600 Function Keys

[Paul Pennington]

My son gave me his old ThinkPad 600 (2645-45U). It had a bad keyboard which I replaced with one from eBay. I put a copy of XP Home SP2 on it and downloaded the IBM drivers. Nice little computer -- I can see why more were sold than any other model ThinkPad. XP seems to work fine, BTW.

There is one nagging detail remaining: The F3 function key does not turn off the screen. The key itself works -- I tried it at a command prompt. The screen can be shut off by the software, and does after 10 minutes. There is just no connection between the Fn-F3 keystroke and the software. (F2 and F11 don't seem to do anything either). F4 works fine to put the machine into standby.

Does anyone know the magic setting to get this to work? I suspect it's one of those power control alphabet soup things ACPI or whatever.

Paul Pennington
Augusta, Georgia

[Rob Mayercik]

I think I recall something about the 600s being not entirely compatible with ACPI.

When I last rebuilt my 600 (same model as yours) with 98SE, I think there was something either in someone's writeup here or the IBM instructions itself that APM was preferred over ACPI, and gave instructions on how to override Windows and go with APM. Windows XP might make ACPI work on this machine, but I'm not sure.

A couple things that you can look at are the Thinkpad Configuration Utility and the power control and display applets in Control Panel.

Rob

[whizkid]

I only have experience with the 600E and 600X, and I think neither one can use Fn+F3 to turn off the display in XP.

But... You can set XP to "do nothing" when you close the lid. It will turn off then. You can still suspend with Fn+F4.

[Stargate199]

I have never been able to get fn+f2,f3,f11, and f12 to work. I guess windows XP does not support those function commands. They will work with win98. fn+f2 is fuel gauge, fn+f11 changes power usage, and fn+f12 uses IBM's hibernate mode. Since Windows XP has its own hibernate function, I think IBM disable their own system for hibernate in the thinkpad manager driver. Fn+F4 is the standby button which you can configure Windows to use however you want in power setup.

[pkiff]

When I last rebuilt my 600 (same model as yours) with 98SE, I think there was something either in someone's writeup here or the IBM instructions itself that APM was preferred over ACPI, and gave instructions on how to override Windows and go with APM. Windows XP might make ACPI work on this machine, but I'm not sure.

I have never been able to get fn+f2,f3,f11, and f12 to work.

Yes, I think Rob and Stargate199 are both right.

On a 600X, the Fn+F2, F3, F11, and F12 keys do not work under a normal install of XP. I think that it is indeed related to the change in power management systems from APM (which Windows 98SE uses by default) to ACPI (which XP uses by default). Under Windows 98SE all the Fn keys work correctly on my 600X.

I can't say for sure about a plain vanilla Thinkpad 600, but other than these Fn key issues, the 600X seems entirely compatible with ACPI, and in most situations, ACPI provides better functionality than APM. For instance, with the right software, under ACPI you can access the temperatures of your CPU and hard drive, but such access is generally not possible (even with special software) under APM -- and hence it is also not under Windows 98SE.

If you want to get back some of the missing screen-blanking functionality, you might investigate a freeware utility called Wizmo. Amongst other things, Wizmo provides a command to blankout the screen or turn off the monitor. You can create a shortcut to the command and then assign a general (system-wide) shortcut keystroke to the command. Unfortunately, you cannot re-assign Fn keys this way, so your shortcut key combination will have to be something else than Fn+F3.

Phil.

[Paul Pennington]

Rob, whizkid, stargate199, and Phil;

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm glad to hear all the 600's do this, and I didn't screw up the installation. The Lenovo site is a real mess for trying to find the drivers. I never did find anything to recommend in what order they should be installed.

I'm not worried about the non-working function keys, as long as F4 works to put it in standby. I may look into APM versus ACPI if I get a Round Tuit.

This load of XP Home SP2 works great to surf with IE7. (It came with ONE 256 MB PC100 SODIMM, but let's not go there. 8 chips per side, BTW). I put a 20 MB hard disk in it.

Keep an eye out for specials in the Sunday flyers. I got this XP Home SP2 Upgrade for 39.99 at CompUSA. I later learned it can be upgraded to Vista Home for a $10 shipping charge. Not that I would try it on this machine (or maybe I will, just for grins).

Thanks again -- I enjoyed reading the archives here.

Paul Pennington
Augusta, Georgia