A31p - Does anyone have a model number -> feature summary

[tbartold]

I'm looking at the tawbook, and it's way too much information. Has anyone summarized the information for A31p (and A3xx in general)?

Right now I'm looking at the 2653-H*U, -D*U and -N*U units with the 64MB ATI 7800 chip. I don't see much difference between them besides the chip speed (1.7, 1,8, 2.0). Then I look at the 2653-*3U -*4U -*5U & -*6U and -*TU units and see the difference being the OS and the wireless. (although there are other R*U units with a 40GB hard drive).

Are there other significant differences between these units? What am I missing?

Is there a feature matrix that sums up these differences somewhere? I think it would be useful.

[proaudioguy]

The main differences between all the A31P models are the OS, either XP Pro or Windows 2000, WIFI B or not (maybe the choice between Intel or Atheros too), Bluetooth or not, size of Hard Drive, although every one I've personally seen had a 60Gig drive, and the CPU. I think they all had pretty much the same CDRW/ DVD drive, with a blank in the slot. Some came with Office XP, but I'm not sure if that is reflected in the model number. To my knowledge they all came with Svideo IN, a fire wire port, the ATI 7800, and the Flexview UXGA screen. The rest of the features are common to the A31. There may have been an option for additional RAM, but the standard was 256Megs.

I have 2 A31s which are both Frankenstein machines somewhere between A31 and A31P with upgraded CPUs, screens, HDs and Ram. One of these days I'm going to get my hands on my buddy's A31P (which I bought for him from ebay in 2003, but he paid for). It's still a nearly perfect specimen.

[ajkula66]

The biggest difference is that some had security chip on the planar, and some didn't. Checking HMM resolves any possible confusion...also, different boards/models use different BIOS-es, Hxx is not the same as Rxx

A31p was offered with 3 different CPUs (1.7/1.8/2.0) and while the latter two share the "fast" fan, 1.7 units have the smaller/slower/whatever fan.

At the time when these were new, they could be CTO-d to a certain degree, so HD sizes are approximate. My first A31p (2653-H5U) was configured by IBM with 1GB RAM and 80GB HDD that was the largest available at the time. This was per my request.

Every A31p that has built-in wireless has also BT which is not true for A31.

To the best of my knowledge, proaudioguy covered all the other basis with his post....

[proaudioguy]

Ahh, I didn't even think of the security chip. I never used it so I just totally forgot about it.

[rkawakami]

Is there a feature matrix that sums up these differences somewhere? I think it would be useful.

The best thing that I've seen, but it may not be 100% complete, is the model matrix in the Hardware Maintenance Manual.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 39796.html

Starting on page 152 (of the actual manual; not the Acrobat page number which is 156), you will see the model types and the options that go along with them.