760EL info/help

[Borg561]

I'm new here, so first, I'd like to say hi. Now on to the questions.

My father picked up two 760ELs for free that his employer was throwing out, one for me and one for him. I'm looking for info on upgradeability and help with Wifi.

Both systems currently have 72Mb of RAM and I was wondering if that was the max, or if these models will take 104Mb (64+32+8Mb).

I'd also like to upgrade the harddrive. There's a 6Gb in my fathers system, which he's fine with. I got stuck with the 2.1Gb drive (not complaining though since it was all free). I'd like to upgrade to a 6-10Gb drive. From what I understand the current drive is a 17mm, and for a new drive I'd need a new caddy or short some pins. This is my first laptop so any info/help is appreciated.

What kind of internal CD/DVD drives are available that will work? I currently have an external 24x connecting to the LPT port that's a PITA. I picked up an internal Sanyo CRD-S58P 8x cheaply on eBay, but it doesn't seem to play well with CD-RWs (the external one does). All I'm really looking for is an internal drive that will play nice with CD-RWs, though DVD would be nice as I use my DVD burner a lot for transfering files.

Last question is about Wifi. I have an Orinoco Gold .11b card that I'd like to use to connect to my wireless network. I'm using Win2k with SP4 installed. The drivers for the card install fine as does the Client Manager software. The Client Manager software brings up my AP info and shows an excellent signal strength, but Windows shows an icon in the system tray saying a network cable is disconnected, and I can't access any of my other computers. I've made sure the Wireless configuration service is on, and I've tried disabling WEP with no luck. I tested the PC card to see if it was good by installing WinXP (~3hrs to install, 15-20mins to boot), and the card installed, worked fine, and I was able to browse the network. Any help would be appreciated.

Justin

[AlphaKilo470]

All 760EL, E, ED, XL, XD as well as the 765's can max out at 104mb of RAM, though IBM will tell you it can't.

The 760 series laptops are limeted to 6gb hard drives, so your fathers is maxed out there, you still have room for upgrade. As for CD drives availible, you'll find them on eBay, the fastest CD drive availible is 24x, but the 20x is the most common on eBay. Unfortunatly, there is no DVD or CD burner option for the 760 as these things did not even exist when the 760 was in production.

As far as WiFi goes, you should be fine. I have two 760E's and both are connected to my 802.11b network as well as my 380ED.

[whizkid]

I wonder if you can use a larger drive in the 760's... In my 750P, the BIOS will only see the first 8GB, but an OS that doesn't use the BIOS to access the disk can use the 12GB I have in there now.

I've only tested Linux, which works great, but Windows since the 32-bit driver of 3.1 does not use the BIOS to read the drive. If your boot drive is below the 6GB or 8GB limit, you might be able to use another partition on a larger drive.

Has anyone tried it?

[Nerdette]

This is a question I've wondered about myself. Is it possible to use DOS to partition a larger drive, say 20GB, into several partitions that are within the 6GB limit? (And actually, I read someplace else that the limit was 5GB, but I am surely not the expert on the question.)

Would one larger drive partitioned into smaller ones work??? Because it sure would be nice to have that extra storage.

[AlphaKilo470]

The limit is 6gb, not 5gb. The limit is in the BIOS and the chipset, so unfortunatly, I don't think partitioning the drive would work. If you want to run Windows off that 20gb hd on your 760, there is something about that on the thinkpads.com main site, I think it involves a drive overlay program, but that requires having a second computer to initially perform the operation with.

Another solution, would be to install Linux. I'm not sure if this is 100% true, but I've heard that since Linux communicates with the hard drive itself for information and not the BIOS, there is no limit to hard disk size when using that OS, but again, that's based on other people's word, not my own experience.

[whizkid]

This is a question I've wondered about myself. Is it possible to use DOS to partition a larger drive, say 20GB, into several partitions that are within the 6GB limit? (And actually, I read someplace else that the limit was 5GB, but I am surely not the expert on the question.)

Would one larger drive partitioned into smaller ones work??? Because it sure would be nice to have that extra storage.

You can use Windows to partition a drive while you install or afterwards. If the BIOS limit is 6GB (which seems odd, since my 750 has an 8GB limit), just make sure the OS partition is 6GB or a little less. Once you install Windows, make another big partition and there you go.

[PCSAR 4x4 652]

I put a 12 gig in my 600x, fdisked and formatted it into 2 6gb partitions, put it in the 760xl and it works fine ...

Now if I could find the Windows ME drivers for it i'll be all set.

[AlphaKilo470]

If you can't find any Win ME drivers, use Windows 98 drivers, that's what I did with my FrankenPad 760XD and all works fine.

Hey, since some of you have 760EL's, if any of you have the versions with Pentium 120's and/or no L2 cache, I have a bunch of Pentium 133's w/ L2 cache laying around if anyone wants to make a trade.

[thinkerbell]

hello, I'm new in this Forum, so I'll start by saying hello to everyone, including the moderator . I was please to read that you can use a wifi card on a 380ed, running win98. But my project these days is to surf the net on a dos based machine. I run dos 7.10 with working pcmcia drivers. I tried to find a driver for my motorola 802.11g card but I couldn't find one on the net. Nor I was able to find wich chip it uses, so I can edit the driver to recognize my card. Since the card works under win98 with the appropriate driver, and that win98 uses the msdos 7.10 version, I'm pretty sure it must exist a driver that would do the trick, but again I'm lost and I have no reference on what king of chip my card usesDo you have an idea of what I could do to make my Thinkpad to communicate with my linksys 802.11g combo router.
I made a stupid bet that I was able to connect to the internet with my laptop running Dos. So far I have everything but the card's driver. I don't know if Arachne browser, even if it is capable of dealing with many protocols, can handle wifi connection ???I couldn't find any infos about wifi protocols of any sort.
Give it to me straight, the worse scenario will cost me a Pizza and a few bottles of beer Have any Idea???

[AlphaKilo470]

Hello and welcome to the forum thinkerbell, glad you're aboard.

Unfortunatley, I don't think you'll have much luck finding WiFi drivers for DOS. In fact, finding them for Windows 95 would be a long shot (though some Win98 drivers might work under 95.) Your best bet for running WiFi on a vintage machine would either be Win 98SE or Linux.

However, since a michine that runs Win 95 or Win98 is still technically DOS as that's what the machine initially boots into before loading the OS, it might still be possible to win your bet on a technicality. It'd be a longshot though.