Thinkpads Forum

I was given a non-working Thinkpad 760CD a couple years ago with the promise that if I could fix it I could keep it. Well, after fixing the MBR on the hard drive and installing Win 98SE I had myself a laptop for the price of nothing. I haven't done much with it but I recently bought a wireless router and thought it would be nice to have something I could tote around the house to check email, surf the web, etc. without sitting down at the "big" computer.

I've been looking into upgrading it from the standard 90mhz cpu, 24mb ram, and 1.2gb hard drive. I figured if I only spend about $100 for what I want then it's still a good deal since the laptop was free. I've installed the most current bios and drivers. I found this forum and found some great information, however, I still have a few questions about the 760CD I'm hoping someone could answer.

#1 The CPU. I know it can be upgraded to 120mhz, however, does it have to be the exact FRU number that IBM says or can it be another 120mhz cpu from another 760 model like the EL, etc.? Also, is 120mhz it? Is it possible to put in a 133, 150, or 166mhz cpu from another model or is the bios limited to 120mhz?

#2 Memory. The product specs on IBM's website (it used to be there, it's not now) says that 40mb ram is the limit. However, I've read on some other forums that people have been able to get 64mb in a 760CD. I found a website that supposedly stocked 32mb modules for the 760CD so I ordered 2 of them. I received 144 pin modules and they will not fit in the memory adapter for the 760CD. So I'm back to square one trying to find memory. I have 24mb now, 8 on board, 16mb module. I would just like to know if I should just try to find another 16mb module to boost it to 40mb or if I should spend time to find 2 more 32mb modules in hopes of getting it to 64mb.

#3 The hard drive. I have the standard 1.2gb drive. With Win 98SE and Office 2000 and a couple other applications, that leaves about 300-400mb left. 1.2gb is not enough if you ask me. I found an 8gb drive at a good price on the net, IBM DYLA-28100. I can not get it to work in the 760CD. I saw some posts on here about bending the address pins to use with the old caddy. Well, I did bend the four pins in different combinations and the only thing I got was a 174 error code twice, which I think that means it was set as slave. With all the bending I managed to break off all four of the addressing pins so now I'm stuck with the drive and it is non returnable. The drive documentation says that leaving all 4 pins jumperless sets the drive to master. So now I'm wondering if all 4 pins are broken off, they're not jumpered (is that the right word? ), so it should be set as master, why won't it work? While perusing the bios notes for the 760CD I did notice one of the revisions said "Enabled support for 4 and 5 gb drives". So is 5gb the biggest drive you can put in the 760CD? If someone could tell me how to get this 8gb drive with 4 broken pins working, I just might name my first born after you.

#4 The PCMCIA slot. I am able to connect to my network using a regular wired network adapter. I'm using the SMC 8041TX EZ Card 10/100. I don't know if it's Type I, Cardbus, 16 bit or 32 bit, but it gets me on my network and the net so that's all that counts. Now that I have a wireless router I want to connect wirelessly. I bought a 802.11b card and can't get it to work for the life of me. Win98 won't recognize it and when I try to install manually I get a 1f6 error code which nobody really seems to know what that means. Is it possible to use a wireless adapter in the 760CD? Is there anything special I need to do or is there a certain type of card I need to use?

Those are all the questions for now. Basically, I'd like to get the laptop to 120mhz or better, 40mb ram or better, use of a 8gb hard drive, and ability to connect to a wireless network.

Any answers to these questions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

The 760CD only takes PCMCIA, type I, II or III but not cardbus. Your network card is most likely a TypeII as type one was used mainly for memory. The RAM the 760CD uses is 72pin SODIMM's, not 144pin. The cpu has to be from a 760CD or a 760C. The E, EL, ED, ELD and above used a different connector. Wireless can be done, just be sure you get a PCMCIA card, not a cardbus card. Cardbus usually has the gold colored plate near the connector so you'll know what to avoid. I have no clue whats wrong with your particular card unfortunatey. I'm pretty sure you can put 64mb RAM into the 760cd but since IBM won't support that, I can't guarantee that.

As far as hard drives go, my 750P supports drives up to 8GB, so I would hope your 760CD would too. (Actually, I can use larger drives, but the BIOS only sees the first 8GB. But I know a lot of people talked about a 6GB limit.)

I bent one pin on my 12GB drive (the lower-right one) to ensure that pin stayed open and the drive stayed in master mode. On the 750 series, the connector or whatever it connects to connects that pin so the drive goes to slave mode. Very old drives had the opposite polarity.

But now that the pins are gone, you have to find the chart for that drive and ensure it's in master mode. If, as you say, all pins open makes it work in master, then you should be fine, and there's another issue.

I suggest you download Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test. It will tell you where the machine thinks the drive is connected.

Look up error 174 in the HMM. See the FAQ on where to get it. You'll want it around.

Also, try clicking Initialize in EZSetup after the drive is installed and report back.

Thanks for the info. However, after doing some more research, I've found that the 760CD takes 88 pin SODIMM's and not 72 pin. I found a couple 32mb on eBay and bought them. One comes with the same memory adapter I have so I know that will work.

As far as the hard drive, I do have the documentation and all pins open sets it to master. So I having all 4 pins broken off shouldn't create a problem.

I found the site for the Fitness Test and something about Ontrack, some kind of overlay program. I'm not sure what that is, I'll have to read up on it.

I have looked up error 174 and it is a hard drive configuration error.

The problem is, I can't get into EZSetup when the drive is in. I put the hard drive in, then the floppy with a Win98 boot disk, turn on the machine and the floppy just spins and won't let me into EZSetup.

Should I be using a high capacity caddy for this drive, because I'm still using the one for the 1.2 gb drive? Maybe that's the problem.

Ok, I am able to get into EZSetup. The drive tested ok and I initialized but same result. I cannot boot from the floppy with the 8gb drive in.

I downloaded the Drive Fitness Test and tried to boot with that and I tried a Windows 98 startup disk. The machine stays at the initial screen with amount of ram in upper left corner, IBM in upper right corner, and Thinkpad along the bottom and the floppy drive light stays on constant.

Any thoughts?

My only thought is one I know to be incorrect. I had a Micron tower a few years ago. It had a BIOS bug. If I had any DOS partition on an 8GB drive, DOS would not boot, even from floppy.

It seems the BIOS reported the drive as having 256 heads (or whatever), which DOS read as zero, and promptly but silently locked up.

However, I know a 12GB drive works in my 750P, so I cannot imagine a 760CD would not work with an 8GB drive. I suggest you try more floppies:

Get Ranish Partition Manager (www.ranish.com/part) and remove all the partitions. See if a Linux floppy will boot with the drive in place and remove all the partitions. (www.slackware.com: get bare.i, install.1 and install.2.)

Try an IBM BIOS update floppy, just to see if it will boot. After monkeying around with a 570, I think ThinkPads have a special check for a BIOS update diskette and will boot it before doing anything else.

Try a Windows XP install floppy. The CD has a program that will make six install diskettes for machines that won't boot the CD. Make (or have a friend make) the first one and see if it will boot.

Those are things I would try.