Thinkpads Forum

Hi,
A friend of mine recently gave me a 755ce, a 755cd, and another thinkpad. He knows i love working with computers, and that I have a bunch of old stuff sitting around. The truth is, I have a bunch of old desktop pc's, and i know them pretty well. I've never worked with a laptop before, so i don't know about the differences between the two, and it seems as though there are quite a few. Anyway, on to the main point: The 755ce is old, I know, but i want to get it running good. I know its not really upgradeable, but anything i could do with it would be great. It has windows 95 on it, and 40 megs of ram. It also has something called mwave, which i would assume is the sound card, but its not working. The only sound i'm getting is the board's beep sound, nothing more. Anytime i try to play a sound, it says "this device cannot start" or "there are no playback devices installed". Anyhelp would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Calliah

calliah wrote:Hi,
A friend of mine recently gave me a 755ce, a 755cd, and another thinkpad. He knows i love working with computers, and that I have a bunch of old stuff sitting around. The truth is, I have a bunch of old desktop pc's, and i know them pretty well. I've never worked with a laptop before, so i don't know about the differences between the two, and it seems as though there are quite a few. Anyway, on to the main point: The 755ce is old, I know, but i want to get it running good. I know its not really upgradeable, but anything i could do with it would be great. It has windows 95 on it, and 40 megs of ram. It also has something called mwave, which i would assume is the sound card, but its not working. The only sound i'm getting is the board's beep sound, nothing more. Anytime i try to play a sound, it says "this device cannot start" or "there are no playback devices installed". Anyhelp would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Calliah

You can download the appropriate audio drivers (and other drivers) here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... SHY-3PLMY2

Regards,
G-Man

Hi,
Thanks for the link. I tried out the files suggested and the sound still isn't working. It now says "sound synthesizer is not installed" and when i try to use the volume controls, which i tried just because, it shut down the volume control program after saying i had to devices connected to use it. Any ideas anyone?
Calliah

calliah wrote:Hi,
Thanks for the link. I tried out the files suggested and the sound still isn't working. It now says "sound synthesizer is not installed" and when i try to use the volume controls, which i tried just because, it shut down the volume control program after saying i had to devices connected to use it. Any ideas anyone?
Calliah

I just read this note on the suggested website: If you are installing the Mwave feature in your ThinkPad computer for the first time, you also need to install the Mwave DSP Features Diskette for MIDI for Windows. http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... SHY-3P4PYD

Have a try. It should work now.

Regards,
G-Man

Thanks a lot. i'm gonna give it a try. I just have to wait for it all to download. I'm also trying to figure out how to charge up the battery for the laptop. I'm sure there should be some sort of program to do it, but I can't find one. Aside from a reference to "fuel gauge" in the product manual i finally found online last night. Any hints on that end?
Thanks a lot for the help so far.
Calliah

You just install the battery, the charging is automatic.

Regards,

James

calliah wrote:Thanks a lot. i'm gonna give it a try. I just have to wait for it all to download. I'm also trying to figure out how to charge up the battery for the laptop. I'm sure there should be some sort of program to do it, but I can't find one. Aside from a reference to "fuel gauge" in the product manual i finally found online last night. Any hints on that end?
Thanks a lot for the help so far.
Calliah

Calliah,

You don’t need any program to charge up the battery. If your TP is running on AC adapter, the battery should automatically charge up itself. However the battery might be dead, since this model wasn’t released yesterday. Go to the Control Panel, click on the Power Options, and look for some information on the battery. What percent do you get? What does it say? Charging?

Fuel-Gauge is a battery utility program, and included in the ThinkPad Configuration Utility. It displays basic information of your battery. You can get the package here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... COR-39SBV9

G-Man

Actually, that was one of the first things i tried. There is nothing at all in the power options about the battery. As far as the battery being dead goes, thats what I'm afraid of. I was hoping that maybe laptop needed the program to charge the battery. I sort of figured that it wouldn't, though. Thanks again for all the help so far.

Well, I just installed the midi files, and I'm still not getting any sound. Aside from the system beep. And if i use the Mwave audio control, this is what it says:"The Mwave Sound System Mixer is not currently installed on your system. This application is unable to proceed"

I've installed all the audio drivers and programs from the IBM website, and still've had no luck.

Weird. Are you sure it's a 755CE? Let's get into the BIOS by pressing F1 while turning on the TP. Once you are in, test the Audio or I guess it's called DSP. What does it say?

Ok, turns out when i said CE, i meant CD. I'm used to higher letters meaning later/better models. Sorry about that. In the BIOS, when I tested the DSP, it passed and said ok. When i start up Windows, there is no sound, of course. (BTW< i got the battery pack working...had to clean off the contacts...seems that someone had a leaking battery in there.)

Ok, the battery actually ended up giving me problems. When i try to discharge it, it just reboots the entire system. From DOS or from windows. Not sure why.

calliah wrote:Well, I just installed the midi files, and I'm still not getting any sound. Aside from the system beep. And if i use the Mwave audio control, this is what it says:"The Mwave Sound System Mixer is not currently installed on your system. This application is unable to proceed"

I've installed all the audio drivers and programs from the IBM website, and still've had no luck.

I was unsuccessful in making the mwave dsp audio and modem work in the 755CE, 755CX and 755CD until I flashed to the latest bios. Download and flash to the latest one and tell us what happens.

Rick

well, i tried to update the BIOS, but it says that i need a charged battery to prevent accidental power loss. Which i don't have. And i can't seem to charge this battery.

calliah wrote:well, i tried to update the BIOS, but it says that i need a charged battery to prevent accidental power loss. Which i don't have. And i can't seem to charge this battery.

Well, I'm sure you don't really want to spend on a new battery, but you can look around on ebay. http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dl ... 55+battery

Regards,
G-Man

Well, I figure thats what i might have to do. Besides, I haven't spent anything on the laptop itself. I may also try and find a copy of windows 95 and start completely fresh on the laptop, to make sure that who ever had it before didn't do any damage. I have a copy of 98 and XP, and it won't meet the requirements of 98. Such is life, though. There is a good flea market down here in maryland that has this guy who gets all sort of tech stuff though. Maybe he can get what i need. Anyway, thanks a lot for the help through this. If nothiong else, i've learned a few things about the thinkpad drivers.
Calliah

Just a data point, the 755CD will run W98SE fairly well, but W95OSR2 really is the sweet spot for the 755CD.

See: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... WIK-3XXGKT

I even had W2K Beta2 on my old 755CD for a while, just to prove that it could be done.

Regards,

James

JHEM wrote:Just a data point, the 755CD will run W98SE fairly well, but W95OSR2 really is the sweet spot for the 755CD.

Ah, the good old 755CD. I remember beta testing Win98 "Memphis" on my 755CD and having to swap out the CD and floppy drives back and forth to reformat and do clean installs. Still use the same leather case for my X40.