IBM Thinkpad 390x

peustace

My friend has an old IBM Thinkpad 390x. Someone has recently installed Windows XP on it. The laptop is running fine but with only a 5gb harddrive space is at a premium. All he wants the laptop for it for internet use and project work for college. He was asking if I could upgrade the harddrive and get the broadband connection workin in his room in college. The laptop has no nic so I was just looking at getting an external Ethernet Adapter (http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=322295).

For the harddrive, specifications on the internet state its an eide harddrive. Is there a difference between the eide and the ide for laptops? is there anything else i need to consider when upgrading this laptop?

Thanks
Pa

dubdvd

i have the same laptop on my home network , but mine doesnt have a screen :rolleyes: so i just plug it into a external tft or crt anyhow im using a pcmcia network card which i picked up in maplin in town for less than 20 euro .i wouldnt use up the usb1 socket with the adtaper you gave a link to ..you might need it for something eles down the road . i also have xp pro installed on it ...i have 192mb of ram installed in it and i have had a number of different harddrives installed in it " 16gb " and now a 40gb but make sure you have at least that amount of ram that i have installed as it might struggle with just 128 and keep the OS to a very basic dont over load it with tons of apps as it will drag along if you do
and set xp up for proformance and not looks in the advance tab of your system properties and also increase the page file and keep the harddrive well defraged ..Seems the one im running is only 400mhz the most you can do is internet and maybe some word processing .
Ive run linux of this a couple of times and if i was you I'd get a good disto of it ...linux runs like a dream on it no probs at all ,,BTW the older type of 2 and half inch harddrive wont fit in to the caddy as the drive is a lot thicker than the now standard one .but all in all for its specs its a good lappy for its age ..hope this helps
And if you can get your hands on one of these cardbus's you will be sorted it comes with usb2 and an ethernet all on the one card .you might find one on ebay
http://www.pcconnection.com/ProductDetail?SKU=6224363

irlrobins

Moving to laptop forum

majiktripp

A standard 2.5" laptop hard drive from komplett should do the job for him,have to ask the question is it *really* worth the time and money investing in what appears to be a quite old piece of technology....

peustace

A lot of websites I'm reading say the bios might only support a harddrive of a certain size and I mightn't recognise the larger harddrives. Is this true? The hard drive currently in the laptop is only a 5gb hard drive. I was looking at getting a standard 2.5' 40gb hard drive from komplett. Do I need to worry about the BIOS?

majiktripp

The bios could be a problem alright,limiting size of drives may indeed be implemented in older machines...you could always look for a bios update from IBM...alot of work for an old laptop...

peustace

Ya came across a bios update alright for the laptop. The harddrive in the laptop is an EIDE hard drive, is an EIDE hard drive the same as the IDE standard? So just before I commit myself to the harddrive, an standard 2.5' ide harddrive should work?

majiktripp

It should have the same number of pins so indeed should work ok