This is about general information on how closely this model meets my requirements. That mainly concerns compatibility with Windows XP—partly for nostalgic reasons, partly because of its very low resource consumption. Good mobility is also important.
As you can tell, I simply like Windows XP – despite the fact that it is a 32-bit operating system and can therefore only address a maximum of 4 GiB RAM. Yes, there was also a 64-bit version of XP, but there is or was virtually no software support for it, so I’m ignoring it – especially since the “normal” 32-bit version shaped my childhood and youth, with all its quirks and peculiarities.
The first step is to find out where the limits of software support for Windows XP lie, or more precisely: drivers.
Officially, the latest Intel platform that supports Windows XP with Service Pack 3 is “Ivy Bridge.”
This is the series whose models were named in the “3xxx” format, a slight improvement on the previously released “Sandy Bridge” architecture—which was known for its excellent overclocking capabilities in the desktop sector (naming scheme “2xxxK”). In the case of mobile processors, the most powerful processor would be, for example, an “Intel Core i7-3940XM”; in the desktop sector, the i7-3770K and i7-3770 were very popular.
With slight modifications, a “Haswell” system (“4xxx”) or even newer should also be feasible, with increasing difficulty the newer the platform is.
However, my goal was to support the hardware natively, especially since almost everything released after Intel’s Core2 architecture should offer enough performance to play games from the Windows XP era. The limit is therefore Ivy Bridge.
Why choose an Intel processor?
Even though I’ve always preferred AMD to Intel, Intel’s hardware from that period was simply better—I can’t say otherwise. Especially since AMD only had the very hot-headed FX CPUs and A-series APUs. I’m very happy that AMD later made a (very) big splash with Ryzen.
…Graphics?
I’ve been impressed by Nvidia for quite some time.
Not by the company, which has been doing some very strange things in recent years.
But by the hardware and drivers – at least under Windows.
They have always been more stable and problem-free than those from ATI, now AMD, at least in my experience.
For Linux and Hackintosh, AMD is the much better and often only choice.
The latest Nvidia drivers that support XP, and in some cases only with driver modifications, are graphics chips from the Maxwell architecture (naming scheme (GT or GTX 9xxM)). Officially, the latest GPU that runs without modifications is the GTX 960 with 2 GB (desktop).
Back to the main topic, what makes the HP EliteBook 8540p a good retro notebook for Windows XP?
Advantages:
- I already owned several of these and wanted two identical systems (partner, me).
- Very good price/performance ratio.
- Fully compatible, as it has a first-generation Intel Core processor and older Nvidia GPU.
- Drivers for Windows XP (and Windows 7) available directly from HP for all hardware (not a given!).
- WLAN-N card with 5 GHz support – also rather rare with XP support.
- 15″ display with good HD+ resolution – 16:9 is standard today.
- Spare parts such as batteries or power supplies are no problem and inexpensive.
- Trackpoint available.
- Keyboard is pretty good, with number pad.
- Really nice touch fields for multimedia functions.
- Well-thought-out design, easy to repair and maintain
- The quality of the device is very good, high-quality materials
- Good cooling ex works, despite excessive upgrades that were never intended by HP
- We have models that came without a webcam (“data protection”)
- MXM-A 3.0 GPU, i.e., replacement or upgrade of the GPU – in a notebook!
Disadvantages:
- There are significantly more powerful, yet compatible options (Ivy Bridge CPU / Maxwell GPU).
- A 17″ screen with Full HD resolution would be much more standard and therefore better – but this would compromise mobility.
- A 4:3 aspect ratio would be even better for really old games, but that’s just wishful thinking.
- Only one SATA data drive is provided; there are notebooks with two bays.
- Keyboard lighting with LEDs from above, like earlier ThinkPads, not so great—but functional.
- Battery life is almost non-existent, even with a new battery.
- There are apparently BIOS whitelists for modems and WLAN cards that prevent upgrades/conversions.
In my opinion, the disadvantages are negligible, mainly because I already owned this specific model and was able to purchase it at a low price—the price/performance ratio of the project should at least remain roughly within the expected range. Regardless of this, it is a solid choice when all factors are taken into account.
For anyone who doesn’t yet own a retro notebook and stumbles across this post, I would advise looking at the successor models in the mobile workstation range from Dell (Precision) and HP (EliteBook, ProBook) – simply because the platform leap from the first to the second and third generation Core i (Ivy Bridge) is considerable.
The difference in CPU performance alone can be as much as threefold, even in the notebook segment – for example, from an i7-840QM (Nehalem—Clarksfield) to an i7-3840QM (Ivy Bridge). In addition, Ivy Bridge and its predecessor Sandy Bridge support SATA-III, compared to SATA-II in the first generation of CPUs and earlier – this makes a huge difference with SSDs (double the throughput!).
As a special feature, there was even isolated support for PCI Express 3.0 instead of 2.0 in previous generations, but as far as I know, this was only in the desktop sector and very rare (“unofficial”).
Next, I will discuss what can be upgraded on this notebook and what problems this could cause.