Thinkpads Forum

Hi, I've been lurking here for the last month or so and picked up some great tips for this little thinkpad I was given.

I'm having fun just trying to see what I can do with it. At the moment I've bumped up the memory with a 128m stick (that was before I read here that I can likely go with a 256m stick), upgraded the HD with an old, used 60gig and loaded XPSP3. So far I've using it as a video recorder for an underwater fish camera and as an automotive scan tool. I hooked it up to a projector and did a powerpoint presentation with it. I'm typing this on it, linked up via a cardbus wireless card.

So, I don't really need the ethernet port on the back, and if I did need wired ethernet for some reason, logically I'd be just as far ahead getting another pcmiaa card. But that's not the point: That non-functional connector is bugging me

Reading the service manual I downloaded, I see that a mini-PCI card (p/n 08K3365) was available. The manual seems to indicate that's all that is required -- there's no cable shown from the card to the RJ45 jack (although there is a cable from the internal modem card to the RJ11 phone jack). I found a generic mini-PCI ethernet card on e-bay, but it clearly requires a cable from the card to the jack.

So, my questions then:
Does this machine require a cable, or is the jack somehow connected through the PCI connector?

If it requires a cable, were would I find one? There does not appear to be one lying loose inside this machine. The manual makes no mention of one either.

When and if I find a cable, where does the other end go? There's a 7 pin connector on the MB next to the RJ45 jack, but is that for the jack or for the firewire option? 7 pins seems like 3 too many for ethernet.

Thanks for any assistance.

Yeah, I just recieved an i1200 the other day and have been doing research. As mentioned in page 96 and 155 of the Maintenance Manual (PDF page 106 & 125), the ethernet and firewire cards are "MiniPCI type-IIIb like" cards, so I assume that it is connected internally. When I opened up my i1200, I also had the same question come to mind, and that is the conclusion that I came to.

I used to own an i1210. Once I opened it up and inside was a printed outline and some other markings indicating a MiniPCI slot like would be found on the 390X or 600X series. Seeing as the i1210 was the dirt-cheapest of the i12xx models, I wouldn't be surprised if nicer spec'd machines did have that slot.