The official 770 Upgrade and general information Topic

[ThinkDan]

Particularly being able to play DVDs, which the 600 may have supported in it's optical bay but doubt any Windows OS could have decoded at a decent frame rate.

Interesting question, prompted me to go and look since the various iterations of 600 and 770 span that introduction of DVD drives and improving MPEGx acceleration. I recall that when we introduced T20's to the salesforce in one bank, the main point of interest was the DVD player capability!

Piecing together thinkwiki specs for the 600/e/x and video chipset specs from, e.g. here, it appears the 600 only had MPEG1 decoding acceleration (video CD) but the 600E (and presumably 600X) had a later iteration of the NeoMagic chipset supporting MPEG2 decoding acceleration, i.e. DVD. It's also notable that the DVD drive only became an option with the 600E, wasn't listed for the 600.

The 770 and 770E needed to be specced with the optional DVD and Enhanced Video Adapter daughterboard to support MPEG2/DVD playback as the Trident 9397 chipset couldn't do it, but the 770X/Z used the later Trident 9397DVD chipset which added... well, I think we can guess from the name

I wouldn't say the 770 was the end of the line, rather that it was an offshoot. It marked a departure from either the 700/720/75x/760 lineage or the parallel (and converging) 560/600/570/T20 line. Logically the 770's replacement was the A2x / A3x 3-spindle 'workstation' laptops. Superficially the packaging of the 770 ties in with the 'big thick block' approach of the 380 & 385... and of course 770 is 2x 385... there's a new conspiracy theory, right there

[solidpro]

And whilst there is probably zero connection at all, and being controversial here, the machine which looks and feels more like the successor to the 770X/Z (bigger than the 770/770ED) is the....



not iBM....IBM Thinkpad G40.

I remember in the early 2000's playing DVDs in Windows was something that was a big deal. Often even if your machine could play DVDs, it couldn't do much else whilst you were playing DVDs. The software to play DVD's was, for an inordinate amount of time, something you had to pay through the nose for. I remember this being the case for about 5 years! Something as unimaginable now, as travelling 10 miles to pay £15 to buy some plastic to take home and listen to the latest favourite song in the hit parade!

[Edward Mendelson]

I started to do this, and then realized that I didn't have any replacement stick-on caps to replace the four that I would have to remove above the keyboard. Does anyone know where to find replacements? Or, if replacements aren't easy to find (as I expect), is there any advice on how to remove the caps so that they might look good enough to put back on again afterwards?

From memory these are the thin black plastic discs covering screw head apertures, like on earlier models? I lift them carefully with a needle under one edge, then touch them against a free part of the screen bezel or keyboard surround to hold them, then replace with fine forceps. Usually the glue is still pliable and sticky enough that they go back on and grip well.

I have a vague memory of these being available in replacement sets on a sheet in service kits around the 750/755 era (these were covered in them). ETA: Bingo! listed as 'Screw cover 66G5046' in the 755 HMM, I'm not going daft then :D

ThinkDan - Thank you for this. I was able to find some equivalents on eBay, and they're on the way. I'll get rid of that battery as soon as they arrive. And thanks for the removal/replacement instructions in case I have to use the existing ones.

[Edward Mendelson]

One more question: what's the best way to connect to the Internet with a 770Z? I found an old 3Com PCMCIA ethernet card, and it works, but I wonder if anyone has a suggestion for a model that might be reasonably fast?

[ThinkDan]

One more question: what's the best way to connect to the Internet with a 770Z? I found an old 3Com PCMCIA ethernet card, and it works, but I wonder if anyone has a suggestion for a model that might be reasonably fast?

I presume you're using a 10/100 ethernet card to a LAN with a decent internet connection and finding it throttled? What's the CPU usage - so much scripting as standard on websites these days. Try my PC110 site (in sig) for a hand-crafted non-scripted non-CSS HTML experience from the 770's heyday

Is your 3com card PCMCIA or CardBus (PC Card)? The former runs on a much slower 16 bit bus, effectively ISA, the latter a faster 32 bit bus, effectively PCI. All 770's (and 760,765) support CardBus. If your card has a bumpy gold strip above the end connector then it's CardBus, e.g.

[Edward Mendelson]

One more question: what's the best way to connect to the Internet with a 770Z? I found an old 3Com PCMCIA ethernet card, and it works, but I wonder if anyone has a suggestion for a model that might be reasonably fast?

I presume you're using a 10/100 ethernet card to a LAN with a decent internet connection and finding it throttled? What's the CPU usage - so much scripting as standard on websites these days. Try my PC110 site (in sig) for a hand-crafted non-scripted non-CSS HTML experience from the 770's heyday :wink: :lol:

Is your 3com card PCMCIA or CardBus (PC Card)? The former runs on a much slower 16 bit bus, effectively ISA, the latter a faster 32 bit bus, effectively PCI. All 770's (and 760,765) support CardBus. If your card has a bumpy gold strip above the end connector then it's CardBus, e.g.

Yes, this is the card I was using: seeems to be cardbus:

https://www.amazon.com/3Com-MHz-Card-Xj ... B00004Z8H4

I haven't tested CPU usage, but will check on it when I get back to the machine. Meanwhile, I'm looking for a browser that I can use with Windows XP and have begun experimenting with my collection of ancient wi-fi cards. Will report. Also, hoping to find a usable web browser for XP...

EDIT: It turns out I already have the relevant wi-fi card: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=132256 Now to find where I left it...

[Edward Mendelson]

Another question about Windows XP on the 770z: I don't plan to use the internal modem, but I'm annoyed by "unknown device" that it shows as in the device manager. I can't find any driver for it, and the configuration utility doesn't turn it on. Is there any way to make it show up as installed?

[RealBlackStuff]

I assume you have looked in the Drivers link for 770z above?
There is a Windows XP installation supplement files link, which in the ReadMe says:
Support INTEL SpeedStep Processor Issue with 82440MX chipset and Soft audio/soft modem

If none of those work, remove that modem.

[Edward Mendelson]

There was nothing specific to XP in the drivers link, but I found a DRIVERS\WIN\MODEM\DISK1 folder in my W95 partition, and tried that - and it worked. I'll try to figure out where it came from.

[pkiff]

That Modem patch you found may be (a slightly earlier version of?) the "ACP modem driver II for Windows 95/98/Me/2000/NT - ThinkPad 600/E, 770/E/ED/X/Z" driver that is referenced in the Bluetooth and Modem section of the 770Z drivers available from the Driver archive link in the Thinkpads.com Forum header:
https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad- ... /770z.html

The version I have in my own archive of XP patches matches the file named:
acpcw32.exe (2660 KB)
which is v.2.60 Build 39 of ThinkPad Modem for Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000 drivers dated 9 November 2000
and is available directly here:
https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad- ... cpcw32.exe

The Readme.txt for this file is also available directly, here:
https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad- ... cpcw32.txt

It's been so long since I installed XP that I forget how many patches were needed on 770X/Z machines. But I don't think there are very many that are specific to the 770. You'll want to update TrackPoint drivers and a few others like the XP Supplemental Files disk that are generic across all Thinkpads. For the 770Z specifically, there were a good handful of Windows 95/98 patches, but for 770Z running XP, I only have 3:

1. BIOS: spsdio23.exe (v1.05 - IOET23WW -12 Oct 2001)
2. Modem: acpcw32.exe (v.2.60 - 9 Nov 2000)
3. MPEG Video Features IV: mptpcw98.exe (v.1.03 - 21 Feb 2000)

[pkiff]

And I also used to install DVDExpress, which was one of the only DVD Players that ran under XP that was compatible with the DEVA card.
Some old versions of the classic Media Player from Windows itself were also compatible, but I don't think I ever figured out exactly which versions those were, or how to find them.
If you need a copy of DVD Express, I can hook you up if you send me a private message. It's abandonware now.

[Edward Mendelson]

And I also used to install DVDExpress, which was one of the only DVD Players that ran under XP that was compatible with the DEVA card.
Some old versions of the classic Media Player from Windows itself were also compatible, but I don't think I ever figured out exactly which versions those were, or how to find them.
If you need a copy of DVD Express, I can hook you up if you send me a private message. It's abandonware now.

I'm fairly sure I have a copy of DVD Express on the shelf somewhere, but I'll take you up on this if I can't find it. Thank you! (And apologies for the slow reply - I've been away from home and the 770z for most of the past week.)

[Irina060]

I think I know why my 1Ghz mod failed. It seems all 1Ghz mobile coppermines use D0 core stepping which would have worked just fine in the, very rare, PGA to MMC2 board mentioned previously. But what Im using is a standard MMC2 board only compatible with C0 core stepping. This has lead me to buy a 900mhz SL59J mobile coppermine specifically as only two models of 900mhz use C0 core stepping (and this one was very very cheap). I will, in first instance, try to replace the 1Ghz back to its PGA adapter and use the 900mhz instead. And keep you guys updated with results. Also Im thinking of just soldering a socket into it to test several CPUs (all with C0) but Im not sure if that will actually work or if its a good idea at all.

For the cooling, Im thinking of using a spare copper shield that I took from a Acer Travelmate and cut it in a way that fits and redirects heat. Im also thinking of buying a copper tape to place over the whole heatsink but I wanted to ask first if that would be a good idea or not, please let me know. Has anyone thought about swapping the fan with a high rpm fan?

Would the MPEG card actually work on the 770X/770Z? Maybe taking some load away from the GPU in some way?

May3rd- Edit: It is taking me a bit of time to test this idea. Ive also noticed any Pentium 3 mobile 900mhz and onwards uses 1.7V instead of 1.6V that 850mhz and downwards uses, I hope this wont cause any issues but let me know if it is a big difference maybe there is a way for the MMC2 board to deliver such volts. Ive also adquired 2 more 770Z, a selectabase and original software from ebay that I will try to archive if need be