Video Problem

[Reinrev]

Good Evening,

Today, here in France, I went to help a fellow countryman who has a Thinkpad A20P 2629 6SG. This portable has been working on an official Microsoft W2K upgrade on the original W98 for a couple of years.
A week or so ago he bought a USB2 PCMCIA card and the Thinkpad crashed. Stopped = totally black.

On inserting the restore CD he was able to restore the Thinkpad to the original W98 but on trying to do the W2K update he got a message saying that the Win98 wouldn't authorise this update.

Today on going there I took with me a home burnt CD of Thinkpad drivers downloaded from the site >> http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... yle=lenovo
......and a Copy of Windows 2K.

I first formatted the HDD (as of this point on each boot I got the long + 2 short Bips = Video Problem) and installed my copy of W2K. I then installed the Video Drivers for W2K and everything seemed to run normally but the resolution remained basic (= awful). On each boot I heard the one long and 2 short bips indicating a video problem.

At this point I ran out of time but the problem isn't solved. It is impossible to Upgrade from the restore CD Win98 level (with good video) to W2K and with W2K installed from the start it seems impossible to install a video driver, it goes through as if but doesn't "take".

I have tried the Video setting in the Bios on PCI and AGP with no change.

If anyone has any ideas... need I say!

Thanks for reading this far

Reinrev

[chalrie_hng]

First I would suggest the BIOS update. Even the A20p works fine with Win98, it doesn't necessarily work with W2K. Are you sure the BIOS version is W2K compatible? Second, when work with USB 2.0 PC card, does it come with a external power output and your friend accidentally reverse the polaris and halt the system? In any case you can use original restore CD to load OS but make sure you use exact model. Don't mix A20p with other A20x series. If all failed, the only thing I can say is defective. However, I don't feel that way. Make sure everything(BIOS, OS, patches, drivers...etc) is up-to-date.

[jdhurst]

Any thinkpad of that vintage or later I have always been able to run Windows 2000. IBM did a particularly good job of making Windows 98 laptops upgradeable to Windows 2000. Now on that thinkpad (or near to it) I needed to find the Windows 2000 drivers from the website prior to upgrading. Further, I had to first install the Windows 98 NIC driver and upgrade it in place. There was something strange about that model. In any event, with recent BIOS upgrade (as already suggested), it should work. ... JD Hurst

[Reinrev]

Thanks for your input.
The BIOS had been updated BUT the upgrade was an English W2K update on a French Win98 which may be the cause of the crash when the USB2 (with external power) was added.
This doesn't explain why the video drivers didn't "take" on the full English W2K OS. The PC was aparently running normally otherwise but difficult to see with basic resolution. I've since re-checked the video drivers I downloaded and it is the W2K one. I checked the readme file and I did what it said.
So under W98 (French original on the restore CD) the video works fine but I still can't get it to work under W2K.
I feel a little comforted by jdhursts "something strange about that model".

Pity for Thinkpad. I am coming up to having to find a replacement for my Compaq, which will definately NOT be a Compaq and with this I'm not sure about Thinkpad but maybe they're all at about the same level?

Reinrev