770x & 600 one problem each, driving me nutty, need a gu

[924guy]

Hi All,

Im new here, but im sure ill be back often, theres some great info and im sorry, im addicted to IBM thinkpads... i have had, and have several, in various flavors, from 755 and 760's up to r31's..
Right now im working on a 600, and a 770x, both are 300mhz. Ive upgraded them both to 30 gig hd's, and added a ujda720 dvd/cdrw to the 600, the 770x has a mitusmi dvd drive, both are running win xp pro, linsys pcmcia 802.11g cards , and have 190+ ram.

600- after fully formatting the hd, and installing win xp pro, and adding the mitsumi ujda720 dvd/cdrw, it was working wonderfully. i could play dvds (using windvd, latest version) burn cd's, everything was just ducky..then it started. on reboot, it looses the dvd drive, and locks up on xp final load screen (where the flashy bar runs back and fourth like "KIT" in knight rider.)
if i pull out the dvd drive, it will continue to load normally. then i have to restpore the registry, either via an ontrack "fixit" utility or windows "restore" and it will work fine again for one or two times, then the whole problem repeats itself. its driving me nuts, ive tried updating the driver, ive tried changiong the fast boot bios settings, ect.. i cant pin it down or figure out why xp is changing its setting on me. ive even cleared the prefetch, there are no errors in the system menu, etc..

770X- pretty much same set up as the 600 above, except this one keeps loosing its audio drivers... it was also working perfectly, then went haywire. ive tried updating the drivers, but ibm.com only lists nt and win 98, cirrus logic "crystal" drivers. those arent working either. for some reason, ive taken them out of the system manager and tried to force a reload, and it wont take it that either, nor form the win xp disk. ive tried downloading drivers directly from cirrus, itll remove them using their app, but reloads fail. this problem screams bad driver to me, but i cant seem to make any work. the only other issue it has is com port one isnt working, i dont know if its releated, but all else seems fine.

ive spent the past three days straight trying to get these issues worked out, and im about at the end of my rope, and thats why im here, and hoping someone will have some ideas for me to try. i really need to get these going reliably before i loose it and run em over with my truck..

any help would be greatly appreciated...
thanks in advance,
eric
tp 600 2645-45u
tp 770x 9549-71u

[GomJabbar]

If you haven't done it already, make sure you have updated the BIOS to the latest version, and that you have installed the supplement files. This applies to both laptops. Following is the site where you can get started to get these files:

http://www-3.ibm.com/pc/support/site.ws ... PAD-MATRIX

[924guy]

the 600 has the latest bios, the770x does not, reason being that i dont have a good battery for it, and the bios instructions are pretty clear you must have a charged battery or risk major issues... so i was afraid to even attempt updating the bios on the 770 until i can find a good battery, or replace the cells on the dead on i have... unless theres a way around it?

[GomJabbar]

I have read that you can update the BIOS firmware without a battery, but you must hack the BIOS update diskette with a patch or something like it. Maybe you can find the patch if you do a Google search. As the program comes from IBM, it checks to see that a battery is attached, and if not, it refuses to update the BIOS. This is in case the AC power fails during the firmware update, you don't ruin the BIOS and system board.

It's probably best to get a battery if possible.

[924guy]

i was up until the wee hours again trying to lick these issues, still no luck... i may just fdisk em both and start over, but id hate to do that, as they seem like they both should be easy fixes, im definately missing something.

on the 600, i tried force installing the atapi and ide channels last night by removing them, worked on the reboot, but then after a shut down and restart, same old story, no boot woith the dvd drive installed. something else i noticed, is that the bios in the 600 doesnt show the version # , so maybe ill try updating it once again, perhaps it didnt "take" the last time?

on the 700, now it wont even load the original sound drivers. ive gone through manually to try and delete the different versions of multimedia codecs, but im not sure if ive got them all, or if xp is pulling the incorrect drivers from a cache someplace i havent found yet. the boot log is just showing "driver not loaded" no further details to work with. im going to check the other batteries froma few different machines i have laying around, and see if they rate the same as the 770x battery, if i have one that does, i can run jumpers to trick it into thinking its got its battery installed and its good.. then maybe i can flash the bios on that one..

[GomJabbar]

(1) I know the model 600 has diagnostics in the BIOS, whether the 770x has it, I don't know. If not, you can download PC Doctor from IBM/Lenovo, and run that. I would run the diagnostic programs on both laptops and see if any errors show up.

http://www-3.ibm.com/pc/support/site.ws ... PAD-MATRIX

(2) Make sure your CMOS battery is not dying. The voltage should be between 2.5 and 3.2 volts.

(3) Check for any memory modules that have been added, and verify that they are the right type for that model. I know the 600 takes PC/66 SoDIMM's. I am not familiar with the 770x. Someone along the line may have put in the wrong memory, and XP doesn't like it. You might like to read the post by frangelica just below (breaking out in hives). Memory is discussed in some depth there.

[924guy]

small progress with the 600, maybe...

okay, i got disgusted and wipped the drive. i then removed all the memory except the onboard ofcourse,unplugged the cmos battery(new btw) for a minute and clicked the power button to completely drain and residual current, and reflashed the bios. next i reformatted to a fat32 partition, rather than NTFS (which i should of done in the first place, as it was recommended to me.) and reloaded xp pro...

an interesting thing happened, first reboot, it locked up again (oye!!) but on the second reboot, it recognized the dvd/cdrw, and installed it in the card director (or what ever they call the pcmcia managment now.) So, now its listed under the "safely remove hardware" menu, I thik this is a very good thing.
Ive restarted three time so far with no issues at all, its currently downloading updates, and i havent reloaded anything but microsoft xp, and ms office, and the wirelss card drivers. im going to let it download all of the ms updates before i install the dvd codecs or anything else for that matter. but so far, so good.

i may do the same to the 770 as well... i think these older machines like a fat32 format better, and more drivers seem to work better with it, at least on the old stuff...

ive got my fingers crossed.....

[924guy]

ignore my last post..back to the same issue again witht he 600..its going to meet violently with a cement surface soon..from what ive found online, and at microsoft, this is definately an xp issue, but their tech bullitin is useless and non applicable...

[f1hp]

Interesting. I've been using XP on my 2645-5bu & also on my son's 2645-35u for some time with zero issues.

[924guy]

other than the drive issue with the 600, and the sound driver issue with the 770, xp is working great...

i need to find someone else running a ujda720 dvd/rw drive in their 600 and see which drivers their running, and if they had any issues. i have drivers that work, it just that xp wont keep them in place upon reboot, and thats whats driving me up the wall.. i dont know what else to do. if i put the standard cd rom back in, it works fine as well. ive also got a fugitsu dvd (no cdrw) that works fine also (though itll only read dvds and not cd roms, but it does the same in my r31 so i can be sure that ones a drive issue.) the udja works fine in my r31 as well..
i guess ill have to find another dvd/cdrw if i want that capability in the 600, it just doesnt like that drive, though it should be compatable, and does work whne i force boot it, xp just wont keep the settings...

on the 770x, its a similiar issue, but with the sound drivers. i pulled it apart last night, mostly for cleaning and so id feel i actually accomplished something.. it was nasty outside and in. i scrubbed the case down after removing the guts, with citrus cleaner and then gave it a coat of formulla 33 protectant (great stuff, expensive, but not greasy, i use it on my old sports car.) and while i was in their i replaced the onboard ram (the one you cant get too unless you take the thing apart, not soldiered in) with a 128 mb pc100 chip (8 chip, 4 each side) ... it loves the ram, but only one. i had one more i tried to install and it didnt like it. tried both normal slots with no luck, so i had to stick 2 64meg pc 66 chips back in and it likes those..so i still have 256 (registers at 261.XXX) ram. very strange though...
when i got it all back together i and booted it, i had sound again, but it didnt make through the next boot cycle...but at least it liked the onboard ram chip,passed the ram tests, and it looks presentable, and all the internal dust has been swept out, so nothing lost in the process and maybe a bit gained... and its much better looking now
i really wanted these to be ready for my trip in a few days, i was going to give them to family members..but it doenst look like theyll be working, and i cant give em unless their perfect, its a thing i have. the best part is the dvd capabilities. which wont work in one cause the drive wont "stick" in xp, and the other works great, if you dont mind subtitles cause theres no sound.. its a bummer..

[GomJabbar]

i have drivers that work, it just that xp wont keep them in place upon reboot, and thats whats driving me up the wall.. i dont know what else to do.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I would guess that Windows is not shutting down properly. If Windows doesn't shut down properly, it has a backup copy of the registry that it loads instead, on the next boot up. This backup copy contains the information from the last known good configuration. If the last known good configuration does not have the drivers you need, then they won't be loaded.

You can check a file called userenv.log in the C:\WINDOWS\Debug\UserMode\ directory. It is a text file you can read in Wordpad. If the file doesn't exist, then you don't have a problem with a Registry Hive not unloading. You can delete the file, shut down Windows, reboot, then look at the file again. It will tell you if a Registry Hive failed to unload.

You can also look in: Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer. There you can look for error messages. If you click on the web link in the dialog box of the error message while online, you will get more information on it from microsoft.com.

Microsoft has a free utility, which I use, that may solve your problem. It is called UPHClean. You can read about it and download it from this link:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;837115

[ndoggfromhell]

I was gonna suggest for the 600 that you try booting in safemode and blow out the driver for the DVD that's giving you problems. When you reboot, don't let windows install the driver for you, instead go to "add hardware" and manually install it yourself. See if that works.

[supergoat]

I'm going to suggest removing XP and installing windows 2000. XP does not play well with older machines. And honestly, XP is rubbish in my opinion anyway.

I'm not trying to turn this into a WinXP Vs. *** thread, but I highly suggest removing it from the machine.

[nanok]

first of all, the dvd drive should not need a driver, not a real one, it is ide/atapi, so that's that. second of all, to check both the machines are ok, hw wise, try booting a knoppix cd, and see if the problem persists (if it does, then it deffinetlly it is not OS related, but hardware related). you will have to load the sound driver manually though, as the sound card it is not plug-and-play (if it is similar to the one on my 770, that is). all you need are the parametres for your thinkpad

modprobe -a cs4232 io=0x530 irq=5 dma=1 dma2=0

this should do the trick for you (append "sudo " in front, for use with knoppix)

if it does work, without any problems, ..just go ahead and install a real operating system :)

--
in a world without walls and fences, who needs windows and gates?

[marvelousmarvyd]

924guy,
I've read your post and am having the exact same problem as you, the only difference is that I upgraded my processor from 500mhz to 850mhz. The battery in my machine is brand new. When I put the battery in the machine xp locks up on the windows start up screen just like yours. Since I have not found a solution I'm thinking about going back to win2000. Just out of curiosity what version of xp are you running? Service pack 1 or 2.