And... more T21 issues/questions?

[LegendaryKA8]

Alrighty... unfortunately I'm back with some more issues on my T21.

Firstly, I have upgraded to a SL53S 1Ghz P3 Mobile processor... everything is recognized and the processor generally works just fine. I also bumped up to a T22 heat sink/fan setup and used AS5. Other than that, I'm running 256MB RAM, a 60GB 5400RPM HDD, and the OS is Win2K.

Now... the system is extremely sluggish, even in general use. I know this isn't a new notebook by any means, but I'm thinking that for Net browsing, using OpenOffice, and listening to Winamp, it should still run things smoothly. It takes around two minutes to boot into OpenOffice 3, and when browsing in Firefox my Winamp will cut out quite a bit. Now, I am using a Windows install that hasn't been nuked in three years of use... but I want to know if what I'm doing stands a chance of helping.

I've loaded a new Win2K installation on a freshly formatted 100GB, 7200RPM drive, and am in the process of copying over all my docs/music to it. Once all that's done, I'll load my base programs onto it and see if it's any snappier... hopefuly it is.

Also, I'm noticing that my new processor is running hot... hotter than my 800Mhz P3 did... and when I opened it up I found that nearly all the thermal compound was dried up around the processor core... there was actually dust between the processor and heat sink... and it was still chugging along as if it didn't even matter. But, even with the AS5 treatment and making sure everything was as clean as a whistle... I'm hitting temps of 80C if I try to watch a video... Youtube, DVD, or video files I have on my hard drive, it doesn't matter. I'm thinking that the processor itself might be damaged; I'm not totally sure. Any thoughts?

And, finally, my Ultrabay devices are randomly ejecting. I'm assuming that the actual electrical switch that controls the actual ejection(if that makes any sense) is worn down a bit... any suggestions on how to fix this?

Any suggestions at all would be really helpful... especially anyone chiming in on how their T2x's operating environment is behaving.

[Harryc]

In a quick word, you need more RAM (512MB total), a new Ultrabay CDROM drive, and you need to make sure your CPU to heatsink contact is good....sounds like it is not.

[RealBlackStuff]

As Harryc said, you need more RAM, 2x 256MB PC100 SODIMM.

Clean out all your Temp files and browser caches, that might help.

T20/21 coolers used to have a rubber thermal pad.
The T22 cooler does not.
Every time you take the cooler off, you will need to clean up and replace the thermal compound.
Those temps sound rather high to me, even though I don't have a T22.
Is your cooler working properly?, i.e. starting up at boot time, then again when it gets hot(ter)?
Did you upgrade your BIOS and Controller Pgm to the latest version?
That's a must with a 1.00 GHz CPU.

As to the drive-ejecting, if there is a problem with the I/O board, I have a few of those very cheap.

[LegendaryKA8]

Excellent... I haven't gotten more RAM yet, but I noticed that the BIOS update has helped out quite a bit. Just as a future reference note, the latest BIOS released for the T21 will accept and boot off of non-IBM batteries, as I just tried that a few minutes ago. The update has made the system considerably more 'snappy,' although I'm sure extra RAM will help out more.

I've now traced the problems accessing websites to a few Windows updates that for some reason are not playing nice with my router... I've had the problem on three separate machines so it's not an issue with the T21 itself.

As far as the heat issue goes, the cooler is working perfectly. I did just notice what looks like a small chip off the processor core; not very large at all but I'm thinking the processor itself was damaged. the original 800Mhz processor was working just fine even though it had almost no thermal compound on it... there were even specks of dust between the CPU and heat sink and I was getting idle temps in the high-40s... with the 1.0Ghz processor idle temps are in the 60s.

Unfortunately the T21's going on the back burner for a bit; I've got a friend with a T30 who brought it to me with some issues... I'll be making a separate post on that. Once again, thanks!

[nikki605]

When you do get back to the T21 memory, make sure you get the right kind - low density. Much has been posted here about it. This is one recent topic with the basic information: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=73705