA Thursday, Nov 19, 2020 at 15:27 UTC

For anyone seeking a original Synaptics Touchpad / Trackpad replacement from a Thinkpad T450s: They are not available anymore as single parts. Instead, search for the original Lenovo Palmrest replacement parts of a T450s, it includes the trackpad, original Synaptics! Finest quality. May cost USD 50 new and USD 35 used, but for the ones who care I’d say it’s still affordable. The part number is: FRU 00HN693
LeoGeeko Tuesday, Jan 12, 2021 at 22:42 UTC

Hello everyone,

For the boring and exhausting part of the Synaptics Drivers. I’ve used the driver for the T460s and for some reason that I don’t know why looks like worked out of the box. You should try it.

https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles/n1cgr23w.exe
Donald Parsons Wednesday, Feb 3, 2021 at 12:36 UTC

Great work..Ty..just ordered the drive caddy for T440p. Presently, 128GB SSD + 128GB M.2. I am partial to Kingston. Any suggestions on configuration once 3rd drive is installed? Its running i5-4300M @ 2.60..I am comfortable staying with this processor. Ram is maxed out @ 16GB 1600mhz and its running the HD 4600 graphics controller. Presently running Revit 2021 and Navisworks without issue. TY. Appreciate your efforts..
Karboniq Sunday, Feb 14, 2021 at 18:27 UTC

J’ai un T440P depuis 1 an. PC très satisfaisant. En cherchant des info. sur le déverrouillage du bios, je suis tombé sur le présent excellent article qui m’a mis en confiance. Du coup, j’ai remplacé le I5-4300 par un I7-4712MQ acheté sur le site chinois ali. La livraison a été rapide. Le CPU a été livré dans une très bonne protection et avec de la pate thermique. La différence est spectaculaire en terme de vitesse. Après, j’ai changé les RAM 2x4Go par des 2x8Go, le disque dur 500Go par un SSD Samsung 1To. J’ai installé ThrottleStop et j’utilise un undervotage de -85mv et une configuration pour ne pas dépasser 30W sur secteur et 15W sur batterie au prix d’une nette baisse de performances . Ca semble stable. Il faut voir ce que ça va donné en été, quand la température ambiante est caniculaire. Pour la photogrammétrie, le processeur graphique ne convient pas au logiciel open source (dérivé de linux je crois) que j’ai essayé. Le résultat est décevant et je compte donc remplacer la carte mère pour une avec GT730 et avec le radiateur ad hoc, tous 2 achetés chez les chinois. La prochaine étape, après retrofit de la carte mère sera le déverrouillage du bios. Je n’ai hélas pas trouvé de tuto de modification spécifique du bios 2.55 sur le net et il va falloir que j’improvise. Je m’interroge toujours concernant ces forums où des personnes font bénévolement du déblocage à la demande : combien de temps le feront-ils encore ? J’ai donc fait l’acquisition d’un programmateur CH341A. Je croise les doigts pour la suite. Merci encore pour cette mine d’informations.
- baptiste Tuesday, Mar 9, 2021 at 13:50 UTC
  In reply to Karboniq
  
  J’ai suivi le guide de wolgang en anglais pour le flash de mon bios 2.55, plutôt que de le faire faire par un inconnu sur le net (bon on utilise quand même le soft d’un inconnu, mais au moins c’est plus transparent). programmateur CH341A nécessaire et à brancher correctement comme dans le tuto, mais franchement si j’ai réussi, tout le monde peut y arriver (premières lignes rentrées dans un terminal, install de linux en live cd, bref gros noob).
Dany Thursday, Feb 25, 2021 at 18:54 UTC

Hi, This post has been of great help for me, I’ve had my T440P since late 2014, for the last year and a half I’ve slowly been upgrading my machine.

I am currently running an 860 EVO 1TB SSD in SATA bay, kept the disc bay since it comes in handy at my place of work. 16 GB of RAM (samsung 1600 Mhz - the price on Amazon was very fair), 4702MQ CPU, Synaptics Thouchpad and the FHD LG IPS panel.

Had a few driver problems with the synaptics pad, for me the (n10gx25w) Driver ended up working, no config other than stopping windows updates.

I’ve yet to put an m.2 since i can’t seem to find a decent one (the reviews are quite bad on Amazon on all of them), did anybody check this out and can say whether it is even worth investing in one at this point?

Other than that, are there any more recommendations out there to prolong the life of this amazing machine? What more upgrades should i focus on?

Last question is for those who have Hackintoshed the machine, what are the benefits of doing so? Does it enable the same apple eco-system integration as a mac, or is it just a creature comfort?

Thank to Jerome and all of the people who commented over the years for showing me that it is possible to squeeze more life out of my machine!
Henrik Justegård Sunday, Apr 11, 2021 at 11:44 UTC

Thank you for this fantastic and up-to-date guide. It made me end up buying a T440p a while ago. I already have a T430, but I love this thiccpad even more and i still haven’t switched out the clunkpad yet which i thought was the biggest downside in comparison to my T430.

i bought a defect T440p from ebay/facebook about a year ago (~50€?) and now i finally decided to get it running. After troubleshooting I ordered another motherboard (30€ from AliExpress), a new QWERTY backlit keyboard(25€), SSD (~40€), palmrest with T450 trackpad(46€), and a I7 4700MQ(72€) which i plan to undervolt. I’m also planning to find a scrapped computer at work which has the B140HAN01.3 screen we have tons of old Dell computers who has them, as swapping the screen was dirt easy.

I probably ended up in spending way more than i was budgeting (about 265€ in total), but for me it is not only the destination but the journey as well. I find great joy in repairing and upgrading laptops and this guide has been a wonderful asset. Thank you!
PanScout Sunday, Apr 18, 2021 at 02:04 UTC

This is a fantastic article but I’m gonna have to disagree with the section about the GT730m vs the integrated graphics. I recently got a T440p with both and wanted to see whether it was true that it didn’t really make any difference in terms of performance so I tested it with this benchmarking tool at 720p low (https://benchmark.unigine.com/superposition). I got these results:

Integrated graphics: 1383, 10.35 fps GT730m: 1873, 14.01 fps

But I also noticed that with MSI Afterburner you could overclock the GPU (but not the iGPU). With a bit of testing I was able to increase the core clock by 135Mhz and the memory clock by 180Mhz without any stability issues or artifacts. The score I got was this:

GT730m Overclocked: 2225, 16.64 fps

So that means at the very least you are getting a 35% increase in graphics performance and ideally a 60.7% increase in graphics performance. That’s a lot more than “slightly faster”!
- Mikhael Tuesday, May 4, 2021 at 05:48 UTC
  In reply to PanScout
  
  I have t440p with GT730 also. Yes, its faster, but it generates more heat. 16 vs 10 FPS still unusable in modern software. So why u want extra part that can fail and generate more heat ? In real world usage i think today igpu is more reliable.
Earl Friday, Apr 23, 2021 at 00:30 UTC

For anyone ebay trolling, I got an authetic B140HAN01.4 from seller lcdbeststore - I actually ordered a LP140WF3-SPD1 LP140WF3 so not really what I ordered, but it works fine and is in good condition (seems as good as new). Glossy. Linux confirms: Model: 5181 Made in: 2014 Alphanumeric Data String: ‘AUO’ Alphanumeric Data String: ‘B140HAN01.4 '

I ordered a N140HCE-EN1 Rev.C2 from dvdsuper999 and it was a total joke, completely wrong model with fake stickers. Didn’t even have any mounting brackets or a slot for them. Also had a big scratch.

This is not an endorsement, just stating facts of my experience. Really not digging the 3rd party lcd screen seller drama, that’s for sure. Just happy to have a decent screen even if it’s not the one I ordered.
Earl Sunday, Jun 13, 2021 at 22:22 UTC

To anyone looking for an M.2 2242 ssd, this one worked and is 512gb. Kingshark M.2 2242 SSD 512GB Ngff - I got it off Amazon for $62. They have a 1TB model that presumably would work as well.

From dmesg: scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA DOGFISH SSD 512G 4A0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 [sdb] 1000215216 512-byte logical blocks: (512 GB/477 GiB)

mkfs/mounted:
/dev/sdb1 xfs 477G 3.4G 474G 1% /mnt

Also does have SMART support: Device Model: DOGFISH SSD 512GB Serial Number: AA000000000000000518 Firmware Version: U0104A0 User Capacity: 512,110,190,592 bytes [512 GB] Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical Rotation Rate: Solid State Device Form Factor: M.2

smartctl -t short: 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 0 -
Peter Linu Wednesday, Jun 16, 2021 at 12:49 UTC

I own two T440P and I love them. One is modded to the max. They both idle at about 58deg. I am using Linux Mint Cinnamon OS on both. Can you provide an undervolt instruction please?
Emil Saturday, Oct 9, 2021 at 11:17 UTC

Hi,

I have one question is the better processor I can use for t440p than i7-4940MX, I know that I need to use better power supply and better heating but I just want to know (maybe I will try), if there is a even better option (or even the best CPU option) for my T440p ?

Regards,
Jabato Tuesday, Oct 4, 2022 at 17:18 UTC

WOW! Awesome guide dude! Thank you very much! It has been a pleasure to read it!
Claude Thursday, Feb 23, 2023 at 23:30 UTC

2023 my T440p story, i7-4900QM, 16GB, 3x SSDs (3.5TB @ 6Gbps/s), ax200 WIFI, 3 buttons trackpad & hooked to 2x 21.5in displays,

Internal display, an Innolux N140HCG-GQ2. Choose that one for it’s 400cdm & lower power consumption. Does not have the aluminum frame to screw it on. I had to disassemble the one on my previous panel, make some adjustments (trim some areas), and stick the panel on the frame with double-sided tape. Also, the panel is a little thinner than the original.. so you might need to put some shimming between the back cover and the framing. 3 years now, and still very happy.

BIOS. I already had modified it for whitelist & advanced config, but when installing win10 wUpdate upgraded the BIOS to v2.55… moment of tension… but redid the same previous BIOS modification and then made sure to set “disable BIOS update by user” in the BIOS. All was fine. (BTW, the BIOS modding is easily done, following the correct sequence. All the info, files, and programs are openly available on various sites, and only add the 10$ ch341 USB programmer)

Drivers and win10 (currently 22H2, 19045.2546). A bit of a nightmare (w7 was easy). WinUpdate will install working drivers for the most part. Lenovo sites as drivers for w10 but not all ok: “intel Rapid storage” was limiting the ngff SSD at 3GB instead of the 6GB. (checked w hwinfo)
- AX200 (wifi & BT) from intel.
- w7 Lenovo Power Manager works on w10 with battery management working (I’m always on AC so I keep battery at 85%)… but I had to fiddle around (all info available on the web, software-n1au415w, driver-n2hku07w, both x86 versions).
- 3-buttons trackpad, T450x driver for w10, lenovo-hvg226ww
- Hot-keys, lenovo works fine, r0yvu37w
Note on the CPU vs max Memory. The CPU can manage 32GB, but the T440p has only 2 (out of 4) physical slots (channels) maxed at 8GB per slot. So 16GB max. (I did some investigation/reading on the CPU documentation, so I would raise the mem, but no luck there)

Hope that helps anyone.

kind regards. & Thank you again for your Guide that I used in 2020.
claude Friday, Feb 24, 2023 at 00:46 UTC

In addition to my last comment Trackpad, driver v19.3.4.228 hvg226ww (2021) w10 – T450s in addition to the driver I modified the registry (as mentioned in another comment) ** create a txt file, rename correction.reg, copy the following, then dbl-click to update the registry & reboot. It worked for me, buttons work.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SynTP\Parameters] “ExtraCapabilities7Add”=dword:00010000 “ExtraCapabilities7Mask”=dword:FFFFFFFF “ProcessUnexpectedResetDuringDetection”=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTP\Defaults] “SlaveLeftButtonZoneR”=dword:00000d80 “SlaveLeftButtonZoneB”=dword:00000f40 “SlaveRightButtonZoneL”=dword:00000d81 “SlaveRightButtonZoneB”=dword:00000f40 “SlaveMiddleButtonZoneL”=dword:00000b57 “SlaveMiddleButtonZoneR”=dword:00000fa9 “SlaveMiddleButtonZoneB”=dword:0000112e

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTPEnh] “ScrollMethod”=dword:00000005 “SynapticsScrollMethodSpeedFactor”=dword:00005000