What should I do with my X31?

[Phred]

I bought an X31 because it was real cheap. It's a 2673-CTO. I bought it a while ago and wasn't sure what to do with it? Is it worth holding on to and maybe doing a few upgrades? Which upgrades would you do? What OS would you run? Was thinking about making it a Linux project.

[Raceboy]

There's so much you can do. For example, I upgraded RAM to max, 2x 1GB, upgraded HDD to SSD (using PATA->microSATA adapter + 1.8" microSATA SSD), converted the original crappy TN screen to IPS (XGA, the easiest because it does not need special BIOS) and bought brand new Panasonic original battery.
Also I upgraded the CPU to LV one but that is not for everyone: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... hilit=x32s
The machine is plenty fast, looks absolutely stunning due to IPS and is completely quiet. The 6cell battery holds around 5-6 hours of working time (depends if screen brightness is max, wifi on or off etc).
Oh, I also modded the machine to support native COM port.

But even with original 1.4-1.5 GHz Banias CPU it is quiet when one uses TP fan control utility.

Good luck!

[fschwep]

Raceboy did a lot and I wonder if that is worth all the investment unless one is a fanatic classic-TP hobbyist. Still, I'd say hold on to the X31 as it is a very decent light travel laptop. No need for Linux, Win XP Pro will run perfectly well on it, it's what it was designed for (just ensure you download the latest service pack from Microsoft before they stop supporting XP).
Maxing out the RAM is always a good idea and easy to do as both RAM modules in the X31 are accessible from below without having to take out the keyboard. Second, put in a lot of storage space in the form of a large hard drive. I put a Western Digital Scorpio of 320 GB in mine. SSD is fine for raw speed, but when you use your subnotebook for travel it's nice to be able to carry along a lot of data (photos for instance) in the machine without the need for an external drive. And digital images these days are huge. Western Digital can supply Acronis software from their site to let you clone the old harddisk to the new one (see elsewhere on the forum on how to do that).
Finally, get a good new battery and ensure you have one of the original IBM lightweight travel chargers.
- One other thing you might try to do is put in a combined modem/bluetooth card, which is lacking in most X31s. In that case you also must install a BT antenna in the hinge. Bluetooth could be handy to use a wireless headset or to connect to a mobile phone.
- If you are going to use it alongside a digital camera, get a PCMCIA (PC-Card) card reader for the cam's memory card (unless it uses classic CF cards, for which the reader is already built into the X31). While on the road you can then empty one camera card into the X31 (with its large new harddisk) and continue shooting pics using a second card in your camera. The X31 then becomes a very good photo storage/viewer tool (especially if you load it with Faststone Image Viewer, which aside from being a great viewer lets you do basic editing to images).

[Raceboy]

I bought a CF->SD card adapter from ebay for ~15usd and can use SD cards in CF slot.

I think the mods that I did were in fact worth every minute of my time (I didn't spend much money though) because it was purpuse built (I install and tune engine management systems) and I need compact laptop with excellent battery life, screen, good ergonomics and native COM port so I built it myself.

It is maxed out in pretty much every aspect sans SXGA+ screen but I did not want the expensive SXGA+ to the laptop that is tossed in the car. Regular XGA IPS screen is definitely enough

[dr_st]

I bought a CF->SD card adapter from ebay for ~15usd and can use SD cards in CF slot.

I'm considering something like this. Which one did you get? Does it sit flush in the slot and support SDHC cards?

[Raceboy]

I bought the one like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/High-Speed-SD-S ... ceRpt=true

It supports SDHC cards (I used 16GB and 32GB cards) and sits flush but I couldn't find any adapter that would have the SD card opening available while the adapter is in the laptop's CF slot. Means you have to eject the adapter each time to insert SD card. Since I'm not doing this too often it's ok with me.

I mostly use it to copy dataloggs from ECU's SD card to laptop (a bit faster than downloading the dataloggs over RS232 port directly from the ECU).

[twistero]

Oh, I also modded the machine to support native COM port.

That sounds very interesting. Any pics / posts?

[natgab]

I bought the one like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/High-Speed-SD-S ... ceRpt=true

It supports SDHC cards (I used 16GB and 32GB cards) and sits flush but I couldn't find any adapter that would have the SD card opening available while the adapter is in the laptop's CF slot. Means you have to eject the adapter each time to insert SD card. Since I'm not doing this too often it's ok with me.

I mostly use it to copy dataloggs from ECU's SD card to laptop (a bit faster than downloading the dataloggs over RS232 port directly from the ECU).

--I know Phred has a X31, but will a X40 boot from an SD card if its in one of those CompactFlash adapters? My Hard drive died on me this week. I'm using a USB stick right now, and don't know if I will spend the money on a SSD or save some cash and get a X60/61. It's mostly for couch surfing and to look up info / drivers when I fix a computer.

[twistero]

--I know Phred has a X31, but will a X40 boot from an SD card if its in one of those CompactFlash adapters? My Hard drive died on me this week. I'm using a USB stick right now, and don't know if I will spend the money on a SSD or save some cash and get a X60/61. It's mostly for couch surfing and to look up info / drivers when I fix a computer.

The X40 doesn't have a built-in CF card reader. If you mean SD card in CF adapter in CF-to-IDE adapter in HDD bay, technically it should work, although it seems to be a very roundabout solution.

For web browsing and downloading files, a lightweight linux distribution should work best, especially the distros that run directly from memory (which completely circumvents the terrible random read/write performance of most CF cards.)

[natgab]

For web browsing and downloading files, a lightweight linux distribution should work best, especially the distros that run directly from memory (which completely circumvents the terrible random read/write performance of most CF cards.)

--Yeah, I checked the Thinkpad wiki picture and realized which kind of card my laptop takes. I had it confused with the PC Card slot that my X40 has built in. I just knew that it won't boot off the SD card slot directly.

I ended up ordering one of those tiny USB drives that fits flush to the socket. I think I will just run Puppy for now on that and then figure out whether I am going to upgrade the HD or get a slightly newer X series Thinkpad. Any experience with the (cheap) KingSpec SSD that are sold on eBay? I see you use a SanDisk SSD on your laptop.

[twistero]

Kingspec SSDs have a really bad reputation. There are a disproportionate amount of failure reports online, far more than other brands.

I use a Super Talent DuraDrive ZT2 in my X41t. It has a ZIF connector, and requires a (straight pin-to-pin, no electronics involved) adapter to connect to the 44-pin internal HDD connector of the X41. Other brands like Renice and RunCore also make such ZIF SSDs.

IMO, the better performance of real SSDs are only worth it if you plan to run Windows. For Linux, especially live distros like Puppy, even a cheaper CF card + CF-to-IDE adapter will be enough. I have a CF card as hard drive in an older laptop, and it runs Arch Linux fine. A USB drive is not a bad idea either.

[Raceboy]

That sounds very interesting. Any pics / posts?

Sorry, I didn't find any pics earlier, found them in some hard drive that was i the drawer

Here's some photos:

http://www.porsche-foorum.org/album/alb ... _com_1.jpg

http://www.porsche-foorum.org/album/alb ... _com_2.jpg

http://www.porsche-foorum.org/album/alb ... _com_3.jpg

I used a 2.5mm earphone jack because usually only 3 pins are needed for RS232 port communications with other hardware (ECU's etc).

[natgab]

Kingspec SSDs have a really bad reputation. There are a disproportionate amount of failure reports online, far more than other brands.

I use a Super Talent DuraDrive ZT2 in my X41t. It has a ZIF connector, and requires a (straight pin-to-pin, no electronics involved) adapter to connect to the 44-pin internal HDD connector of the X41. Other brands like Renice and RunCore also make such ZIF SSDs.

IMO, the better performance of real SSDs are only worth it if you plan to run Windows. For Linux, especially live distros like Puppy, even a cheaper CF card + CF-to-IDE adapter will be enough. I have a CF card as hard drive in an older laptop, and it runs Arch Linux fine. A USB drive is not a bad idea either.

---OK, at least now I know that it would have be a bit more for an SSD since the Kinspec ones are out. Do you think the USB drive would be good enough for something like Linux Mint? Do you run Arch with a DE or Command line? I'm lazy and like the convenience of a DE and menus

Like I said, its mostly for couch surfing, so I would not be stressing it much. I have an 8GB SD card that would give me more space to save files and transfer to my desktop. Might just keep it with the USB / SD cards and spend the money on a battery instead.

[twistero]

---OK, at least now I know that it would have be a bit more for an SSD since the Kinspec ones are out. Do you think the USB drive would be good enough for something like Linux Mint? Do you run Arch with a DE or Command line? I'm lazy and like the convenience of a DE and menus

There's only one way to find out. We can talk about theoretical issues all day, but since you already have everything, just try it out ans see whether it works for you.

The old laptop has a 700MHz Mobile Pentium III and 256MB RAM. I use LXDE on it, and it struggles a little bit, but IMO a little stuttering is worth it for full graphical browsers and PDF viewers.

Sorry, I didn't find any pics earlier, found them in some hard drive that was i the drawer

Here's some photos:

http://www.porsche-foorum.org/album/alb ... _com_1.jpg

http://www.porsche-foorum.org/album/alb ... _com_2.jpg

http://www.porsche-foorum.org/album/alb ... _com_3.jpg

I used a 2.5mm earphone jack because usually only 3 pins are needed for RS232 port communications with other hardware (ECU's etc).

That is really cool indeed. So you don't need the various handshaking / flow control lines of RS232?

[natgab]

There's only one way to find out. We can talk about theoretical issues all day, but since you already have everything, just try it out ans see whether it works for you.

The old laptop has a 700MHz Mobile Pentium III and 256MB RAM. I use LXDE on it, and it struggles a little bit, but IMO a little stuttering is worth it for full graphical browsers and PDF viewers.

--I'm like a little kid waiting for the UPS truck to get my flush mount USB. I want to see how it acts with the battery, I have it on the desk because I don't want to bump into the large USB and break the USB socket on the Thinkpad.

EDIT: Linux Mint 13 w/ MATE runs great on the USB. Using my 8GB SD card as extra storage.

http://i50.tinypic.com/2d98bk6.jpg

[Raceboy]

That is really cool indeed. So you don't need the various handshaking / flow control lines of RS232?

No. But it would be possible to not use earphone jack and route a pigtail to RS232 connector directly and get full RS232.

[dr_st]

I bought the one like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/High-Speed-SD-S ... ceRpt=true

Ordered the same one. The adapter I received looks different (has a different sticker on top which says "SDXC 4th Generation Extreme CF Adapter"). The thing is, for an "extreme performance" adapter (the seller even advertises it as such), it seems extremely slow.

I'm seeing speeds of about 1.2-1.3MB/s for sequential read/write in CrystalDiskMark. The speeds are the same for both the cheap 128MB SD and the Ultra II 4GB SDHC, which means that the adapter/interface is bottlenecking. This is much slower than the speeds I reported here for the same cards, using some cheap PCMCIA adapter.

Is this is how slow these CF adapters are? I believe the interface is capable of more, otherwise no one would ever dream of using an IDE adapter in them. One thing I noticed is that it says the adapter supports UDMA. Is it possible that something must be done to enable it and, otherwise it defaults to PIO? This would explain the slowness. However, I did not find any such setting in the device manager (both XP and Win7).

[dr_st]

OK, I believe I've found the relevant setting. It is under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers --> PCMCIA IDE/ATAPI Controller --> Advanced Settings.

Indeed the current mode there is "PIO Mode 4". This would explain the atrocious performance. However, the "Enable DMA" checkbox is grayed out, and I have no idea if I can even enable DMA.

Found this:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... fb61f62f77

Does this mean that I am out of luck? If that is the case, then perhaps the seller has misrepresented the product (sale clearly says "Supports UDMA").

Raceboy, I would appreciate your input regarding performance of said adapter in your machine.

[petko8680]

What's the best place to buy non-ibm battery for my x31 as genuine ibm batteries look ma bit expensive to me?

[dr_st]

According to this thread, it looks like the problem is the CF slot on the laptop, which does not support UDMA. The numbers quoted there are very similar to what I'm seeing. Unless someone has evidence to the contrary, it means that this is the max performance. Should have done some more research before ordering probably.