CF-20 got a severe attack of the Toughbook bug !

Scored a CF-20 with LTE for 1000 euro (+/- $ 1,150)
It is in "As new" condition and has still a year warranty.

Now i have to sell my CF-19 MK8 for witch i just bought a new battery

 

Yep, but not by that much if you see the benchmarks.
And it does not weight up against other goody's on the CF 20
Better screen, better portability, better wifi etc.....

 

Wow that is a deal. I would take it for that for sure. Always nice to have a new play toy . Guessin it's a MK1 ?

 

Yep, MK1, i don't think you will find a MK2 second hand yet.
Planning to buy a second battery.

Someone has an idea what battery (the one in the tablet or the one in the keyboard) is used first ?
It would be fine if it is the one in the keyboard first, so you practically always have a fresh one in the tablet.

 

Found the answer in the full manual. It is indeed the battery in the keyboard that will be used first.

 

Got the CF 20 tree days ago, it was in an aborted recovery state.
So started recovery from Bios, and all went well, but it dit not recognize the keypad and the usb ports on the keyboard docking. (keyboard did work)
Tried to first upgrade to latest windows (it was a very early state of windows 10), but it took forever (let it do for about 10 hours)
So, i decided to do a fresh install of Windows 10 build 1809, toke about 15 min.
I downloaded the latest driver packet from Panasonic and installed it.
Still no touchpad and usb on the base
After opening it for search of a loose connector, still no joy.
After much trying i found it was a missing driver USB UART bridge !
So if you have a CF-20 with not working keypad after installing Windows 10, install that driver as windows does not recognize it (not even a exclamation mark in device manager)

 

Blair,
Can you add CF 20 to the topic?
that will make this easier to find for future readers who need help.

 

How do you do that ?

 

I sure can.

I can do it but you can't.

 

Or we could change it to " CF-20 Nice but no touchpad / USB on keyboard on W10 ?" Let me know.

 

Thanks Blair.
After opening the base unit (keyboard dock) i have the impression that the CF 20 isn't so tough as the CF 19.
There are a lot of flimsy cable connectors on two pcb boards, and i suspect it is not as waterproof also.
On the other hand, it is very easy to open, a lot of philips screws (two of them hidden beneath the battery lock mechanism)

Other conclusion is that the port covers wont last long, the rubber ones of the previous tougbooks are better.

I wouldn't say that, The driver does not install automatically if you perform a system recovery or a fresh install.
I guess it is installed for first use, but not included in the recovery partition.

And it isn't included in the latest one click driver packet from Panasonic, i had to add it manually.

 

This is a W10 problem . This has happened on many other brands of laptops too. They had to install them manually. If that is only the problems you have then you are doing good.

Check out the bottom link. They have 2 great threads going now on W10.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/forums/windows-os-and-software.15/

 

Another remark.
The tablet does not work with a battery in the keyboard dock and no battery in the tablet itself.

 

Yes, i suppose so.
But it is stupid it does not install with the "one click" driver packet from Pana. Although it is listed in the older "All Drivers" for version 1511 of W10.
This costed me one full day of trouble shouting.
Luckily i am i guy who search until he finds.

 

This reminds me of several Toughbooks that don't see the 3.0 usb until after the driver pack is run. The ones I used would "see" the rear USB but not the USB 3.0 on the side. 31,53,54 I think.

I'm not sure if the CF-20 is similar or not.

Of course this scenario makes it difficult to load drivers from a USB. If install fails try a different port.

If all else fails, I still have your CF-29.

 

Ha ha, does it still work ?

CF 20 is different, they use some USB bridge for the whole Keyboard dock except the keyboard itself.
So, nothing on the dock works (USB, touchpad and serial port) if this driver is not loaded.

You still have the USB port on the tablet.

 

CF-29 works fine with a new touch panel.

I still don't have anything running W10. My comments were of a general nature.

Plus I wanted to say hi.

 

Another remark !
The touchpad is as stated in different reviews : very unresponsive ! especially click, you really have to tap hard. I have to learn to use the buttons instead of tapping.

 

Just had this issue in the shop. Sent it to Panasonic under warranty they replaced the main board.

 

They said they replaced the main board !, but it sure is a driver problem.
Once i set all the usb ports (there are a lot off them) to never let windows go them to sleep, i never got that problem back.
I figured this out when i used a Bluetooth mouse, the touch pad and the rest of the usb in the keyboard dock was going to sleep after a while and could only recover by removing the battery and restart, after setting all the usb ports to never going to sleep, this behavior disappeared.

 

That's one of the first things I do on a new Win install.
Disable sleep and disable usb shutdown or whatever they call it.