Few questions about my CF-29 HELP!

Ok so I finally found the Toughbook I always wanted and read thru about 60 pages of threads realizing this IS the place to ask questions about TB's.

What I bought is a CF-29 1.6, 80GHD, 1.5G ram, DVD, Verizon WWAN, SD, Touchscreen, and rubber backlit kb.

First question is I am not so crazy about the keyboard and was wondering are the chicklet backlits EASY to the touch? I feel I need to pound on the keys to type correctly, and have many computers in my office/home and like a softer touch feel. Are the chicklet style water resistant as good as the rubber one I have now?

Second question is I have the Verizon WWAN built in and in the front left is a panel with a power button, antenna, bolt, and mail icons. What essentially do they do? Cant find any docs anywhere about the button or icons?
Here is a pic....



Third question is what is the hole above the keyboard? Am I missing a screw or something? Looks like water can enter or something?



Fourth question is the door on the right side which covers the pcmcia/sd cards closes nice and tight, but if you barely touch the latch she pops open! Every time I secure it and look at later its open! Its looks nice and flush when closed and the latch seems tight, but really wierd...Anyone else seen this before?



Fifth question is my mic seems NOT to be working, anyway to test/check?

I am a Verizon Authorized Retailer in NY for over 20 years so if anyone on this forum needs ANYTHING done as far as checking ESN's on WWANs, doing ESN changes, and ofcourse activating WWAN's feel free to email or PM me anytime and I will help you out....I can service the entire USA and can also get you discounts on activating Aircards/WWAN's built in/Mifi's ECT...Just ask!



Thanks again for taking the time to hopefully help me out and I look forward to returning the favor!

I really appreciate you guys helping me out as this is my first TB, and I can guarantee will not be my last! I LOVE this thing, and I have had many laptops...

 

Hello, welcome! Don't forget to check out the links in my signature as well!

1) The emissive backlet keyboard is MUCH easier to type on... Yes, it IS sealed from water as well. The only thing that could cause problems is if sand or dirt get UNDER the keys and cause the keys to NOT be able to be pressed down (that's the only advantage of the rubber one is that it is sealed from dirt)

2) The power button for the WWAN surprisingly turns the WWAN on and off (Surprise eh?) lol. The bolt means that you have signal and the mail icon means that you have a voicemail (although I've NEVER seen it lit in my experiance)

3) That is a light sensor if you have a light sensing module for the screen which almost NO ONE has so don't worry about it. It IS sealed from water as well so no worries

4) I don’t know. Make sure that you push REALLY REALLY hard to shut it. If push comes to shove you can replace the whole PCMCIA door for about $40 + $25 shipping from Heartland Services Inc.

5) There is NO mic in this computer

 

Thanks! Do you have any chicklet keyboards left?

 

I do not. I only had the one and it sold in like 2 hours after listing it. I've had about 6 people PM me asking for them... I guess I should get some to sell lol...

 

Welcome to the Forum Jerry!

 

Thanks! Love my TB!

 

Is it Windows XP or the CF-29 that doesnt have the power properties....Like when I put the AC on the TB why wouldnt the screen goto full brightness? I thought Max Batt would DIM screen and vice versa for AC mode, no?

 

Should be 2 seperate power profiles, 1 for battery and 1 for A/C. It remembers the last setting for each profile.

Glen

 

Where is it? Only thing I see are the battery settings

 

Here is what I see.........

 

Jerry, this is NOT a windows thing... He's referring to the brightness setting on battery VS plugged in thats all.

For example, if you turn the bightness all the way down or half way down on battery then turn the brightness all the way up while plugged in then it will retain those settings when you unplug/replug it in the future.

 

Just tried that and you guys are right....Thanks!

 

Did I mention how much I love my TB?

 

You have the disease... before you know it all of your friends and family will be carrying them around and you will have so many parts you'll wonder what is wrong with you.

 

Whats even crazier is that I ordered some latches and springs from Heartland at 4:30pm and they will arrive tomorrow by 1:00pm! So sick that ALL parts are available...I mean even a tiny 68 cent spring for my latch

 

Thanks again guys for all the help......I just got my new chicklet kb installed (thanks again to Tomcat57 for KB and MB battery) and replaced the right side SD door latch (Heartland) and now I can type awesome and the dam door doesn't pop open by barely touching it...Huge improvements!

Only thing is why is this KB missing the icons under the F keys??? Now I have to memorize what they do...LOL...Still better than pounding on rubber keys for sure!

 

Looks as though you got a fully loaded laptop. The icons up front provide you with a COOL factor lol. Since your into upgrading i would suggest a new hdd. The samsung 160gb, which is the fastest & quietest ide hard drive. OR you could do the sata mod and get an ssd which i plan to do. Rubber keys ughhh maybe for deep sea divers, i am sure they could have used some other material.

 

I should mention the ssd mod would be ultimate. That would make your tb even tougher and if you care about it as much as you say, then you must lol. Topple that with win 7 and you will have a speed demon. Use nhc to control battery and processor speed as well.

 

I just sent you a PM on your keyboard problem

 

How much is a SSD drive vs. the Samsung 160 you mentioned? Whats involved in the mod?

While we are talking about modding, if I get the NEW gobi, just she just swap out for the current Sierra wwan I have installed and does it play nice with the bios and such?

 

I like the standard Samsung

Your MK-4 wwan card is propriety ( not a pci-e )
The Gobi only works with cf-30 mk-2 and newer ,thats info that I have from Panasonic

Is your wwan configured to your favorite service provider ?

Anyone here that has Gobi modded in their older Toughbook ,please speak up


Alex

 

What are the exact model #'s for the Harddrives you guys talk about? The Samsung and the SSD? Are the HD mods plug in to my caddy or do I need an electrial engineering degree to replace? Does anyone sell them "ready to slide in" my TB?

 

This is the Samsung drive: http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Samsung-HM1...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item563ab1dfeb

Search and you can probably find it cheaper.

I have installed several of these in CF-29's. Exact replacement for your drive. No extra parts needed.

The SSD option is any pata SSD or sata SSD with a pata-to-sata adapter. Much more expensive.

Glen

 

Do they have Samsungs that run 7200? I cant afford SSD, but what faster than 5400

 

Trust me this 5400rpm drive ,as it uses a high density single platter is fast

Read http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=264209


Alex

 

So I take out the existing drive from the caddy and slip this in? That easy? Anyway to "duplicate" my existing drive or do you have to re-install everything? Its taken me many nights finally getting my TB they way I want it.

 

Hi Jerry and welcome. I have upgraded my MK5 with help from the folks on the forum here. I read all your post in this thread and wanted to share my recent purchase with you. I did the hard drive swap in minutes thanks to the tutorial here on the forum with pics! below is the hyperlink to the hard drive Installed. I would not sweat the 5400rpm thing. I am on my machine an easy 12 hrs a day, all is well with the HD I put in. A 1gb memory stick will help too. link below>

Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVERTL 320GB 5400 RPM 2.5" ATA-6 Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Retail

 

Oh and Jerry, this retailer is well known and generally trusted to provide good customer service and quality parts "IMO". newegg is where I bought my parts above. http://www.newegg.com/

 

For cloning hard drives, especially if you just need to do it once or twice, I've found Clonezilla to be very nice. Supports CD or USB booting, fairly comprehensive FAQ. Thumbs up.

 

The only gripe I have with Clonezilla, Easeus, etc is that the destination partition must be equal or larger than the source one. Given that the program backs up only used blocks on the source HDD, that need not be a restriction. My preference is still Ghost 11.5 boot or via a live xp windoze CD.