Bought a Thinkpad 760ED, how to get going?

[cedric.lunneborg]

Hello Thinkpad forum. I have recently bought a Thinkpad 760ED and I would like to get a little help for getting it going. Everything seems to work fine except for the CD drive which when installed causes the computer to not post or show the bios splash screen.

I would like to know what the best way to install Windows 98 SE and the drivers for it are and what stuff I need to buy to do so.

Best regards, cedric.

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

For something as old as this, I'd first make sure that all of the hardware is working as it should before throwing more money at it. Download the Hardware Maintenance Manual for this system here:

http://www.thinkpads.com/support/hmm/hm ... ol4hmm.pdf

Referring to the 760 section, you'll see that the BIOS (Easy-Setup) has some built-in diagnostics. Run those to verify the major systems of the laptop. As far as the CDROM is concerned, the original part numbers (generally called FRUs) are 39H7413 (4X speed), 85G1957 (6X speed) and 45H8786 (8X speed). You can try posting a wanted ad here in the forum's Marketplace and/or search eBay using something like this:

(ibm,thinkpad) (760e,760el,760ed,760xl,760xd,765d) (cd,cdrom)

Windows 98 drivers can be found here:

http://www.thinkpads.com/support/Thinkp ... /760e.html

Note that most, if not all, driver updates are meant to be used with a floppy drive so if you don't already have one then that's another piece of hardware you'll need to buy. With the 760ED, you have the capability for an external floppy drive; there's a thin connector on the back of the system. The standard floppy drive can be mounted in an external enclosure that has a cable which is plugged into the laptop. You would only need an external floppy if you intend on using both the CDROM and floppy at the same time.

[cedric.lunneborg]

Hey thanks for the reply! I actually fixed the cd issue by taking it out and putting it in again! During shipping the connection must have come loose but it all works and I'm listening to some rocking tunes!

Hardware diagnos in the BIOS OK'ed everything.

I booted the machine up and it boots Windows 98 Se but in SPANNISH! Thankfully it's Windows so it's the same as always.

Looking at the device manager everything seems to be working fine except for two entries in the unknown devices called: "Dispositivo desconocido" and "PCI multimedia Video Device"

I think I will want to install Windows 98 Se swedish or english version on it though since the only spanish word I know is hola. From what I have read this series does not support booting from the CD rom? If this is the case then do I just instaoll windows by using an external floppy with the 98 Se bootdisk and have the windows installation medium on CD?

Do you know what drivers Windows will install automatically? That would be really helpfull to know!

Thank you so much, cedric.

[rkawakami]

Good to know it was a simple fix. Many things can be solved on older systems by unplugging and plugging back in.

If the 760ED does not support CDROM booting, then this should work:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/221829

I would think that most of the drivers for your 760ED hardware would be recognized. If there's still something flagged in Device Manager, then you should be able to find the driver on the page I mentioned earlier.

[Hans Gruber]

Cedric, will you be using Windows 98 or perhaps Windows XP?

[cedric.lunneborg]

I will be installing Windows 98 Se. The spannish Windows 98 install that is on the computer runs really fast and I think using XP wouldnt be as nice of an experience.

[cedric.lunneborg]

Is there any way of getting all the IBM OEM stuff like backgrounds and utility software on it aswell? Is that listed on the drivers page for the computer?

Thanks again, cedric.

[rkawakami]

All of the standard utility programs should be available on the drivers page. As far as I know, nothing like the desktop backgrounds/wallpaper/screen savers are there. For those, you probably can find them with a Google search or ask around here.

edit: Google search yielded this for a 760XL: http://www.conradshome.com/thinkpad/res ... /index.htm

It was put up by this user: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 95#p630795

[cedric.lunneborg]

That's really good stuff right there!

I messed about with the page url a bit and it led me to even more resources located at this address
http://www.conradshome.com/thinkpad/resources/

[Kasm279]

The PCI Multimedia Device is probably either the MPEG decoder or the video input/output feature. Let us know if you need help with drivers on windows 98, it was quite a pain figuring out which ones I needed on mine, especially all of the multimedia stuffs.

[pkiff]

The PCI Multimedia Device is probably either the MPEG decoder or the video input/output feature....

I don't remember my 760E having an MPEG decoder, though maybe the 760ED has one? You will definitely want to install the video driver and see if that fixes the PCI multimedia device. And some of these machines had these special serial-to-game-port cables that could be attached, so it is possible a PCI Multimedia Device might be sitting there waiting for the right cable to be attached, and if you're not using it then you can just ignore/delete that device with no ill effects.

Another thing to try when setting up Windows 98 on these old machines is to make sure to use the Windows 98 Supplement disk:
http://www.thinkpads.com/support/Thinkp ... 98sfdi.txt

From the Windows Updates section of the page that rkawakami provided:
http://www.thinkpads.com/support/Thinkp ... /760e.html

Ideally, the Windows 98 Supplement disk should be used during the installation process, to overwrite or add new files to the Windows 98 CAB files used during the install. In particular, you will want to check the "APM patch" or apmtoapm.reg registry update file. As I understand it, this file corrects some misidentification of particular USB/PCI-related hardware in the Thinkpad systems identified and thereby removes one or two exclamation marks from a typical standard Win 98 install to Thinkpads of this era.

Phil.

[pkiff]

I don't remember my 760E having an MPEG decoder, though maybe the 760ED has one?

Mmmm...I see that according to the German thinkwiki.de, the 760CD, 760ED and 760XD all did indeed have an MPEG decoder. I'm not sure how to get that working.

Phil.

[axur-delmeria]

Mmmm...I see that according to the German thinkwiki.de, the 760CD, 760ED and 760XD all did indeed have an MPEG decoder. I'm not sure how to get that working.

It needs the MPEG driver which can be found here: http://ps-2.kev009.com/ohlandl/ic_files/ref7592.html

Take note that the Win95 version uses the MCI interface and only works with the old Media Player.

[cedric.lunneborg]

Hey everyone again! I have got a lead on an old external IBM diskette drive from a local computer parts seller! Will update you all when I get it and diskettes running on the machine!

[cedric.lunneborg]

Hello everyone! My external diskette drive arrived in the mail today!

I installed Windows 98 using the Windows emergency boot diskette utility found on the Windows 98 installation CD. Installing was really simple and almost as easy as installing a modern version of Windows.

Now there are some things which I want to get working on this machine.

1. Windows doesn't make any sounds at all. Couldn't find any drivers on the drivers page for windows 98 for some reason.
2. USB and ethernet over some compatible PC-Card. Anyone know of any cards that work great and are available for cheap? Ideally, a slim USB card like this one http://www.amazon.de/DELOCK-PCMCIA-Card ... B0038P9ZK0 But are there any that are compatible with Windows 98?

All help is welcome!

[Kasm279]

You'll need the audio drivers installed, but if you're still not getting any sound, check out the slider next to the LCD status indicators (above the keyboard.) I couldn't get any sound out of mine either and for some reason didn't see it there.

Anyway, for ethernet you're going to be better served by a PCMCIA solution. There are a lot out there, I have a few Xircoms and some others that use Realtek chipsets and such, there's really no difference. If you want to go wireless I'd suggest finding one of the old Lucent WaveLAN IEEE cards, there's great driver support. I think the 760ED does 32-bit CardBus, so you can go G if you want to.

[cedric.lunneborg]

You'll need the audio drivers installed, but if you're still not getting any sound, check out the slider next to the LCD status indicators (above the keyboard.) I couldn't get any sound out of mine either and for some reason didn't see it there.

Anyway, for ethernet you're going to be better served by a PCMCIA solution. There are a lot out there, I have a few Xircoms and some others that use Realtek chipsets and such, there's really no difference. If you want to go wireless I'd suggest finding one of the old Lucent WaveLAN IEEE cards, there's great driver support. I think the 760ED does 32-bit CardBus, so you can go G if you want to.

Hello hello!

I got the audio drivers installed working great. A+

For internet connectivity I'll be trying out a Xircom ethernet card. Would be great to be able to transfer files without writing to CDs all the time.

It's a beast of an machine, I'm thinking about replacing the IDE hard disk with something like a 4 GB CF card soon.

Hopefully, everything will connect just great!

Cheers, Cedric.

[Kasm279]

For internet connectivity I'll be trying out a Xircom ethernet card. Would be great to be able to transfer files without writing to CDs all the time.

Honestly, the easiest way is with a CF card and PCMCIA-CF adapter.

[thinkpadcollection]

If this DVD drive that old can read DVD RW discs this would be a better choice if one of them can write those.

Also there is another option is PCMCIA/cardbus SD adapter, make sure this supports SDHC/SDXC.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[Kasm279]

I don't believe that it will read DVD-RW, although it might. As for an SD host adapter, that should work as long as it shows up like a flash card as a CF card (in a mechanical adapter) does. Yay no drivers!

[goldeneagle]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

Note that most, if not all, driver updates are meant to be used with a floppy drive so if you don't already have one then that's another piece of hardware you'll need to buy. With the 760ED, you have the capability for an external floppy drive; there's a thin connector on the back of the system. The standard floppy drive can be mounted in an external enclosure that has a cable which is plugged into the laptop. You would only need an external floppy if you intend on using both the CDROM and floppy at the same time.

My way of getting around this limitation, albeit a PITA, is with Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. I'll create a VHD (virtual hard drive) on my system after I installed DOS, attach through disk management, copy the relevant self-extracting executables, detach it. Then I created a blank floppy image in Winimage, that I aptly named blank floppy.ima. You'll need this when you extract each disk image. Boot up using Virtual PC, write the images to the virtual floppy, and then xcopy them back to a directory of your choice. Then after shutting off the VM, reattach the VHD, copy the files to a compact flash card or cd, and now you have them all together.