just got a 600E, looking to upgrade sound and video support

[Legend66]

hi all! just got a bargain off ebay the other day, Thinkpad 600E 366MHz, 288MB ram and 6GB harddrive running windows 2000 with office. all costing a very reasonable £81 (£15 postage included) ! . Im new to the world of laptops, but was looking for a cheap solution for a media type PC. I plan to be using winamp with various plugins with an infrared remote to control the hifi, and so i will also be buying an external sound card (via USB).

I hear you can upgrade the CPUs to pentium III standard, which would be great for when i get a DVD drive and a larger HD (for video, ogg playback). I was reading some posts in the uprade thread, but i cant make any sense of it! as far as you guys are aware, what are the steps i need to take to get a pentium III into my 600E? help would be much appreciated!

oh and one more thing, is it possibe to buy/fabricate an LCD extension (was thinking about wallmounting the screen seperate from the main unit)

i realise this is probably alot to ask, but thanks to anyone who has the time to help a thinkpad newbie!

[GomJabbar]

Since the 600E only has USB 1.0 or 1.1 (I'm not sure which) and not USB 2.0, I doubt that a USB sound adapter will work well, unless you get a USB 2.0 PC card to plug it into. You may be better off just getting a PC sound card to begin with. Just make sure the specs support the OS, Processor, and memory that you have.

I have read of some that put a PIII processor in a 600E, but I am not sure that you will not encounter some problems. Perhaps someone that has done this can comment.

Instead of wallmounting the screen, why don't you use the TV out function to output to a separate LCD monitor that accepts composite video (yellow RCA jack). If your 600E does not already have the TV out card installed (only some models came with this installed), it is fairly easy to add it. Just purchase a TV out card FRU number 10L1192, and a video cable FRU number 05K2821, on e-bay or elseware. You will have to trim part of the plastic where the hole is covered on the right side of the laptop. I did this upgrade on my 600E.

[Legend66]

thanks for your reply, for sound i have already decided on buying a pcmcia USB 2.0 adapter (the 600E does have the 32bit bus doesnt it? :/ ) but are you saying that I can upgrade the sound card thats already in the machine? that would be preferable, but im not sure how they fit inside and whether there are any compatibility issues like size, pins and socket etc...?

I suppose it would be easier to just buy a whole new after market 600X type motherboard if I was going to upgrade the CPU?

thanks for the help

[hjulian]

Just purchase a TV out card FRU number 10L1192, and a video cable FRU number 05K2821, ... I did this upgrade on my 600E.

Can you give us your TP 600E type number? Do you know for sure that this upgrade can be done on any TP 600E?

Thanks.

[GomJabbar]

Just purchase a TV out card FRU number 10L1192, and a video cable FRU number 05K2821, ... I did this upgrade on my 600E.

Can you give us your TP 600E type number? Do you know for sure that this upgrade can be done on any TP 600E?

Thanks.

It will work on any 600E. FTR my type number is 2645-3AU.

but are you saying that I can upgrade the sound card thats already in the machine? that would be preferable, but im not sure how they fit inside and whether there are any compatibility issues like size, pins and socket etc...?

Regarding the Sound Card upgrade, I was referring to a PCMCIA card to fit in one of the (2) PC Card slots.


Regarding the 600E:

PC Card Std slots: 2 Type I, 2 Type II, or 1 Type III / CardBus 32-bit / PCMCIA 2.1 / Zoomed Video

[Kurt]

I'm using a Sony USB (1.1/2.0) sound adapter (PCGA-JR1) with my 600X. It works perfectly while consuming very little resources and the sound quality is much better. But a PCMCIA sound card like the Audigy will need much more resources and higher CPU clock. And if you want to use a USB sound adapter with your 600E in Windows XP(98/ME), you need to install the "XP Installation Suppliment Files" in order to get quality sound.

# Windows XP installation supplement files - ThinkPad General
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 106089#INF

# Windows 98 installation supplement files - ThinkPad 600, 760, 765, 770
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 106089#INF

# Windows installation supplement files for Windows Me - ThinkPad General
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 106089#INF

[Legend66]

on further investigation the 600E does indeed have a 32bit PCMCIA card bus. the problems with the pcmcia based cards are (a) the resources they consume and (b) the expense. also te majority of USB sound cards require only USB 1.0/1.1, with only REALLY high end stuff utilizing USB 2.0.

I will be getting my hands on the machine tonight, and will post the model type.

are there any supplement files for windows 2000? (which the machine is loaded with) or is the sound quality already good enough without any supplementation?

the song PCGA-JR1, from the looks of it is just a headphone jack? and its size surely means it isnt a very good sound card. To be honest i dont really know how USB sound cards work, are digital files (like mp3, ogg, mp4) sent to the card which is then decoded and outputed by the card or is the file decoded on the PC and then the uncompressed wav sent through the card, and can you have 2 sounds from 2 applications playing at once? sorry, im very confused :/

[GomJabbar]

Actually you should get quite acceptable sound from the headphone jack if you use the appropriate powered speakers. I think the sound from the motherboard itself is OK, it is the amplifier that could use some more beef. If you can get some powered speakers that don't require you to turn the volume up high on the ThinkPad, your sound should be good.

I don't see any supplement files listed for W2K. I had W2K on my 600E, and it ran well. Just make sure your BIOS is of a release version that supports W2K. Note also that the newer modem driver uses Crystal MIDI support while the older one used ACP MIDI support. I believe this has to do with the ThinkPad DSP chip on the motherboard. Check the readme files for the modem drivers for more info.

Software and Device Drivers - ThinkPad 600

[warwound]

Following this thread i decided to have a look on Ebay for the items to add video-out to my Thinkpad 600E 2645-4BG.

I've found a seller with 59(!) 10L1192 boards for sale - good price too.
Buy it now price £3.99 plus £1.99 P&P.

Before i buy one can i ask how easy is it to dismantle my 600E and fit the board?
Can anyone point me to any guides or info?

No sign of the required video cable on Ebay that i can see - is the 05K2821 video cable essential or can another cable be used/put together for the job?

Thanks a lot.

warwound.

[GomJabbar]

The video cable is essential, as I know of no other cable that has the required connector to fit into the jack.

You can get some info from the Hardware Maintenance Manual for disassembling the 600E. Hardware Maintenance Manual (June 1999) - ThinkPad 600

Regarding installing the above, it is not too hard, but be careful when unplugging the Keyboard ribbon cable connector and the Speaker ribbon cable connector, as the ribbon cables cannot take much stress. Try to pry the connectors apart with a blade of some sort, while lifting the front of the keyboard up about 3 inches or so.

You have to adjust the display lid to the proper angle to be able to remove the keyboard. When you replace the keyboard, be careful with the plastic lenses for the LED's, that they do not push down on the Speaker ribbon cable connector and break it. It happened to me once. You have to make sure the plastic lenses go behind the Speaker ribbon cable connector.

The screws you remove are different lengths, so devise a method of keeping track of where they go.

You do have to cut off a part of the plastic piece that covers the existing hole for the TV out port. This is easy to do with a fine-bladed saw, like a hacksaw. The plastic comes completely out, so it is easy to work on. It is also actually part of the guide for the CD-ROM drive slot.

[warwound]

Thanks a lot for the detailed info.

Rather than risk damaging my Thinkpad i've decided not to bother upgrading it with a video-out card!
It's no doubt all straightforward but to be honest i have no practical use for video-out.
(Can't do without the Thinkpad if i damage it either).

Thanks again.



warwound

[Simoni]

I'm using PCM2702 and 2706 on USB1.0 and its works 100% properly .. You don't have to buy USB 2.0 adapter to Yours IBM ...

[Legend66]

hey guys ive got the thinkpad 600e now and im so chuffed, it really can do anything i need it too, browsing through office documents and opening word is actually faster than on my 2.4GHZ desktop! and Winamp works without a hitch, totally smooth song transition and a nice bonus is the totally acceptable sound quality being outputed from the speaker jack, which will allow me to delay an expensive soundcard purchuse for a good while yet the CPU (PII 366Mhz) load levels out at around 2-6% with ogg playbakc and 1-3% for mp3, only rising to 30% on a song change (so i can play minesweeper or work at the same time!) still havnt tried networking the thing yet, but once thas done I cant imagine ill need to use my faster desktops much apart from playing 3D games! im loving the black colour. tried to take it apart the other day but I gave up! unscrewed everything I could find but the keyboard/top part was still fixed at the hinge? ah well it was probabaly best i didnt get inside. the battery I got with the machine stops the hting from booting up (even connected at the mains) which makes me think the circuitry inside the battery is buggered. but anyway great laptop, and who can complain for £60?

[AlphaKilo470]

It's amazing what these old machines can do nowadays, especially if you treat them right, keep them up do date and buy the right parts. I just installed a nice new 40gb Toshiba hard drive w/ a 16mb buffer and 5400rpm spin speed that I got from a fellow forum member and this computer runs lightning fast now for most tasks I need the computer for. I never knew until yesterday the kind of performance I was missing out on when I still had my old 20gb 4200rpm hard drive with 2mb buffer.

[Legend66]

yeah a new hard drive is certainly the first thing i will be investing in my 600e, so it really also increases the general speed of the system? thats great

[serverbook]

put it this way put that 4200prm drive and say 128 mb ram on a current spec pentium 4 ,put a decent 5.4-7.2k drive and 576 ram on z ol thinkpad
and tell me which is faster
i know because ive done this experiment.
actually i ditched ht p4 3.4and reverted to p111@1.6ghz +3x15k drives in raid with a pci ati all in wonder graphics engine .
craps on any ht and sata,geforce(ok not in 3d mark)but otherwise trust me folks.
all drivers loads in xp without a glitch just like all tp 600 sereis laptop,where as before i had to load ea unsupported driver to get the p4 ready for work,load ,reboot,load,reboot many times over crap sorting out instability issues associated with non acpi compliant os
only to find that the acpi os had less issues but instability issues arose on some occaisions ,finally to have sorted the damm thing out ,then to have some virus render missing nt config 32 crap error ,and to repeat the process over again.wow thats cutting edge technology ,heck i fried a brand new p4 mainboard because the prestcott cpu ran damm too hot