Thinkpads Forum

Hello Everyone.
Just found this forum last night (well, VERY early this morning, if you want to be picky) and joined up hoping to find some answers...
(I've tried Google and searching through IBM's own site, but got not much more than a migraine headache and a desire to scream...)

I just found a ThinkPad 380ED and picked it up, figuring it'd be a good starter system for my soon-to-be-teenaged son.
(It's not that fast, it's perfect for writing up his homework reports, he can't waste all his time playing games on it, it's built like a tank, and it cost me a whopping US$60 and that included a PCMCIA 56K modem card...)

The problem is it only has 16megs RAM in it.
What's the most I can install into The Beast (yes, that's it's name) to make Win98SE run as smoothly as possible?

Can the hard drive (4Gb) be upgraded, and if so, what's the largest the thing will support?

And, last but not least, any suggestions on backing up the current OS image to CDRW? I've got an external CD-RW drive, but it's *USB* and this thing has a serial, parallel, & PS/2 port - nothing else.
The entire OS image will fit on a 700Meg CDRW... Since he won't be getting the modem, NONE of the online/communication elements were installed, and even after slipstreaming all the latest updates/patches for Win98SE (I burned 'em to a CD-RW a LONG time ago for JUST such occasions), installing AbiWord, AVG, SPF, SWF, QT6, WiMP7, WinAmp, SpyBot S&D, and all the drivers for his "new" Palm M100, there's only 695Megs USED on the thing...
I'd like to make a back-up of that, so if he DOES hjork something, I can just slip in the CD, "Nuke & Pave" the sucker, and reimage the drive from the fresh / working CD...
If I could find my old PCMCIA-LAN card, I could hook it into my home network and just copy it all to my WinXP system, burn the image from there, and call it done... But FINDING that card may be about on par to locating a single blue nanite in an ocean of green jelly beans... <8-J hehehe

Thanks for the feedback one-and-all... It's CERTAINLY appreciated...

According to the IBM Web site, you can do the following:

1. You can upgrade memory to 80MB by replacing the 8MB EDO DIMM with a 64MB EDO DIMM.

2. The hard drive is not supposed to be upgradeable by the user, so I would assume it's pretty well buried. Based on some of the stuff inside, I think the BIOS is similar to the 760's, so the maximum hard drive is 8.0GB, which means the largest drive you can install is 6.4GB (the 8.1GB will not work).

Hope this helps.

Unfortunately, there IS no additional ram in the thing - I've already opened up the expansion cover and found that out...
(Sighs, shaking his head)
I went ahead an ordered a 64Meg stick for it, though, and FedEx just confirmed it's on it's way, so I'm not THAT grumpy, but MAN would it be nice to have at least 128 in the thing... I guess 80'll have to do... <8-)

And I was hoping the HD would be an easy job, but if I've got to tear the thing apart, forget it...
With MY luck, I'd get it apart just fine, but put it back together and miss a few parts...
"Hey Dad... Is it supposed to make a buzzing sound, smoke, and bounce around the table like tha.... Oh, nevermind, it sto.... [Massive Explosion, the sound of shrapnel bouncing off the walls & ceiling, a cat's high-pitched scream, and what sounds like a donkey being dragged backwards through a cheese grater]... Uhhhh.. dad.... It's not SUPPOSED to do THAT, is it?"
<8-)P hehehehe

With an 80 MB system you should be able to run Windows 95 or 98SE. Don't bother with Windows 2000 or XP; and ME is a dog. I ran Windows 98SE on my 760EL (80MB) for 3 years.

If you want to explore the possibility of installing a drive yourself, download the Hardware Maintenance Manual for your model and browse through the pages. My guess is you will need to remove the keyboard and one or two other pieces to get at the hard drive. The hard drive itself could be in some kind of holder. The nice thing about the HMM is it will help you to get the thing back together without too many "extra parts".

And, btw, if you really put it back together wrong, it probably will sit there and not function at all. If it smokes, it will do so only for a few seconds after which it is ready for the garbage can.

Which brings me to one last point. If you have something that works and you need it to keep working, don't try to fix it...

Hope this helps.