Getting the old ThinkPad ready for school

[ccookie66]

Now that my high school allows us to bring our own computers, and not use their old junk ones, I will be bringing my ThinkPad T40. I have Windows XP Pro SP3 installed on it, and the only things keeping it back are the very poor battery life, and I would like it get my USB ports working to 2.0 speeds again. I have all summer to get this laptop working, so here I go!

[ethink]

Now that my high school allows us to bring our own computers, and not use their old junk ones, I will be bringing my ThinkPad T40. I have Windows XP Pro SP3 installed on it, and the only things keeping it back are the very poor battery life, and I would like it get my USB ports working to 2.0 speeds again. I have all summer to get this laptop working, so here I go!

Take a look at this posting http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=70955

Two recommended USB 2.0 Cardbus Adapters:

http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cable_d ... 38,134,103

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

NOS IBM Battery for T40:
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Battery-IBM-Thi ... 4a9d265602

[Neil]

Good luck with your summer project! I didn't know high schools were allowing students to BYO. But, then, it's been 35 years since I graduated...guess a lot of things have changed since then! We thought an electric typewriter was high tech back then. The business classroom back then had about twenty manual typewriters and three or four electrics.

[RealBlackStuff]

I would like it get my USB ports working to 2.0 speeds again.

USB ports running at 1.1 speed means, your Southbridge chip has become partially unstuck.
To overcome that, you can put in a PCMCIA USB2.0 adapter, but to fix it, that Southbridge chip needs to be reballed.
Check out The Board Room link in my signature for more information.

[ccookie66]

Take a look at this posting http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=70955

Two recommended USB 2.0 Cardbus Adapters:

http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cable_d ... 38,134,103

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

NOS IBM Battery for T40:
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Battery-IBM-Thi ... 4a9d265602

Thanks for the links. Do you know if that battery is 9 cell?

[ajkula66]

I always *strongly* advise against buying third-party knock-off batteries...

Plenty of sellers with genuine NOS batteries for T4x/R5x units, these machines are not that old...

[rumbero]

Two recommended USB 2.0 Cardbus Adapters:

http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cable_d ... 38,134,103

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

Yes, they probably work as expected. I have the seond mentioned "IBM USB 2.0 CARDBUS ADAPTER 32P5080" myself, but i consider this additional connector dongle as rather inconvenient, as it only adds more bulk.

Much more preferable is an AKE USB2 Cardbus adapter, which completely hides in the cardbus slot, and doesn't require any additional connectors. See for example these offers with extensive illustrations at http://cgi.ebay.com/180666136607 and http://cgi.ebay.com/270706805148. Should these URL's not be valid anymore in the future, please just search for "AKE USB 2.0 cardbus adapter" in eBay and also Amazon.

There is BTW also a very nice USB 3.0 Expresscard/54 adapter from AKE, with which i am quite happy due to it's form factor: http://cgi.ebay.com/320705528146 and http://cgi.ebay.com/280594445293. It also exists as a smaller one port version for the Expresscard/34, which appears to be much easier to find: http://cgi.ebay.com/150620004658. Again, should any of these example URL's not be valid anymore in the future, please just search for "AKE USB 3.0 expresscard adapter" in eBay and Amazon.