Help me pimp my 240X

Message

obpsym · #1 Post by **obpsym** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 3:33 am

I've tried using my 240X exclusively for the last week and love it. I'd like to upgrade it as much as possible, anyone any ideas?

I use the 240X for the following,

1. Web, Mail and Office 2000 (Youtube is ok still a bit slow)

2. Remote access to Vista, Unix and XP boxes.

3. Stream music and video from my NAS. (Works great with VLC!)

4. Service calls, works well as a test rig using serial port and VGA out. (Work in IT and A/V support)

I've upgraded the following,

1. 4200RPM to 5400RPM Hard drive.

2. Installed Intel 2200BG with two antenna.

3. Had both batteries reconditioned (1.55AH & 3.1AH)

4. I've had Linux and XP installed but now run W2K SP4.

5. Removed one onboard memory chip and installed 256M RAM.

I'm willing to spend money or even get my soldering iron out, what hacks can you think of? Web Cam? SSD? Bluetooth? GPS?

The specs on the 440MX chipset do not leave much to upgrade, if I go for SSD all I will get is less heat and faster access time as the interface is maxed out at DMA33 although the Intel documentation states that the chipset can support a master/slave configuration.

I have one spare 240X if I mess up.

whizkid · #2 Post by **whizkid** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:10 am

SSD will also get you longer battery life.

dietpepsiaddict · #3 Post by **dietpepsiaddict** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:46 pm

What kind of processor does it have? (I forget

)

NautTboy · #4 Post by **NautTboy** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 1:44 pm

Wow, you actually desolder the onboard ram?

I was reading on TeeTee post on TP240 MOD, which i thought was interesting and want to try later in the future. He has a link to whole bunch of pictures before and after.

obpsym · #5 Post by **obpsym** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 4:18 am

No I did not, I used a craft knife and cut the legs on one side of the chip, there are four chips visible, lifted and bent the chip until it came of. Not very pretty but I've not had any problems with the 256M since removing the onboard ram chip.

I've now got a CF card installed as the boot drive and have added a CF bluetooth card to tether with my mobile when out and about.

Don't think I need to pimp it anymore, pretty much perfect now, just testing battery life with the new flash based hard drive.

Danny Manabat · #6 Post by **Danny Manabat** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 5:13 am

obpsym,

got a question for you.

you mentioned that "I've now got a CF card installed as the boot drive ... "

do you mean that the laptop can boot from the CF card? if no hard drives were installed, and no floppy installed, just the CF card - can you boot the 240x from the CF?

i'm very much interested to know.

obpsym · #7 Post by **obpsym** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 5:45 am

Yes just loaded my instructions here http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=55309

These work on both the 240X and 240Z although I put a new 160G drive in the 240X as it's faster, the 240Z now has the 4G CF card working fine, just fine tuning the installation now to speed up.

All in all the CF works well, no stuttering and it's faster than the original 10G drive. It's only been running for a few hours, fingers crossed.

I use a 266X CF card, the only faster cards I saw yesterday were "Sandisk Ducati" that max out at 45M/sec. The cost was double the price of the 266X card that runs at 25M/Sec.

Danny Manabat · #8 Post by **Danny Manabat** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 6:00 am

i'll try them too. 'time to start hunting for parts ...

thanks for the reply!

NautTboy · #9 Post by **NautTboy** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 11:21 am

What I like about the 240x when I had it was it has the mini pci slot. Specially when the 240x only come with one pcmcia slot. I'd took out the modem and replaced with wifi card.

One question obpsym, by removing one ram chip, it allows you to add 256 into the ram slot when its max is 192mb? Just incase I or anyone wants to try at their own risk, does it matters which chip?

obpsym · #10 Post by **obpsym** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 11:33 am

Correct, after removing one of the on-board chips and installing a 256M module the BIOS and OS recognize the 256M.

I removed the far right chip as it was more accessible.

There are quite a few threads describing the how and why this works and the correct type of SO-DIM required, try a search for 240x.

I don't know why but I'm still using this souped up 240X, changing to internal WIFI gave me the impression of a speed increase compared to using a PCMCIA WIFI card.

synchromesh · #11 Post by **synchromesh** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 12:02 am

Actually, a friend of mine has a 240x with Celeron collecting dust bunnies (he won't sell it though)

He had a 512MB low density chip in it and it was recognized as a 256 without cutting any of the onboard chips so this might be an option.

Raceboy · #12 Post by **Raceboy** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 2:00 am

Did you notice CPU temps rise when installing 2200BG into miniPCI slot? I'm asking it because 240X has the same 440MX chipset as X20/21 and they have this nasty habit....

Here's some info about this issue if interested: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=58264

obpsym · #13 Post by **obpsym** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 12:27 pm

Nope, temp is ok but I have had a few power related issues recently.

I don't know if it's the 160G HD or 2200BG but something is causing the battery to discharge very quickly (20 mins), it's happened twice recently.

Using the same battery in my 240Z with 4Gig CF lasts around 3 hours 20 minutes with XP and PCMCIA Wifi.

Raceboy · #14 Post by **Raceboy** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 12:42 am

Ok, that's pretty much the same what others have experienced with X20+miniPCI wifi.