Thinkpads Forum

Hello all,

I've been stalking around for awhile and I am finally getting ready to rip into my 600e. One thing that I am wondering is whether anyone has been able to shoehorn the 600x heatsink/fan assembly into a 600e.

Also what is a "Selectbase (dock) III" that I hear about? Is it better than a standard port replicator?

Thanks for your help!

The SelectaBase 600 is the port replicator. It has a wad of ports and allows you to use one of the SelectaDocks (I, II or III).

http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/SelectaBase_600

The SelectaDock III is the largest. It has another IDE controller (to go with the two in the 600) and a SCSI controller with internal and external connectors.

It has some PCI and ISA slots too, and much much much much more!

http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/SelectaDock_III

If you wish to upgrade P3 366 to P3 600 or higher, you can still keep the fan. 600X's fan is a bit noisy.

The 600/E/X port replicator, in my point of view, it useless frankly. Just have PS/2 for keyboard. You can chooose USB keyboard for USB-2 PS/2 line.

"Selectbase (dock) III" like a desktop box. You can put 600E on it. You can also choose PCI card, desktop harddisk,and so on. Just for a fun.

wireless4laptop wrote:If you wish to upgrade P3 366 to P3 600 or higher, you can still keep the fan. 600X's fan is a bit noisy.

No it isn't. I own two 600X's and have installed the OS on two more, and the fan is not noisy on any of them. The hard drive that came with the 600X is pretty noisy, though.

The 600/E/X port replicator, in my point of view, it useless frankly. Just have PS/2 for keyboard. You can chooose USB keyboard for USB-2 PS/2 line.

I find it very useful. I have power, audio out, my PDA dock, a wired network card (MUCH faster than my wireless network) and a keyboard and mouse running through a KVM switch. Docking my 600X connects all those devices in a second. Pretty handy in my book, but maybe not for you.

My wife just has power and speakers connected to hers. At about $3 for the SelectaBase from eBay (before shipping), it's hard to go wrong.

You can get the SelectaDock III on eBay for approximately free (again before shipping).

So, (theoretically of course) I can put an IDE CD-RW in the SelectaDock along with a new PCI video card? That opens a whole new world for this laptop.

I'm going to try to 600e heatsink/fan for now. It looks like it's just using a thermal pad right now. I bet it will provide adequate cooling with some Artic Silver.

If off to Ebay hunting for deals....

Thanks!

You sure can do all of that, but keep in mind the bus in a 600E runs at 66Mhz. Adding a PIII will push it to 100MHz, and some parts might just not work, like the built-in memory, so you could have stability issues.

Well you'll learn a lot at least!

But you might want to shop for a cheap 600X while you're collecting parts.

It's funny that you would mention that. I'm shopping for a "broken" 600x as we speak. I'm going to end up with 2+ laptops by the time I'm done tinkering with all of this.

the tp600e +x have identical chipsets,ibm could have easily written a tp600e bios for p3 support but unfortunately greed (when we all know bx chipsets indeed support 100fsb +got priority,however that did not stop them that are running 108 fsb + even higher on the beaut bx chipset the 600e utilises,100fsb is not an issue,enabling the l2 cache for the p3 is,ibm are smart but not smart enough to prevent tp600e notebooks running 900mghz + with cpu +fsb mod + modifying the hex edit in the bios.only clause is that one must use power leap control panel to allow the l2 cache to enable in os boot,only time will tell if we can get a modded bios for the tp 600e to fully support p3 cpus as nature intended to on bx chipsets.