CF-51 Does Not Boot - Service Manual - Cleaning?

CF-51F4ECBM The system is in excellent shape and is complete with a
good battery and wiped harddrive.

I have a CF51 that will not boot reliably to the CMOS setup, the green power
light comes on, the others flash, and I can hear a motor running very quietly
but that is it. It has on occasion made it to the CMOS but that was one in
about 20 tries so it seems to be intermittent. I think it is temperature dependent
since it had been in the cold car when it did make it to the CMOS menu.

I want to clean it anyway so I thought I'd open it and clean out the dust and
have a look for loose connectors or whatever. Is the repair manual available?
I could only find a link to the CF52 searching on here is that close enough
for basic disassembly? I'm thinking that it is probably the motherboard
since not much else is needed to get to CMOS but I'd like to follow the
Panasonic debug procedure if possible. I'm looking for the cleaning procedure
if it is available online, or a good source for the service manual if it is not
available online.

This must have been a DOD system since there is a label on the Toshiba
hard drive stating that it has been wiped/destroyed to DOD standards.

Thanks!, Pete

 

Welcome to the Toughbook Forum
All big company's have this done when they sell there old computers. Since you need at least 5 posts to send PM's go here and ask the seller a question nickscards | eBay . Send me your email and when I get out of work in 12 hours I will send it...not really a good idea to post it here in the open forum unless you like spam

 

Thanks, I sent my email through ebay. I'm going to make a few more posts
to try to get past the 5 limit.

 

I really like this system so I don't mind changing the motherboard if I have to.

 

I just noticed that you have a letter missing in your model number...there should be 7 letters / number. I will need your full model number before I send it. It's a guess but I think you have a MK2

 

Yes is should have been: CF-51JF4ECBM
Thanks again!

 

Just looked up the model number and it is coming up as a Pentium M, with a 1024 X 768
display. It was advertised as a 2GHz Core Duo which made me think it had to be a
1600 X 1200 display. I hope I am surprised to find that the ad was accurate when it finally
powers up. Worst case I'll use this as a parts unit for another Core Duo purchase, will
the motherboards swap between the two?

 

Just sent it. Let me know if you got it.

 

Thanks, yes I got it 22 pages. I notice that it says simplified underneath the title, is there
a more complete version available?
I wonder if the MK1 manual is the full one, and this is just more specific to the MK2?

 

nope. that is the best they have. It's more or less just shows you all the part numbers. This one is one of the better ones that I have.

 

Well you may have to go look at the CPU to double check what you have, hate to see you get the wrong unit. The Mk3 core duo model with ATI graphics is a very good unit.

 

I will do that, and at least it was stated in the ad that it did not boot even
into the CMOS setup so I thought it needed a MB anyway and it was
reasonably priced. Perhaps the MB was already replaced, don't know
until I get it open.

I'm fairly sure that I don't need the ATI graphics so I think a 1.66G system
would be a MK3LL and should do as a system to donate a motherboard.
I'm thinking of a T7200 processor anyway for better CPU speed. I mainly
going to use it for business apps, some simulation, and some audio work
with simple 2D graphics. I want maximum battery life and as quiet operation
as possible so I think the built in graphics is the way to go.

 

I removed one of the RAM sticks and it now boots to CMOS, and one stick
seems to have failed. That was easy.
It is a Pentium M 2.0, will a MK3 motherboard go into this chassis without
changing a lot of other parts - the cooling system in particular?

 

I used an XP Home installation disk and got to the format menu and it showed C:
and D: partitions of about 40 and 20 GB. When it boots it says missing command.com
or something like that. Now the drive said DOD wiped/destroyed with a mention
of degausing that I think should leave the drive needing to be reformatted. I wonder if
the D: is the restore partition which would be nice since it is XP Pro with all the
right drivers. I'll try to see if I can get to the restore menu before completely reformatting
the drive.

 

The Mk3 frame work is a little different, has SD card slot and few other minor differences, I am not sure if you can get it in there are not. Now on what you have. It will max out at 2 GB ram, Has ATI X300 video card and Pentium M 2.0. That is the 3rd best cpu in the Pentium M line, The other two are 2.1 and 2.2, they put put a lot more heat than the 2.0 and didn't really improve performace on that CPU line. The 2.0 is the work horse. That is a good set up. I would try it out before thinking of scraping it out. The ATI GPU will take strain off of the CPU for better performance. On your install I would delete both partitions and redo the install. All of the toughbooks had pro version on them so you would need a home Coa. PM me and I will tell you where to get one legal cheap. It's how I get my Coa for the units I work with that the Coa has been stripped off.

 

Thanks for the tips. I found an old Dell XP Pro restore disk that worked just fine but it is
SP2, lol, so I had 72 updates, then SP3 then another 80 or so updates. I used the key
from the COA on the back. I had a bit of a hard time getting WIN updates to work since
it installed IE6, hand to install IE8 manually,
and also the ethernet driver manually then the updates worked. I've got 5 devices under
other with yellow question marks due to driver issues and am having a bit of a problem
finding the drivers. Needed are Multimedia Audio, PCI Modem, Smart CArd, Unknown,
and Video. Cannot find ATI X300 driver since AMD took over ATI, I'll keep looking under
Panasonic.

It does have the 1600X1200 display and I have to say it is about the best laptop display
I've ever seen - nice! I don't like widescreen since they are not good for reading documents
or plotting charts. I don't often watch high def video.
Battery is good showing 2.9 hrs.

Oh, also, I pulled the drive before starting all this and put it in an external enclosure to
have a look. The wipe was done in 2006 and the C: drive had an XP install from early
2012, it was all there except for one of the System folders, the one with the registry so
it needed a full reload and I deleted the partitions.

 

Usually the first thing I do is install Firefox, I gave up on IE during the windows 95 era.

If you can't find a driver on the USA Panasonic site also check out the Japan and Canada sites. They usually have what you need. Also check out these links below.


The Driver List of Official Support Download Center | TOUGHBOOK | TOUGHPAD | Panasonic Global Notebook PC

Toughbook Drivers

Panasonic Toughbook Computer Support Downloads


Also look up "omega drivers"

The best high performance drivers you can get. I use them a lot.
ATI Omega Drivers

The Toughbooks with the ATI cards on the Business class machines have the higher resolution screen, if you were dealing with 73 model with ATI card it would just be standard resolution.

 

Thanks! Got the rest of them from the first link.