CF-28 Toughbook ram & wifi Questions ?

Think I posted in the wrong section first time round The short of it is - I picked up a used CF-28STJGZDM. It has WIN xp PRO Installed, & Is VERY slow with only 256mb & no extra stick of ram. Whats the best stick to pick up on say ebay without spending alot of cash. 2nd - I can get it to connect to my wifi signal (takes 4ever) using a belkin wireless G card but the signal is very weak compaired to the other lap top I use the card in. Is this normal. Is their a built in wifi card in my cf28 of am I stuck with an external card. Thanks & I took some pic's to help - hope they do.....

 

Welcome!
What part of NC? I live in atlantic beach for 10 years...beautiful place.

With hardware of such age, you may want to tweak your windows install to free up some resources. A 600mhz processor with 256mb of ram should run xp........ok enough; but you will need to keep it clean.
Uninstall any progs not needed.
Check your startup folder for programs that don't actually need to start with windows.
Run "services.msc" (you can find out more at black viper's page and look at services to turn off/set to manual.
install and run ccleaner (uncheck the yahoo toolbar option during instlall)
install and run glary utilities (uncheck the yahoo toolbar option during install)
use ccleaner to look at installed programs
use ccleaner to look at startup items (similar to msconfig.exe)
get rid of all toolbar add-ons.


I'm not sure what ram you need, or wifi card, but the above will help your pc run better.

!!!USE THAT INFO AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

 

Hi & Thanks, Im a couple miles from Martinsville va but have been to your neck of the woods a couple times - Love Atlantic Beach Yeah I picked this one up online & took my chances... I think it will run much faster with a bit more ram added to the mix. I'll get ccleaner up soon & chech things out. it came to me pretty clean - almost nothing in the HD which was good - less for me to wipe. it has a 1000mhz cpu & 40 g HD but only 248mb of ram... If I can speed her up just a bit I could live with it or just put her up for sale. The wireless card sticking out the side is driving me nuts but I have read some posts here about installing a small card & internal antanna. Thanks again Sir - will give it a try - installing win xp ser pak 3 now....

 

XP SP3 will slow it down more, but probably good for keeping up with patches since SP2 is no longer supported by MS.

For RAM I'd recommend a 512MB stick of Kingston low density. Even a 256MB stick will help alot, and almost any PC-133 type should work in the 256MB size. But only certain low density types of 512MB are compatible.

There are a number of internal wifi cards and ways to rig antennas. Read the FAQ and use Azrial's search tool to see what worked. My favorite is the EnGenius 8602+S wifi card with 600 mW power, hooked up to a factory wifi antenna (or modified WWAN antenna) on the lid.

 

Check this out

http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/210510-cf-28-f-q-read-me-before-posting.html

 

Note; his machine is a Mk3 CF-28:

Model Number: CF-28STJGZDM
Status: DISCONTINUED
MSRP: $4,610
Description: Intel® Pentium III 1.0GHz, 13.3" Transmissive Touch Screen, 30GB HDD, 256 RAM, 56K Modem, 10/100 Ethernet LAN, Floppy Disk Drive, Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Professional

@systemofadown:

You may find this interesting:

FAQs » Toughbook 28:

CF-28S (Mk3) -- On-board: 256MB. Expandable up to 768MB

 

Topcop...For some reason NBR will not let us put any Panny short cuts up , every time I put one up we get a "Page not found"

 

I always create my links manually.

Here is the one I posted earlier, purposely "kludged" in order for you to see the formatting:

[<url>="http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/computer-support-faqs-28.asp"]FAQs » Toughbook 28[</url>]

To "unkludge" it, remove the < and > signs from the formatting.

"Unkludged" it shows up, and works, as FAQs » Toughbook 28

 

You could buy a newer low cost cf-29 without hd,minipci cards and so on,you'll add them later.
Sometimes on fleabay there are cf-28s with ram maxed out (1 gb) too.

I discovered at my expensenses that trying to upgrade a too old machine will make you spend much more than you have planned (e.g. a 512mb pc 133 sodim low density costs about 25 euros).

 

Big Thanks Guy's I got XP ser pak 3 in last night. Still having problems with picking up the wifi signal (the belkin card might be having a problem with the magnesium case?) anyway, yes it is an older model but I had hoped that being an MK3 it would still serve as a decent websurfer if nothing else. I should have picked up a 29. I can see where you could end up spending alot of extra cash on the cf28 & then still be left wanting more out of it...

 

Ram wise, would this work eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

 

I take it you missed the word "DESKTOP;" didn't ya?

@systemofadown:

Check this one out:

Crucial Technology CT64M64S4W75 512MB 144-Pin PC133 133Mhz SODIMM SDRAM Memory

 

Guilty as charged Thanks Sir - I'll check out the link

 

Yep,it's a good websurfer on winxp (you can even play games with epsxe or see movies,in particular if you got a working coreavc decoder) and a slower one on linux,but you need 512mb ram minimum,firefox is memory angry..
Flash (youtube) maybe be a bit slow,but it's so also on newer machines...flash is crap.

I have wired the wifi card to cf-28 whip antenna to get a decent signal..otherwise magnesium case will limit it.

 

Yeah, Ive got to pick up the 512mb RAM. just got a Belkin Wireless N1 card for it - even worse than the G+ but it works.... Im running IE8 right now, thought about FF but Im so used to IE my other system has Win7Ult & IE9 (older nc6000 I upgraded somewhat...) So thats about all I know. I can't wait to see what the extra ram does - then its on to the wifi card. Can anyone tell me what the two cards pictured up top under the HD are.... Thanks again

 

That should be your LAN and MODEM hook ups. On the CF-28's I fixed up I always pulled the modem card and replaced it with wireless card. There is also a different pcmcia wireless card you can try. It doesn't stick out like the other cards do but you still have to open your pcmcia door to use it. Here is one I got a while back.
eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

You could also use the hidden pcmcia slot like panasonic did from the factory.

 

The processing power will be the same - it's only a pentium III - you'll just be able to run firefox,ie etc with some more tabs opened without using (or with less use of) the swap and consequent slowdown.

 

Thats why Im starting to really think its time to sell this one & spring for the 29 or 30. The ram will keep things from being way to slow but it wont really preform a miracle either. on the selling subject are the 28's still wanted ie the HD & other parts out of a MK3...

 

No need to "lose" the modem capability (no matter how little it may actually be used ):

3Com 10/100 Ethernet + 56K Modem Mini PCI Adapter Bulk 3CN3AC1556B

 

If I were to pick up that card & plug it in, would the unit be wifi ready then - the cf-28 does have a small built in antenna type deal (kinda like a cell phone antenna). That would be Very nice but I feel its not that simple

 

As long as you have a good battery and stuff the MK3 CF-28 is a good machine I still have two of them. When I had them fixed up for my kids it would play Halo CE with out problem on low, pop a dvd in and watch movies. The biggest speed boosts on this model would be Ram, 5400 to 7200 rpm harddrive. Tweaking windows helps out too.

 

I also have 3 CF-28s, and they are nice. Games i can play on them are :

- Age of Empires III (works oke on medium settings)
- Deus Ex
- Gothic 3
- Need for Speed - Hot Pursuit

DVDs can be played without any problem. Even my CF-27 (mk2) with 320 MB ram can play DVDs without a glitch.

I am also still looking for tricks to get my CF-27/CF-28s to be able to get HAM-radio or 27 Mhz with the build in antenna.

 

Gothic III and Age of Empires III? It's impossible, cf-28 has a intel 830m gpu without even T & L support....Do you mean Gothic 1 and A.o.E. 1/2

I am thinking to upgrade to a good cf-29 too,some of them have 2 usb 2.0 ports..but they lack irda,that's available on cf-28 only

 

Nope, Age of Empires III. I installed it, and it works. I gives you a warning in the beginning, but fu??k the warnings. anyhow, AOE III works oke, on my CF-28 MK3 with 768 of ram. no probs.

if ya want i put a video of it on youtube or so.

Officialy, it needs a 1,4 Ghz machine, but on my CF-28 Mk3 it works okay.

PS: i am 40 years old, i used to be a machine language programmer for old Atari. Yep, ancient. I even had to create my own assembler.

nowadays, a lot of game programmers use C or other languages or Win XP, yeah, a lot of slowdown with so many difrent video cards.

on the Atari 130XE (128 KB , not megabytes) , with 360Kb diskdrive (not mega,or gigabytes), it was just plain system.

100% hardcore machine language , yeah ! old memories.....

PS: i dont know any 8086 language. i programmed the Atari-MS-DOS emulator in 1987.....

 

If you are going to upgrade save up and get a CF-30. The jump from my CF-28 mk3 to my CF-29 mk3 (1.4mhz) didn't feel like that big of a jump. Now my CF-29 to my Mk1 CF-30 was a night and day difference. The prices of the Mk1's have been really dropping down here lately. I have a little over 400 in mine (160gb hd, 3 gb ram, ubuntu 10, xp, dvd drive)

 

The cf-28 is still growing on me, just need to spring for ram. Once i get her up to 768mb things should pick up. After disabling the add-ons & setting windows to basic (not letting win devote so much to looks) its gotten a bit faster loading info. That has been on my mind (the CF-30) I have come across several on the bay from around 500.00 to 1250.00 for what looks to be a Killer system. I like win7 ultimate coupled with IE9 & as far as I can tell that system would support it too. The price tag for these dreams is high though...

 

Well now go look for the "zune desktop theme" it is a offical microsoft theme for windows xp. Turns everything black with orange start button. Once you have went into control pannel and turn everything up to performance it puts it on windows basic. You can go into display and turn the pretty back up and it won't take much away. It seem to work better with that black theme.

 

I'll look for it - sounds interesting. Gonna look into picking up cheap ram on the bay today (think I found a 512 stick that will work for 15.00 (I know it will fail me one way or another). Maybe a mini wifi card too, get that started. So, from what has been said & what I read the mini card will just replace one of the other cards - then I find a way to get an antenna outside of the case & attached to the card. is this correct guy's....

 

I love that theme...... here it is, with my bass turd skin for winamp 2.75....

and then, of course, there is my van


And of course, I love Ridgid power tools (lifetime warranty!) all orange/grey/black trim....


no pattern.
none at all.

 

ok, bought one of these for 11.00 how did I do... Broadcom 4318 MPG Mini PCI WIRELESS 802.11BG & Im looking at this for ram - eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices Did I screw up again.......

 

I hate to be the one to finally say this but, READ THE "READ BEFORE POSTING" STICKY. It's the first one at the very top of the first page of this forum. You would have had the answers to virtually every one of your questions with 10 minutes reading! We figured all of this out years ago when none of us could afford anything better than a CF-28, they cost $350-600 back then, CF-29s were well over a thousand.
CAP

 

My apologies, Im reading every bit of info I can find on the forum. I know it gets old when someone asks questions that have been answered long ago. If I come across anything I can't figure out I'll post a revelent question.

 

The point of the stickies is to relieve you of the need to read everything, its all in the Cf-28 FAQ in the first sticky. The information might be a little dated but in reading this entire thread I know that all the answers are there. We try to keep you from buying stuff that won't work by letting you know what will work. I'm not picking on you, I'm trying to help you out.
CAP

 

No offence was taken Sir but I do understand your point. The price changes from a couple years back are what Im worried about - just don't want to buy something that I could have gotton much cheaper & used the extra cash on another upgrade.

 

That RAM might work, it has the right specs including low density. But these CF-28 were really only designed for a 256MB stick and most 512MB sticks are just not compatible. The PC-133 standards are no guarantee of compatibility in the 512MB size. Most of us stick to the Kingston brand to avoid compatibility problems.

 

Unfortunately, Cap, while The CF-29 F.A.Q. is "Stickyed" on the first page, The CF-28 F.A.Q. is not.

 

First: I prefer Crucial/Micron to Kingston (based on personal experience); and,

Second:

Panasonic Toughbook Support FAQs » Toughbook 28

Technical Specifications

[+] What type of memory can be used in the CF-28 Toughbook?

This depends on the specific model number:

CF-28M (Mk1) -- SDRAM, PC100-compliant

CF-28P (Mk2) -- SDRAM, PC133-compliant

CF-28S (Mk3) -- SDRAM, PC133-compliant

[+] What is the CF-28 Toughbook's storage/memory capacity?

This depends on the specific model number:

CF-28M (Mk1) -- On-board: 128MB. Expandable up to 384MB

CF-28P (Mk2) -- On-board: 256MB. Expandable up to 512MB

CF-28S (Mk3) -- On-board: 256MB. Expandable up to 768MB

 

You may be more the RAM expert. I was just sharing what I learned from personal experience building about 40-50 CF-28's over the last 2 years, and what others learned the hard way trying various kinds of memory. Both Mk2 and Mk3 will take Kingston and Buffalo brand 512MB sticks. Many other kinds simply don't work.

More reading here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/215114-cf-28-memory-problems.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/195096-cf-28-memory.html

 

Unfortunately TC when you click on "Read before posting" one of the first things to catch your eye is the "CF-28 FAQ"
CAP

 

Cool ; but it begs the question: "Why is the CF-29 FAQ `Stickyed' on the Forum's front page; but the other CF-## Toughbook FAQs aren't?"

"Inquiring minds want to know..."

 

Learn something every day

 

In the case of the above RAM info, the "expert" here is Panasonic Toughbook Support

While I have used Kingston (both in my old IBM PS/1 and PS/2 desktops, and in the Dəll desktop I am using right now ), I still prefer Crucial (a/k/a Micron); and apparently, Buffalo Memory is now "Printer Memory":

Specialty Products - Certified Printer Memory:

Certified Printer Memory
133MHz, PC133 Unbuffered x64 Non-ECC, 144 Pin
BUFFALO Part # Capacity CAS Latency Voltage
PM133-256 256MB 3 3.3V

You will note that:

1) This is apparently the only memory they now offer; and,

2) The PC133 144-pin SODIMM size stops at 256MB.

I have, however, found their 512MB PC133 modules as "Refurbished" from various sources.

Nevertheless; your experience with these SODIMMs is filed away in memory (pun intended ) for future reference.

Great links: thanx!

 

Thanks Guy's, I took a chance on the cheap ram - from what I read & asked it may work out (more than likely it will bite me in the ). The wifi card is probabley to underpowered for my needs @ that cost but again Its my fault for not just following your advice I should have picked up the antenna at the same time (the flat one with 25 inch or so pigtails) - its no big deal ythis is a WIP. I like the 28, it is a Great way to learn the inner workings of a laptop as someone on here already stated

 

I have got bitten by the cheap ram before. I try to advoid it now. I purchased a 6 dollar shipped 128 mb stick for my mk2 cf-28 to see if it would work. I was fixing up some CF-28 to sell friends for there kids. It worked and for 6 bucks it was a small boost but worked. Well I ordered 4 more chips. None of them would work. I tried them all in several machines mk2, mk3 no go. I called them and they would take them back, but I never did. Talking to them on the phone it said it happens sometimes in batches. Well about 8 months later I got two T22 thinkpads and needed ram. Gave them a try and it worked in them. It's best to stick to the name brand ram.

 

fingers crossed here... if it does work I'll post the results. Anybody know where I can find replacement screws for the cf-28. the guy that had this one stripped about every screw on the unit. it looks like a 2year old got ahold of a worn out screwdriver & went to town Plus a couple screws have the heads broken off. I'll find some way to get them out, but dont want to strip the machine down to bare bonestill I have thr propper screws to replace them with..... basicly, it looks like I need the 4 screws across the front above the keyboard on the back 4 screws larger screw on the bottom & maybe a power cover + new port

 

If you can get the bezel clear, grab the screw with a pair of good quality end nippers.
Hold it there! NOW while gripping the screw (not cutting it) push down hard while turning. I've removed several that way. The secret is to push down to relieve the "crush" and it should also free up the lock-tite a little.
Warming the screw with a soldering iron wouldn't hurt either. Not quite warm enough to scald a hog. That is if you can touch the screw three times in rapid succession it's not too hot. If you raise blisters that would be too hot.
On to the screws with heads. A needle file and patience will allow you to cut a slot.

Hot enough to scald a hog: Heat your water in an cast iron bath tub. Dip your finger in the water three times. If your finger doesn't want to go in there the third time the temperature is correct.
Which reminds me: ( TEST site:forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic - Google Search Azrial's search engine. Replace TEST with your search subject. I drag and drop this on my toolbar.

What kind of wireless antenna are you using?

Jeff an oblique allusion not a subtle innuendo Bill (Azrial)

 

Nippers, never would have thought of that Great Idea - was gonna look into a small easyout bit if they make em that small... Thanks The card I picked up is eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

 

systemofadown,

Make a list of all the cf-28 parts you need, and send it to me. I have a bunch of those parts and for the most part, you can have them for the cost of shipping. I also have the flag wifi antennas shown your last post, so if you need one of those, let me know.

I also have a bunch of cf-28 RAM, that came out of surplus 28, so tell me what your looking for and I'll check. I do however I dont have any 512 144 pin simms, just 128 and 256.

Good luck with your re-build.

Sam

 

Huge Thanks orphanlr That would help out greatly - I'll shoot you a pm Sir.

 

Interesting thing happend this morning. I pulled a wifi card & pig tails from an older parts laptop (nc6000) I had. pluged it into the cf-28 - ran the tails out of the case & got a signal but it wont connect. would that be because its an older wifi card (b ?) I think from 2005. ETA Yep just need the g card - Things are going nicely so far This Forum is a wealth of info.......