The Lenovo Thinkpad T540p is a replacement for a desktop computer. It has a with powerful CPU, graphics and a DVD Writer. The keyboard is large enough to have a numeric keypad. The VGA adapter is suited to an external monitor. The dock provides an easy way to take the computer with you and then later return to your desktop. The built-in screen has a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080, also known as FHD, and The IPS technology provides a display that is bright and clear.
These are some useful additions you can buy to customize this computer. If more customizations are needed see the section named Custom orders below.
There is not yet support for the internal WiFi. I use the Mango Travel Router with this laptop to access local WiFi or my phone's hot spot. Mango comes with everything you need to connect to an access point.
Mango Travel Router: $49.00 USD
In the past, I have also used a TP-Link AC750 Wireless Travel Router, an Asus RP-N12 Wireless N300 Range Extender, and a TP-Link Nano Router. I include a folder of URL links to the admin pages of each of these routers to make it easy to set up the first time.
Instructions and details about external WiFi: Travel Routers
The hard drive can be upgraded to a 2 TB drive. Either a hard disk or an SSD is available to upgrade.
An external USB Floppy drive can be used to read and write 720K and 1.44M 3 1/2 inch floppy disks.
USB Floppy Drive: $50.00 USD
If you want to buy a customized version of this computer, fill out an order form and submit it to Blonde Guy. Blonde Guy will review your order and send you an invoice, payable using PayPal or any major credit card. If you prefer to pay by check, note that in the notes field of the order form, and I will e-mail you an invoice payable by check.
Enter the customizations you want on the computer in the notes portion of the order form.
Model: Thinkpad T540p
Model number: 20BE-004ENUS
Year introduced: 2014
CPU: Intel Core i5-4300M (2.60 GHz)
Screen: 15.4 inch Color LCD, 1920 x 1080 pixels
RAM: 8 GB
Hard drive: 500 GB SATA
Optional hard/solid state drive: 2000 GB SATA
Optical drive: DVD-RW
Intel HD Graphics 4600
USB Ports: 3
Height: 1.3 inch
Width: 14.8 inches
Depth: 9.8 inches
Weight: 5.31 lbs
Power consumption is 16 Watts, measured with the computer booted to the desktop. This computer consumes less than 1 Watt if it's plugged in, but switched off. When charging a depleted battery, it consumes up to 45 Watts.
The built-in webcam can be used with WebSee software. WebSee requires iso-synchronous transfers over USB, so Arca Noae USB 11.17 is needed, rather than the newer USB 12.x because iso-synchronous transfers are not yet available in USB 12.x.
The laptop can use any memory left over from 32-bit usage as a RAM drive. For 8 GB RAM models, this RAM drive has 4.7 GB, and is formatted HPFS. For 4 GB models, the RAM drive is not configured. If activated, the RAM drive would have 700 MB.
This laptop boots to the desktop in under 60 seconds. That's important, because suspend/resume does not work. To make up for that, the laptop can do a clean power down when the lid is closed.
There is no ArcaOS support for the bluetooth or fingerprint reader. Support for the internal WiFi is under development at Arca Noae.
The disk is partitioned to provide a bootable operating system volume and a bootable installer. Space is left for addtional bootable volumes. User data is stored on a separate volume.
This is the layout for the 500 GB HD. The Air-Boot boot manager is installed to select the volume to be started.
| Volume Name | Disk Format | Drive Letter | Volume Size | Disk Name |
| Recovery | FAT16 | X: | 2,000 MB | Internal |
| ArcaOS-Q | JFS | Q: | 10,001 MB | Internal |
| Data-D | JFS | D: | 100,000 MB | Internal |
This is the layout for a Seagate Hybrid 2 GB hard drive.
| Volume Name | Disk Format | Drive Letter | Volume Size | Disk Name |
| ArcaOS installation | FAT16 | X: | 2,000 MB | 2 TB SSHD |
| ArcaOS-Q | JFS | Q: | 10,001 MB | 2 TB SSHD |
| Data | JFS | D: | 1,847,749 MB | 2 TB SSHD |
ArcaOS 5.0.6 (Aug 31, 2020) is the version used for this installation.
This table reports the SysBench 0.9.5 benchmarks for this computer. You can download SysBench 0.9.5 here: http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/
| Category | Measurement |
|---|---|
| PM-Graphics-marks | 282 |
| CPU integer-marks | 10264 |
| CPU floating point-marks | 434 |
| DIVE-marks | 11243 |
| File I/O-marks | 50431 |
| Memory-marks | 14103 |
| Simultaneous I/O-marks | 47 |
| Disk I/O-marks | 597 |
| CD I/O-marks | 260 |
Each Blonde Guy ArcaOS preloaded computer comes with a standard load of software. This page lists what is in the current pre-load. This list is updated over time to incorporate new essential OS/2 software as well as to keep up to date versions of existing software. When you receive your ArcaOS preloaded computer, you will have Blonde Guy's best installation of the latest OS/2 software.
The recovery DVD supplied is a bootable ArcaOS DVD with a backup of the hard drive as delivered. You can boot the machine from DVD, and perform maintenance functions. The maintenance folder is available on the recovery DVD. The factory backup is stored in the \Factory directory. The backups are simple zip files. You can use 7z or unzip to extract some or all of the files in a backup.
This laptop computer is configured to boot ArcaOS. ArcaOS 5.0 has modifications specifically to support this computer. Nevertheless, Wifi is not yet supported. I have not been successful in getting any version of eComStation to run on this computer.
I have tested several T540p configurations. My ArcaOS installation DVD would not boot on a T540p that has the NVidia graphics. This Thinkpad, with Intel graphics boots the ArcaOS installation DVD with no problems. Thus, model number 20BE-004ENUS is suitable, and model number 20BE-003ENUS is not suitable. The two models are identical except for the graphics chip.
This section documents what I did to get this computer to work under ArcaOS. It is intended to show what goes into this computer, and also as a guide to the user who wants to build it himself.
I made sure the BIOS was updated to the latest version. This may not be necessary, but I did it anyway. The installed BIOS was 2.23 and the EC is 1.14. The current BIOS is 2.37 and EC is 1.15 released on 2019/09/17. I updated the BIOS to the current level with the BIOS update CD downloaded from the Lenovo support website.
I made the following changes to the default BIOS settings. Then I powered the Thinkpad down and up.
I bought a 2 TB hard drive for Strobopeep, and installed it according to instructions in the Lenovo Hardware Maintenance Manual. The drive can be prepared using the ArcaOS installer or with DFSee. This is how I prepared the drive with DFSee.
I installed one bootable volume, Q:. The Q: drive has a Custom installation that includes some developer tools. I made a recovery partition on volume X:. A System Dump partition is now included.
As of ArcaOS 5.0.6, sound is working normally on the laptop. Both UniAud and USB audio are installed and working. ArcaOS now switches between UniAud and USB audio automatically when a USB audio device is attached. The UniAud driver should be configured as follows to make sound.
Driver=F:\MMOS2\UNIAUD32.SYS /A:1
A fix included in ArcaOS 5.0.1 does allow DOS Full-Screen to work. Alt-Home from a DOS Full-Screen then allows a DOS Window to work.
Using Suntan Special I run sequences ArcaOS50, apps, games and cleanup. This is saved as the Factory image. This is normally what would be supplied on the computer.
The disk driver, OS2AHCI.ADD, needs to have the following parameters or else boot will sometimes fail.
BASEDEV=OS2AHCI.ADD /N /F /V:2
