Windows 2000 on ThinkPad R40

Windows 2000

Partitioning

Used the installed System Commander 7 paritioning tools to create a 16Gbyte FAT32 partition for the Windows 2000 install. FAT32 was chosen because both Solaris and Linux can read and write FAT32.

Installation

Vanilla win2k SP3 installation from CD. On reboot SC7 recognizes that a new OS has been installed.

Configuration

Trojans/Spyware

Service Pack 3 includes an automatic update "convenience" for the user that includes a trojan that phones home with computer info, and who knows what else. Before connecting to the my LAN, I disabled this "feature":
Update: downloaded and installed Service Pack 4, and re-disabled the above "features".

Update 2003.07.23: SP4 seems to interfere with the application launch buttons in the Access IBM utility. Backing out SP4 fixed them, but left other things broken. Reinstalling from scratch with SP4 installed prior to any of the IBM stuff fixed the launch button problem for a few days, but now they are broken again. Further, the system information page in Access IBM doesn't include the laptop model # or serial #. There is a problem with the VPD2 program which is supposed to pick this stuff up at boot time. I suspect a path issue, since win2k is installed to D: The IBM Configuration Utility does include this info.

Update 2003.08.11: well, the help buttons are back... Who knows why? I don't think I care anymore.

Boot Options

Setting this key to 0 prevents the win98se autoexec.bat from being processed when win2k boots. Otherwise, the path in autoexec.bat may include win98 programs in win2k's path.
If the win2k install detects a win98 installation, it will present a boot selection screen with a 30 second timeout. To speed up the default boot to win2k, I shorten the timeout to 5 seconds:
IDE DMA

Win2k seems to default to "use DMA if available" for the hard drive, and "PIO only" for the CD drive. I set the 2nd IDE channel's entry for the CD drive to "use DMA if available" for increased performance. Seems to work OK.

USB 2.0

Update 2003.10.31: corrected path to driver - below

Win2k doesn't pick up the usb 2.0 hardware automatically. Use
to install the 2.0 driver.

IBM drivers and utilities

I loaded everything pertaining to win2k from the drivers and utilities in the IBM software and driver matrix, starting with the Intel chipset utilities (to speed things up) then the Radeon video driver, then everything else. Prior to installing the DVD player update, I installed the DVD software saved from the XP installation. See note below.

Note: some of the IBM/third party software installed on the HD is not available from the IBM software and driver matrix. In particular, the DVD playing software and the CD burning software must be saved from the original installation. Installable (not just installed) copies of this and other software is located at C:\IBMTOOLS\APPS. Save it if you want to use it in winxx other than XP.

APM/ACPI

Win2k runs acpi mode just fine on the R40. Standby (to RAM) and hibernate (to a win2k file) work OK.

WiFi

Update 2003.07.30: I finally got around to testing the 802.11b Intel 2100 Pro WiFi mini Pci card included with this laptop. It seems to work fine. I tested by adding a wireless router to my LAN as an access point. I initially tried a Netgear MR814v2 Cable/DSL wireless router.

After fiddling the IP address to fit my LAN, the Netgear hooked up with the laptop immediately, and I could access the Web and the rest of my LAN. Unfortunately, the Netgear unit dropped the link 20 minutes later. It was then impossible to re-establish the link. The only fix was to power-cycle the router. 20 minutes later, the link was down again. And so on ... Four calls to Netgear tech support produced four different "fixes", none of which worked. Finally I googled up a long thread describing the problems that the Netgear router has with Centrino laptops (and therefore the Intel WiFi card, I presume). The universal symptom across several laptop brands was the consistent loss of the radio link after 5-25 minutes. The thread also mentioned a beta firmware rev for the Netgear that might fix the problem - which none of the Netgear techs seemed to know about.

The Netgear gadget went back to Office Depot, and I got a Linksys WRT54G 802.11g router from the folks next door. After the usual modifications to the IP address, and some other adjustments required since I was using the router as an access point, not as my DSL firewall, AND a power cycle of the router, the laptop link is up, and has stayed up for 2 days now.

Note: Since the Linksys WiFi router is being used as an access point only, not as the firewall/DHCP server, it seems to be necessary to attach it to my LAN via one of its downstream ports, not its modem port. A Linksys tech told me to use the modem (upstream) port to attach to the lan, but that does not seem to work - at least with the config options that I have tried.

Conclusions: the Netgear router is not currently compatible with my R40 (and other) Centrino laptops, and Netgear tech support is useless!

Update 2003.08.06: Thanks to Nathan Tallent for pointing out that the Netgear problem may be fixed by turning off WiFi automatic power management and selecting "highest power" setting on the laptop.

Random Notes

Swap and Page Files

Win2k runs in my D: partition. The win2k pagefile (swap file) is D:pagefile.sys, and the hibernation file is D:hiberfil.sys. I have created a 768MB fixed size pagefile in the interest of performance.
Timed Standby

With my current (as of 2003.09.03) BIOS and power management software, timed standby (to RAM) is somewhat non-intuitive. If I set timed disk spin-down to 5 minutes (for example) and timed standby to 10 minutes, the disks spin down as expected, but the laptop does not go to standby. If the standby time is set to less than the disk spindown time, it does go to standby - depending on the LCD setting... When I called IBM tech support about this, they tried it themselves while I was on the phone, and were rather surprised when their laptop did the same thing!

What I _think_ I know about this at the moment is that in order to get timed standby I have to set the LCD to blank before the standby time, and the disk to spin down after the standby time, and the screensaver timeout must be longer than the standby time. What point there might be in setting the disks to spin down AFTER it is already asleep is beyond me.

[ Think Pad R40 ][ Previous | Next ]