From what I understand of undervolting, you cannot reduce the base voltage of the processor (the voltage at the lowest supported CPU speed), but the higher voltages at higher clock speeds can be reduced, in some cases right down to the base voltage. I believe this is as true for LV processors as it ...

I managed to keep my A31 (1.6GHz P4m 512MB RAM) in fairly routine use up to around 18 months ago when DRI1 graphics support was dropped from FreeBSD. While OpenGL still works with the new DRI2 drivers, the 2D & 3D performance is very much lacking, to the point where it's become unpleasant to use. It...

Have you considered undervolting? I bought a X60 recently with a 1.83GHz Yonah Core 2, and have had issues with it running hot as well. Anything which used both cores almost immediately resulted in CPU throttling at near 100 degrees. I likewise replaced the thermal paste and tossed the old heat pad ...

It's a shame, but flash is far too resource intensive for older ThinkPads. I'd agree with using services like keepvid. I use a Firefox plugin called Video Download Helper, or Flash Video Downloader in Opera. One thing that may be worth looking into is HTML5. Youtube runs a trial which you can enrol ...

While browsing the Arch Linux wiki for some information on hardware mixing, I found this little snippet and thought of this thread. Note: If you are using an ATI card and linux 3.0, check your kernel/grub settings, you most likely need to use the 'radeon.audio=1' boot parameter, or alternatively set...

I realise that adding to the plethora of choices available might be confusing, but I would consider a Cardbus card over a USB one. They are a few years old, but the D-Link DWL-650+, DWL-G650 or DWL-AG650 are excellent Atheros based B/G cards with very good driver support. I use them on all my ThinkP...

If you get bored of Windows 3.1, try Windows NT 3.5! If it were me, I'd go for Windows NT 4 personally. It's very quick and stable compared to 98, and it is quite a challenge to get everything working properly. You can also run Windows 2000 on 32MB RAM, though I imagine it is quite a painful experie...

I love the A series too. Congratulations on your new A30! I had an R31 for a while last year, with the 1.13GHz PIII and 512MB RAM. The only difference I believe between my old R31 and your A30 is the graphics card. 512MB will make a difference over 384MB, and I'd recommend trying it to see how respo...

I came across this problem once, and it turned out the CPU needed reseating. Quite easy to do.

I'd also be looking at swapping out RAM and trying some different sticks, if you havn't already.

If it works, take the opportunity to stick a P3 1.13GHz in it

Nice to see another Arch user! Fn and volume keys tend to work straight out the box in my experience, unless the machine has a peculiar sound setup (R31 springs to mind). I can't say for sure, but if you do have problems Tpb is your friend. It also means you can set your Lenovo/Access IBM/ThinkPad k...

I suspected as much. Thanks for replying anyway

Wow.. Nothing more I can say really. What an incredible piece of kit. Its like IBM took a look at a server one day and thought "hey, I bet we can make that into a laptop!" I know there was the 800 series which has PowerPC architecture and SCSI drives, but I didn't realise they had designed others as...

Hi all, I recently bought a T41p from Ebay, its absolutely beautiful and I was really pleased especially considering the price, which was less than £20. The advert implied that all it booted fine, and all it needed was a hard drive. Sadly, it doesn't even boot. There's no beeps and no life on the sc...

I might be able to help with the volume button problem. I've had the volume controls working on a R31 and a A20 using the following: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Tpb The trickiest bit for me is usually loading nvram and getting it to write, aside from that, it's reasonably straightforward. To run i...

I've known the odd machine to show that behaviour (admittedly during XP setup rather than Windows 7) because they were overheating. I don't suppose you can get to the fan with a small paint brush and clean the blades?

Excellent! Thanks for posting those. The boxed model is beautiful, what a find! Despite their age Thinkpads of this vintage are still nice to use from time to time, I have a 600 that still gets fired up now and again if I'm writing something and want a really nice keyboard.

When I first bought my R31 last month, it came with a 1.06GHz Celeron Mobile, and while usable I found it quite easy to hit its limits, especially when web browsing with a few hefty tabs open. I did a bit of research and easily sourced the flagship processor for the model, the 1.13Ghz Pentium III Mo...

I believe Windows does support an external iSight camera, so you could attach it to anything with a FireWire interface.

Just out of interest, what does your autoexec.bat and config.sys look like?

Well Windows 95 is certainly one way to resolve it!

I imagine you may have this issue sorted by now, but if not have you considered FreeBSD coupled with a light Window Manager? I run it on a 600 233-MMX and the same graphics hardware, albiet with more RAM but I believe FreeBSD lists the absolute minimum it requires as 24MB. I also use openbox as my W...