My X30 Project

[t140568]

In the wake of recent upgrades to my R50 and a lot of spare time available to me last week, I decided to start a new project.

For $42, I purchased an X30 (2672-42U) in need of screen replacement, RAM, and an HD&Caddy. I was originally expecting it to be the 1.06ghz processor as the listing stated, but was pleasantly surprised to find the 1.2ghz
The battery at least holds a charge (not too sure how much yet). The casing on this X30 is not so good.

While I do miss the feel of the rubberized exterior of a TP, I do not miss how much it shows scratches.

The plan is to max the RAM to the 1gb allowed, add as fast of hard drive my budget will allow for as well as internal wireless and bluetooth. I saw another X30 on eBay that had a good screen with clean casing with a bad mobo. Hopefully, I'll find another.

I'm just excited about my project and thought I'd share with you.


****Costs****
X30 with bad screen/good mobo/good batt: $40.98
X30 with good casing/good screen/bad mobo: $62.00
1gb RAM: $41.00
160gb Samsung 5400rpm HD: $59.99
Total cost: $203.97 (about $50 under budget )

[j-dawg]

Sounds like fun.

Having never used an X30, hey strike me as the neglected middle child of the X-series: nobody knows much about them, nobody's looking for them. It will be neat to see what happens now that somebody's giving an X30 some attention.

Granted, laptops aren't like children, but it's like a car collector wanting a car just because it's rare. You might not have expected it at the time, but now it's something special. Bringing it back to shape should be a satisfying journey.

[sjthinkpader]

Congratulations, the X30 is one of the lowest power X series, save the X60s. Also the only chassis with two DIMM slots although large PC133 RAM modules are getting rare. You can set it to run with passive cooling and completely quiet. The Ultrabase X3 can hold two more batteries to make extremely long run time.

The KB bezel is very weak so you don't want to tighten the two front screws too much and avoid holding it by the front corners.

[t140568]

Thanks for the encouragement!

The KB bezel is very weak so you don't want to tighten the two front screws too much and avoid holding it by the front corners.

That explains why the one I have has a broken kb bezel. Fortunately, parts are on the way!

[tomh009]

That explains why the one I have has a broken kb bezel. Fortunately, parts are on the way!

The bezel typically cracks in the thin spots next to the front edge of the keyboard. As sjthinkpadder says, avoid lifting by the front corner.

Overtightening the front screws gives you a different, and even less pleasant, cracking symptom at the front corners.

[t140568]

I had an X30 with a working motherboard... booted fine, I could see bios info, etc. However, it had some pretty beat-up casing and a screen with some vertical lines.

I picked up another X30 with a bad motherboard, but good casing and a good LCD. I swapped the good motherboard into the good casing to make what I thought would be a pretty nice X30. Now I get 4 sets of 4 beeps... ye ol' security chip.

If there's no way to clear this (as I suspect there is not), then what did I do so I know what to avoid in the future?
Thanks.

****Edit****

Turns out it's the Firewire/IrDA card that has the Security chip on it. Apparently, I put the one from the non-functional motherboard into it. I feel a little dumb, but it's outweighed by the excitement of having it working! Besides, I'll just chalk it up to learning experience. Anyway, Woohoo!

[kingofthehill3]

Hi t140568,

I have a little X30 project on my own

So far, I..
- upgraded to 1 GB Ram
- upgraded to 320 GB Hdd
- added a Bluetooth Doughter Card (BDC)
- replaced the 802.11b WLAN miniPCI card with a 802.11bgn miniPCI card and added a third antenna
- added a Cardbus-USB 2.0 card that vanishes completely inside the cardbus-slot

The last thing that I want to replace (besides the display bezel with the typical cracks) is the battery.
The nearly 7 year old X30 still outperforms nearly all atom-based netbooks and I'm still very happy with it.

I know my X30 quite well, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask

[t140568]

Hi t140568,

I have a little X30 project on my own

So far, I..
- upgraded to 1 GB Ram
- upgraded to 320 GB Hdd
- added a Bluetooth Doughter Card (BDC)
- replaced the 802.11b WLAN miniPCI card with a 802.11bgn miniPCI card and added a third antenna
- added a Cardbus-USB 2.0 card that vanishes completely inside the cardbus-slot

The last thing that I want to replace (besides the display bezel with the typical cracks) is the battery.
The nearly 7 year old X30 still outperforms nearly all atom-based netbooks and I'm still very happy with it.

I know my X30 quite well, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask

That's awesome! Sounds like you have a great little machine!
Which BGN card did you get? I have one in my R50, but it lacks the third antenna. How did you go about adding it? I take it the 1802 unauthorized wifi alert was no problem after the patch.

I have a gig of ram on the way. Now all I need is a hard drive of some sort. I'm really thinking ssd or CF-ide. Storage space isn't an issue for me. Long battery life, low heat, low noise, and speed are. A BDC is a must as I plan to tether with my cellphone.

I've been running DarnSmallLinux just to tinker around with it. Seems like it can be a fairly peppy machine. Granted with DSL, it SHOULD be!

I really appreciate everyone's help and enthusiasm.

[kingofthehill3]

I bought the BDC about 3 years ago from eBay... it's this baby:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Bluetooth ... Card_(BDC)

The bluetooth antenna is hidden in the left display hinge:
http://www.misi.jp/bluetooth/img/put_hinge_cover_s.jpg

I was very lucky and got that thing for only 6$ in eBay.

For a perfect bluetooth upgrade, you might want to replace the LCD clearplate with a bluetooth-x30 version as well.
Btw... there is a small "button" on the TFT-inverter directly under the clearplate. This button enables and
disables the BDC. Since it is seems to be very hard (= expensive ) to get a button-cap for this little
[censored], I just improvised a button with a thumbtack. Retrospective, this is not
necessary since you can enable or disable the BDC completely with software... both in Windows and
Linux!!! And if your Linux does not initialize the BDC (internally a USB device) correctly, a firmware
update solved the problem for me.

As WLAN replacement I bought a miniPCI card with a RaLink RT2860 chipset which is also used in many netbooks.
Since I mainly use Debian, working Linux drivers played a big role in my decision. Currently there are linux drivers
from RaLink which are also part of the kernel staging branch. They work well, but not perfect. A completely new
driver is currently developed in the rt2x00 project (http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com), but the driver is still very
experimental and unusable for daily work.

This is the miniPCI card:
http://www.sparklan.com/product_details.php?prod_id=170

I got the thing from: http://www.minipci.biz
The third WLAN antenna was part of the miniPCI bundle.

I eliminated the 1802 unauthorized alert by modifying my bios file (not the CMOS). I wrote a little protocol about
the single steps, but they are unfortunately in German: http://www.lobmenschen.de/index.php/Thinkpad_X30
If you are planning to do a similar modification, I can briefly describe the steps in English.

I also thought about SSD to replace the Harddisk, but SSDs in good quality are still too expensive for me, although
disk space is also not a big deal to me (64 GB was the minimum I accepted for disk space). So I bought a WD Scorpio
Blue with 320 GB...

@Tim: good luck with your RAM upgrade

[sjthinkpader]

....
Which BGN card did you get? I have one in my R50, but it lacks the third antenna. How did you go about adding it? I take it the 1802 unauthorized wifi alert was no problem after the patch.
....

I used both the Ralink miniPCI, Atheros AR5008 and intel miniExpress card. Except for the AR5008 which only use 2 antennae, the Ralink and intel use 3 antenna. For a T60, I placed the 3rd antenna in the left edge of the LCD cover. For the A31p, it was placed just to the right of the Ultraport.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 1n+antenna
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 50&start=0

[tomh009]

I have a gig of ram on the way. Now all I need is a hard drive of some sort. I'm really thinking ssd or CF-ide. Storage space isn't an issue for me. Long battery life, low heat, low noise, and speed are. A BDC is a must as I plan to tether with my cellphone.

Make sure you research the SSD carefully if battery life is the #1 criterion for you; some SSDs use more power than new hard disks (for example, the new Hitachi 5K500.B series, use only about one watt).

[tomh009]

The last thing that I want to replace (besides the display bezel with the typical cracks) is the battery.

Your display bezel has cracks? Really? Usually it's the keyboard bezel that cracks first.

[t140568]

Make sure you research the SSD carefully if battery life is the #1 criterion for you; some SSDs use more power than new hard disks (for example, the new Hitachi 5K500.B series, use only about one watt).

I'll definitely keep that in mind. Thank you!

I used both the Ralink miniPCI, Atheros AR5008 and intel miniExpress card. Except for the AR5008 which only use 2 antennae, the Ralink and intel use 3 antenna. For a T60, I placed the 3rd antenna in the left edge of the LCD cover. For the A31p, it was placed just to the right of the Ultraport.

I have an AR5008 in my R50 - works well, though reception is less than I'd like. Ralink seems to be a bit expensive, so I'm still a bit undecided at the moment.

Also, I got my ram today, unfortunately only one of the DIMMs works. The other won't allow the system to boot, the screen stays black, and the chip gets REALLY hot. I'm going to see if I can return it or get a refund.

What do you folks do to replace the little rubber feet on the bottom of the machine?

[t140568]

In a bit of impatience and a lot of curiosity, I decided to pull the HD from my R50 and test it out in the X30. Ubuntu 9.04 is on the drive and aside from one error (ACPI), everything booted up as it normally would on hte R50. While the X30 only has the one working dimm of 512mb, it booted very quickly and moves surprisingly quickly all around. Scrolling in FF is perhaps the slowest part. WONDERFUL WiFi signal is attained with the built-in antennas and my spare Wireless B card. I'm thinking with a clean install and the full amount of ram, this will be a very comfortable little machine.

[kingofthehill3]

@tomh009: unfortunately there is also a little crack on the cardbus slot, but I fixed that with a bit of glue and a metal pin.

@t140568: the two rubber feed int the back are still in place, the rubber feeds on the battery are missing, but I have to replace the battery anyway.

Currently I'm still not sure which battery to buy... mine is at about 15% of the original capacity (after ~500 cycles). I once had a cheap replacement
battery from china, but in my opinion they are all crap. Mine died after ~100 cycles and was never able to show the remaining capacity correctly
(which really sucked).

Does anyone now a cheap source for original batteries? Here in Germany, an original would cost me ~130$. My heart is bleeding

[sjthinkpader]

The last of the series X32 were produced in 2006. Other than new old stock from 2006 and new battery from Lenovo, choices are pretty limited. So you'll have to take some chances and hope to get a pretty good used battery.

[kingofthehill3]

I found a used battery in eBay for ~80$. It's original IBM/Lenovo bought in 01/2009 with 95% of capacity remaining. 80 bucks is still far from cheap, but rebuilds are only slightly cheaper and I prefer a 6 month old original battery over all crappy rebuilds... and this is definitely the last battery I'll buy for the X30

[sjthinkpader]

I got a few from Hammerhead Technology in Chico, CA in pretty good shape.

[t140568]

Picked up a Samsung HM160HC from Newegg for $59.99. Very nice drive, indeed! Also picked up some new TrackPoint Caps...makes a big difference in the way the TP feels.

I just need some bluetooth action and maybe upgrade the wireless and I'll be set.

I only have 512mb in the X30 right now due to a bad stick shipped from an ebay seller, but a replacement should be on the way. It's pretty zippy with Ubuntu 8.04... even with desktop effects enabled.

[force]

That spot on the keyboard bezel right above the cardbus slot is really a weak spot. Not only is it really narrow, but the lid has these toothed feet that sit half-way over the slot. A poor design choice for such a stress point, as I found out this past weekend when mine got bumped off of a table.

[kingofthehill3]

Another very weak point seems to be the plastic frame around the display. This thing has multiple cracks and a replacement is only available as part of the complete display kit. Fortunately this thing has nothing to do with stability.

Btw: My new battery is very nice. It had only 7 cycles and first used date was in 2009, but manufacturing date was in 2005. I suppose the production of original X3* batteries has stopped in 2005 or 2006. It currently offers 93% of the initial full capacity.