The G40 is the first model in the rather unsuccessful G series, which was produced from April 2003 to December 2005. Similar to the A series, the series consisted of inexpensive desktop replacements manufactured by Acer. Contrary to what you might think, this does not detract from the device - it is solidly built and the wedge-shaped design makes it ideal for office tasks. To differentiate it from higher-end ThinkPads, some features are missing, such as the ThinkLight or an UltraBay slot. The G40 is equipped with an optical drive, but this cannot be replaced.

The G40 has an already inefficient Pentium 4 desktop processor - you won’t find customisable clock speeds here. The subsequent G41 at least featured mobile representatives of the CPU. In Japan, the series made it to one last model based on the T60/R60, the G50, before it was discontinued.

I have a preference for bulky and large ThinkPads - even if they are not very powerful. I bought the G40 cheaply as a basement find - it stood around unused for a long time, which interestingly did little harm to the generous 100 Wh battery.

Technical data

Component Property
Type 2388-4SG
CPU Intel Pentium 4 (2.8 GHz, 512 KB cache)
RAM 2 GB DDR (PC-2100)
Graphics card Intel Extreme Graphics II (??? MB memory)
Display 15" TFT (1024x768)
Hard drive 40 GB IDE (2.5")
Operating system Micosoft Windows XP SP3, Ubuntu 5.10
Sound Intel AC'97
USB 2.0
Modem AC'97 (MDC)
LAN Broadcom BCM5901
WLAN -
Bluetooth -
Floppy 1.44 MB IDE (fixed)
CD/DVD DVD-ROM/CD-RW (fixed)
Card reader -
Expansion cards 1x CardBus (type 1-3)
Interfaces Microphone, headphones, USB, VGA, LPT, PS/2, USB, LAN, modem, PCMCIA
Battery 8800 mAh, 10.8 Volt
Size 33x28x51 mm (WxHxD)
Weight 3.6 kg

Special features:

  • Desktop CPU

Diagnostic output

# lspci
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82852/855GM Host Bridge (rev 01)
0000:00:00.1 System peripheral: Intel Corp. 855GM/GME GMCH Memory I/O Control Registers (rev 01)
0000:00:00.3 System peripheral: Intel Corp. 855GM/GME GMCH Configuration Process Registers (rev 01)
0000:00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corp. 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
0000:00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corp. 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
0000:00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
0000:00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
0000:00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
0000:00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB 2.0 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
0000:00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 81)
0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801DBM LPC Interface Controller (rev 01)
0000:00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801DBM (ICH4) Ultra ATA Storage Controller (rev 01)
0000:00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
0000:00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 01)
0000:00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 01)
0000:02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5901 100Base-TX (rev 01)
0000:02:01.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 02)

# lsusb
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  

# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 15
model		: 2
model name	: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
stepping	: 7
cpu MHz		: 2788.720
cache size	: 512 KB
fdiv_bug	: no
hlt_bug		: no
f00f_bug	: no
coma_bug	: no
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 2
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe cid xtpr
bogomips	: 5521.40

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