New T22 user, couple of q's - maintenance/fan/memory/Linux

[tpprynn]

After looking at Thinkpads for many months I just bought a T22 (256mb, 20gb, 900mhz) almost by accident, halfheartedly bidding when I thought I wouldn't win on eBay.

It came today and is fine. The battery needs replacing predictably, and I replaced XP with Linux Mint 9, though I'll find something a bit newer for it fairly soon, probably Debian 6. (It says it is designed for Windows 98 and 2000. It didn't seem terrible with XP but a bit irritating, maybe the RAM, maybe because the drive was formatted fat32 and not NTFS.

The fan though is a bit annoying. It's on constantly and a bit obtrusive, to much so for library work. I did look on eBay for spares but maybe they'd be in the same shape. Could it be that the one in use could be improved and quietened. It's like a lawnmower heard from a few streets away, that's how I'd describe it.

It has two sticks of 128mb, one clearly is PC100. Crucial says it can take pc133. What do the voices of experience say here? I want to put two 256mb sticks in.

It has the 1.05 BIOS. Do any later ones have support for booting from a usb memory stick/pendrive?

Is it worth putting the 1.2 ghz cpu in if I should find one?

If any people here use Linux with a T22, some thoughts about the smoothest-running distros is welcome too. I have googled, and will some more, but it's a warmer experience to engage with people a bit, I hope it's agreed.

Thanks.

[Sandstorm83]

I used to have a T22 many years ago. It was a great machine.

The fastest CPU that it will take is a Coppermine 1Ghz P3 and it will take a max of 512 mb of ram (2 sticks of 256 mb PC100).
Whether or not you will feel a difference going from 900 to 1000 MHz is unknown and most likely will create more heat. However I felt a dramatic increase in system responsiveness when I made the upgrade to 512 mb of ram and would highly recommend doing that.

Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2

[RealBlackStuff]

You cannot put in PC133 RAM, you need PC100 low-density SDRAM (max. 2x256MB).
See this: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 23&start=0

Your 20GB is probably 10 years old and runs at 4200rpm.
Replacing that with a more modern 40/60/80GB 5400rpm hard disk (newer technology, larger cache) should also improve.
An SSD would be overkill for that oldie.

[Unknown_K]

Check the fan to make sure it is making good contact with the CPU (replacing the heatsink compound might be needed).

[rkawakami]

You cannot put in PC133 RAM, you need PC100 low-density SDRAM (max. 2x256MB).

You can use PC133 modules as long as they are low density. While it's true that you're safer selecting PC100 modules, as the vast majority of those use the low density 16MB chips, I believe that some PC133-rated modules also use 16MB. The best chance of getting what will work in that T22 would be the usual rule of counting the number of memory chips on the 256MB module. If there are a total of 16 (8 per side), then you've found what you're looking for.

[tpprynn]

Lovely, thanks.

The noise has I think transpired to be a broken hard drive - it makes quite a rattle when removed anyway. I've just bought another. I'd already bought a replacement fan when I thought it was that, for £2. The sound seems to be coming from top left where the fan is, but the sound is not there at all when the hard drive is removed, but for all I know the presence of a hard drive might be what would make the fan kick in, or the sound's location could just be deceptive. I had tried to run a Linux live CD without the hard drive in but it would not proceed (at a guess they use an unused bit of hard drive for the swap file).

Thanks for the details about the ram, that's saved me some time and aggravation no doubt. That will be next, then a new battery.

[Neil]

Interesting about the live CD failure to boot...well maybe not...most distros will need at least 512MB RAM to boot. But, all will boot without a hard drive installed. There won't be a swap partition on the hard drive unless you made one.

That said, Puppy Linux will boot and run completely in RAM with 256MB, if you want something to mess around with. Just be sure to grab Wary Pup (designed for older machines) instead of the regular version.

[DRobinson]

Recently I got an old t20 going with GNU/Linux.

It is a t20 with upgraded 900MHz proc and fan from newer model (no foam heat pad, spring loaded inserts to keep it flush) I put artic silver over the cpu before installing the fan.

I upgraded to 512MB low density ram, it hardly ever touches swap.

There was no hard drive, I opted to use Compact flash (2x8GB). It runs at least as quiet as my eeepc netbook.

There was a mishap though. I tried flashing the bios with the latest version using a bootable cdrom. The instructions are somewhere on this site (I think in the wiki). The bios flash did not take, so off to ebay for replacement motherboard. Luckily it was fairly cheap.

Running Debian testing on it. Just did a base install and added everything that I wanted on top of that. Pretty good machine, with latest software.

Not sure how long the compact flash will last. I had to do a fsck earlier this week for corrupt file system.

[tpprynn]

Yes I successfully installed Linux mint 9, both Fluxbox and Gnome editions (the latter being too slow), working to an extent with the dodgy hard drive. But for whatever reason, no live CD will follow through, though they start, to the desktop. So although it is likely about the RAM at present I thought that the Fluxbox edition should work, being undemanding.

I'm not sure what I'll use the T22 for as the dvd drive is still a bit of a whizz-making thing too much for watching films unless I get very tight headphones... I have an 11 inch HP laptop I take out and I mostly use a pc I built. Like a lot of people it seems, though, I've fetishised the Thinkpad, even a slower old one. I'm amazed and entirely understanding of people with their Thinkpad collections! The almost rubber case and other aspects make the machines neither cheap-looking nor very pretty, but they've got something about them haven't they. I may have an X60/X61/X61s before the year's out but it is slightly stressful thinking about an eBay gamble again. One shop in London has very many T43's but I like the thought of a smaller laptop. The newest ones look okay but also more like many laptops by other brands.

I too had intended to go for Debian ideally but unless there's a live CD I'm not too good at installing. The current version of Debian 6 has a faulty installer which they haven't attended to - "It just works..." - and as a Mobile Broadband user with fixed rate of gb/month a rolling distro like Testing is not good for me.

Anyway, the 'new' drive was posted first class today so I might be in business tomorrow. I think I'll shift a couple of things of mine to fund the ram and battery so it leaves no sting...

I heard that a new genuine IBM/Lenovo battery can get 30 hours of life, is that a joke I didn't get or is it true? Three hours from a third party replica will suffice but given that I've seen people doing stock-taking and stuff in supermarkets with old Thinkpads maybe thirty hours isn't so far-fetched. I have used a third party battery before with a Toshiba and it was okay if inferior, so I know what to expect - got nearly three hours from it for a while and then a drop to two hours in under six months but the original wasn't drastically better.

Thanks for all input. If the noise stops when I put the new drive in I'll report back for closure's sake in case someone googles this.

(I will do a search here for how the 2xCompact flash works with a Thinkpad but if you didn't go into it here DRobinson could you tell me/us more? Seems ideal. Edit: It's okay, this seems a good start:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/CompactFlash_boot_drive)

[RealBlackStuff]

Dream on with 30 hours on one battery charge!
The best a T2x can do is between 2.5 and 3 hours, with low settings.
You can get another 40-60 minutes by adding an Ultrabay 2000 battery instead of the CD drive, but that's it!
Go look for a T30 battery, they also fit in the T2x models, and have a slightly larger capacity.

[tpprynn]

Yes, thirty hours did sound mad.

There is a newer BIOS for this model. Mine has a 2001 BIOS, and I see there is one from 2004. I think I read somewhere that the BIOS for certain Thinkpads stop third party batteries working - reminds me of the situation with my parents' printer but seems a silly thing to do with any item that is out of the warranty period, even in 2004 - so I'm asking here if that might apply to this T22.

I have a new CMOS battery coming from eBay. I'm hoping it's all that's needed but have seen it can be more complicated. When I got the laptop it made the beep indicating the clock settings change being needed. I did that and the laptop was fine for a day or two although I did spend a long time with it plugged in to see if there was much life in the actual battery. Then there was a period after it had discharged and the laptop was not plugged in then. Next boot the time and date were back to 0000 or 1999 or whatever.

Chances are things will be hunky dory after the new CMOS battery is in, yes? I have not put the old one back in but I'm assuming that will do no harm if it's 99.9% dead anyway? I will know by tomorrow or Wednesday morning but I thought I'd ask here in case anything is said that gives me some preparation or new info.

Lastly, the spare fan/heatsink came today, and has a little pad on it that's nearly like bluetac. Is this some kind of alternative to thermal paste? And if I do have to use the fan and to repaste the CPU should I be using whatever this little pad is instead of paste? If so what is the pad called so I know what to ask for?

At the weekend when visiting someone with better internet I gathered up several Linux .iso files and all the Windows 98/2000/XP drivers. If it can't manage Debian 6 or Linux Mint LXDE 12 I'll put Windows back on, trying 98 first as it was the native version to this model and the one version of Windows I never used, and it might give the machine enough of a niche purpose here that it doesn't sit collecting dust... But the system requirements for Windows 2000 versus XP seem negligible so that it'd hardly be worth trying both of them.

Thanks.

[RealBlackStuff]

After CMOS is back in you should be fine.
The bluetack is in reality a thermal pad, which you use instead of thermal paste.
If the pad is dried out, get another one (on eBay etc.).
Your fan should have 3 springloaded mounting holes. If not, it's the wrong fan.

[tpprynn]

Still playing around with various Linuxes with new CMOS installed, but...

As I'm about to buy a new battery I wanted to enquire about this. The current battery when fully charged shows between 2.5 and 3 hours, which then puts itself right to about two hours, though there is then a steep fall. I probably get half an hour from the battery really. Using a tool in Linux mint the capacity seems to be three-quarters what it should be though when new.

There are two green battery lights near the right screen hinge, one with a cross by it. Does this mean 'dying or broken battery' or something else?

I'm a bit concerned that this battery is itself fine, and has 3/4 capacity, but that maybe somewhere in the circuit elsewhere in the laptop things are failing. I will get the battery anyway, but a bit of information is appreciated. I found a .pdf of the T series laptops but the battery lights are different and I felt none the wiser.

Thanks.

[RealBlackStuff]

See the HMM, page 45: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail. ... IGR-4UYM3F

[tpprynn]

Thanks. That's where I had looked though - it doesn't explain the green light with the cross next to it. (My lights go: battery light (orange when charging, green when charged), then a crescent moon (sleep mode I imagine) then a second battery light which is green and has a little cross to the right of it).

I was advised (possibly by you) to get a T30 battery as it has a higher capacity. On eBay a reputable 3rd party seller I've used before has T22 and T30 batteries with the same spec, though the T22 battery is £2 cheaper. Any reason to still get the 'T30' one?

Thanks.

[tpprynn]

Whoops, okay, I had an eyesight problem there, darn these contact lenses. It was an Ultrabay light which I confirmed by removing the drive.

But if you can tell me any more about the likelihood of a new battery being all fine and which if the two to get that would be good. Thanks.

[tpprynn]

I thought I'd add the resolution to my thread in case of use or enthusiast's interest...

My T22 is now settled with new battery, healthy used drive and doubled memory, plus Xubuntu 12.04 which it handled okay-ish with 256mb and now very satisfactorily with 512mb. Two sticks of pc100 came today from eBay, neither faulty, a great relief. The battery I bought, for £26, looks like it will give me four hours depending on what I'm doing. with Xubuntu it was on average showing 4 1/2 hours when writing in a text editor with the brightness down a little bit but not to any overly compromised amount.

For anyone unfamiliar, Xubuntu is a neat-looking but not very futuristic type of Linux OS that can look somewhere between Mac-like and Windows 98-like, which suits many of us, and doesn't gripe at having only a 900mhz cpu to use.

One of the sticks of RAM was Crucial, the other Kingmax, both £12 but packed a bit riskily given how I've seen English postal staff acting. I also bought a £6 PCMCIA USB card, which says it is USB2 in the advert but runs quite slowly - maybe this is a result of the Thinkpad itself, but I don't mind too much, it's worth having for the convenience anyway. Twenty-five minutes for a few gigabytes of music doesn't seem like usb2 though does it. My whole collection normally takes less than ten.

I am tempted to repaste the cpu in the hope of giving it another five or more years of life but things could just go the other way in the attempt. Maybe I'll wait till it seems to begin having issues. Right now it just seems like a slightly slower new machine - doing as well as most netbooks - and has me thinking I will sell my comparatively flimsy 2011 HP laptop. The hard drive area does feel quite warm and I'm thinking I might try the Compact Flash idea I read about here.

A last question - would a pcmcia wireless card draw power when not in active use? I don't use wireless much, I use Mobile Broadband, and wouldn't want to lose battery life for something that's not super-easy to remove, but will be finding something to occupy the second slot.

Thanks for all help here and keep up the good work...