TP 770X Indicator Panel

[hjanzen]

To-day I have completed the upgrade of my Thinkpad 770X.
I have replaced the on board 64MB Ram by 128MB, and the processor from the original 300 MHz to 400MHz. (MMC-2)
Total Memory is 393MB now.
So far so good. The new situation is shown in the Easy setup and the laptop functions as expected.
Windows XP SP2 runs perfectly.

The only problem now is the indicator panel, that does not indicate any more, nor during startup or in operation.
Needless to mention that the panel was OK before the upgrade.

I am absolutely sure that the four ribbon cables of the keyboard have been treated with utmost care and are mounted correctly.

What else can be wrong.
Please let me have your advice.

Hans

[SMA]

You may have forgotton to remove the battery before taking the machine apart.

[hjanzen]

There was and is no battery in the battery compartment;
It uses AC power only.
The indicator in 770 types machines indicates a variety of info, f.i. HD Activity, CapLock, NumLock etc. (and battery if available)

Shame on me. Found the reason. Wronly mounted ribbon cable...
Sorry!
Hans

[rodgermcliff]

I am curious if after you have finished if you think that its worth it. I have a 770X gathering dust for the last few months that might be usable for web browing and word processing if it was upgraded to XP.

I was also looking into the trouble-free upgrades (versus the maximum possible upgrades that have some keystrokes/sequences to get around startup issues). Let me know how it works out.

[hjanzen]

I got my 770X only a few weeks ago, with a fresh install of win98SE,
the original 300MHz processor and 320 MB RAM. (64+ 2x128MB).

If you are used to WinXP during the last years on your desktop you will find Win98 a nuisance. USB sticks, LAN or WAN adapters, etc. all need drivers that in my case got lost long ago.

So I decided to remove 98SE and did a fresh full install of XP + SP2 + 85 upgrades from internet and a few extra's from Lenovo site.
This is really a big improvement. All the extra hardware is recognised without problems. Even DVD's are played easily with the VLC mediaplayer. I use Wireless PCMCIA for internet browsing.
Startup time was just over 1 minute, altough after the installation of quite some additional software this increasd to less than 1.5 minute.

I could (should?) have stopped here...

Anyhow, I found a very cheap 400MHz processor on Ebay (less then US $ 5.-) , in a drawer I had a 128MB PC66 RAM stick, so I could not resist the upgrade.

It is a lot of work, if you are not used to do such a job, you need anyhow the Maintenance Manual, and some of the jobs I found quite nerving.( removing and installing Keyboard; pulling the various cards)

Was it worth the efford? Hard to tell.
Startup is again just over one minute, internet browsing might be somewhat faster. But it is also the challenge and the satisfaction after the success that counts.

Hope this helps,
Hans