Got my first cf-29 today :)

So I got my cf-29 today on a last minute impulse buy from ebay. 83 and it came with absolutely nothing. I realize I could've done better but for now whatever. So I bought a power adapter the same day I bought my laptop. I didn't want to buy anything else until I got it and knew it worked and didnt have a hundred dead pixels. Well today I fired it up and now Im hooked. Its in GREAT shape (prob in a police car.)

While I was waiting for it to come in, the hard drive caddy for 70 I had my eye on ended up no longer being for sale! So to risk it again, I pulled the trigger on a OE Panasonic caddy. Someone should step up to the plate and start making these things here.

Along with that I grabbed a DVDRW (looks like someone took a CDRW and upgraded the guts. Says guaranteed to work,) a battery (not 7.6 because I'm not going to use this long periods of time not plugged in,) a caddy and a 44 pin to sata adapter. Do we have a link to pcmcia cards that'll work with the door closed?

 

Welcome!
I too have a CF-29, love it.
The experts will soon post to your questions.
Welcome to a great forum.

 

Welcome to the world of Toughbooks! I'm new also but you will want to read, read, read starting with the Faq's:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/214029-official-panasonic-cf-29-toughbook-thread.html
There is a ton of information on this site in the "sticky" area. Once you post your entire Model # cf-29XXXXXXXX and look up what Mark # you have, you will be closer to loading an operating system onto. My cf-29 came working, but soon had hard drive problems. The hard way is load XP and then find all the drivers you will need. The Easy Way is to:
there are two easy ways,
1-load a Linux OS -this will find all your hardware-it just works (I like Joli 1.2) there are many other's such as Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (long term support) as recommended by "Sadlmkr", he has many posts work reading, you can read through the threads and be soon overloaded with information.
2.get a device specific restore disk for your model #. This will allow you to load the exact image of the Panasonic operating system your system came with. I've seen these for sale from $25-55 dollars. Post your system model # and ask around. This works great out of the box also. Soon you will probably have many extra parts and pieces you never knew you could live without...enjoy

 

Its a CF-29ETPGZKM

 

Here's what she came with:
Model Number:
CF-29ETPGZKM MK 2
Status ISCONTINUED
MSRP:$4,744
Description: Pentium M 1.3G LV (Centrino), 13.3Transmissive Touch XGA, 512MB,60GB,WLAN802.11b+g, WinXP

 

Be careful....getting a toughbook is like smoking crack. you won't be able to stop doing more until there is an intervention.
You're 29's specs should be
MK2, Pentium M 1.3G LV (Centrino), 13.3Transmissive Touch XGA, 512MB,60GB,WLAN802.11b+g, WinXP

cool!
READ READ READ READ. It sucks, but it really is the best way.

Find the OEM image disks, and save yourself alot of trouble. Check fleabay, or once you get your post count/rep up, you can check the BST forum.
That DVD reader/writer should be good to go.
The sata adapter can get you a slight increase in performance, but using sata is mostly for capacity increase. Large capacity pata drives are exceedingly more expensive than large capacity Sata drives.
And which PCMCIA cards/for what purpose? there are several bluetooth, wwan, usb, and a few others that will fit in there with the door closed.
I have a sierra wireless 860 in mine (gsm wwan) and a mogo mouse. I also have the customtoughbooks.com gps kit, and a usb bluetooth adapter.

Welcome to the forum, and to the addiction.

 

oh! check this out too.

 

Jesus christ 4744 dollars! I don't think Ive spent that much on a car!

I think a pcmcia card that does more usb is most important due to the amount of service work I do requiring a USB ports. Although having a floppy in the mp slot will help not having to use the usb floppy drive. (Do a lot of work on Windows NT systems.)

One thing I do want to look into is GPS unit. I probably shouldve went with a 7.6 ah battery if I planned on using gps tho.

The reason why I got the sata adapter is I have a hybrid SSD hard drive laying around I want to use. Now can't I use win xp and panasonic's website to get all the drivers I need or is a restore disk more appropriate.

 

The restore disk is more appropriate. I fought a sound problem one time for four months...used a restore disk and bingo all was well.

I have had ten (now two) of your exact unit. The bummer is the one USB of the Mark 2 (also Mark 1).
For now use a USB GPS. The huge amount of info on GPS has to do with the mind-set of a lot of us where we want everything internal. It's CF-29...power supply and good to go. Nothing sticking out, weatherproof etc. For a new guy that can come later.
For now get your restore disks. Then upgrade to SP-2 and SP-3.
You will have a lot of questions...the information is already here somewhere so use this: TEST site:forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic - Google Search
Replace TEST with your question. Drag this link to your tool bar. You'll be needing it.
I or someone else has given this advise to several hundred new users. We hope it helps.
Welcome to the forum.

Saddlemaker

 

Your battery should be ok, the gps units don't suck down that much power (lcd brightness and all your radios will drain more power more quickly than a gps engine).

There are 4 main options for gps:customtoughbooks.com, diy aftermarket, oem, or external (usb/bluetooth).
I have the customtoughbooks solution and love it (also gives you another internal usb port (I used for bluetooth dongle)). others hate it and opt for DIY (buy the engine, antenna, ffc, and do some soldering; you can still get another usb port), or the super easy external usb puck (goes against the toughbook philosophy, IMHO).

No, the OEM disks are not necessary, but if you use a regular xp disk, then you will need to ensure you install the correct drivers, and in the correct order, or stuff won't work. I guess xp would be better than linux, if you work on NT mostly.....but Ubuntu does run nicely on these units, too.

Now, go read.
and good luck.

 

I sincerely appreciate all the heads up and I lurked this site A LOT while waiting for my tb to be shipped. Now I will have a lot more to read. I may give ubuntu a whirl before installing xp. With the hybrid hd, its really fast to do anything. I feel the hd is faster than my gaming rig (I built) with a wd raptor drive.

 

Start with Ubuntu 10.04. You may need to tweak the grub loader the first time around. = black screen. Fixable and then once your updates are done you should have no more trouble. It's an intel problem.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/6422641-post1.html

Sadlmkr linux nut

 

*excited with his new potential recruit*
Jeff.....Jeez man!!!! Turn down the twinkle in your eyes....it's blinding me all the way over in Va....

 

So I noticed I can download all the drivers on Panasonics website. Am I correct? Why would I need a recovery cd?

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

And I shouldn't have a problem with the grub loader because I already have a boot sector on the hd Im using.

 

One of the issues Sk8 is that even if you have the correct drivers for your machine, they still need to be installed in a particular order or all of your devices may not work. It seems these toughbooks (all models really) are very finicky about the driver install order. Some devices are dependent upon previous drivers in order to install correctly. Now many of us have done it the long way, and to much success. BUT, we all have also spent countless days pulling our hair out trying to get the correct order. Some of the Panasonic driver pages also include a doc file that will tell you the order to install, some don't. So it really comes down to how much do you want to gamble that you can install all your drivers correctly, and in order. We do not make any money from those restore CD's, but we do get tired of trying to help others figure it out on their own and find ourselves spending FAR too much time repeating ourselves rather than using that time to help troubleshoot a new problem or discovering new and exciting MOD's for our systems. We absolutely LOVE to help each other out, so it's not that. It's just a matter of us having to prioritize where our time is best spent, hence the many paged stickies we ask all to spend time to read. On a side though, if you run into any problems using a restore disk, or locating a restore disk, or even opening or installing drivers manually that is not discussed in our stickies, we would LOVE to help you out. Enjoy your new laptop and keep us posted on your success!!

 

Spot on, Doobi!

it's not impossible, just very difficult if you're not experienced with the process, of which, I am not. I just know that there is an order to install the drivers, or they don't work.

Go do an advanced search. I find it quite helpful to limit the search query to "title only" if there are too many results to sift through.
Also, it is sometimes helpful to "show posts" instead of "show threads", that way you can see a bit of what content the results have.
And various combinations of both.

good luck!

 

I will get my 1st CF-29 MK3 thursday. Awaiting it, and hoping that it will marvel me with wonders. Currently having 3 CF-28s;' mK1,mk2, and mk3.

yeah. two days waiting. Will post news when it arrives.... hehe.

 

Hey Paul! Where the hey ho have you been????

Seems as though I haven't seen you in a while?

 

So everything came in except for my hard drive caddy. Its killing me - its the one thing I needed most! So right now I am actually posting this from the Ubuntu boot CD. I can't believe it found every driver automatically. Linux rocks, I just don't think I can run my work utilities from it even with WINE.

 

When I got my first 29 I spent the weekend bonding with it loading all the drivers many times .Everyone said get the restore disk and I blew them all off . When I bought my second one I got the disk with it and I can tell you its the only way to go . In about 35 minutes I was surfing notebookreview. Now all my toughbooks have them. You will see...sooner or later

 

Don't say that too loudly ... Jeff will think you are a convert and start babbling Linux-speak all over the place

What version of Linux did you use?

 

I'll be honest, if it weren't for M$ Streets and Trips and Iguidance, I think I'd be ok with linux.
Last year, I looked. no really good GPS progs for linux IMO...
That, and all the stupid USB toys my kid gets require windoz.

OH, I also couldn't run Norton, CCleaner, Malwarebytes, Glary's, Puriform Defraggler.....MS hotfix's, or Internet Exploder....

 

Check into WINE you can run a lot of windows programs with it.

 

Eh....I dual boot ubuntu on my desktop. I run Acad in wine...but I'm too much of a "purist" or OCD????? I think if I'm gonna run Linux, then I should run Linux, not a bass turd love child of Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds....IMHO. Nothing wrong with it, it's just not native to my though process.

That, and the last time I looked into it, running MS S&T under wine was messy. It may have gotten better. since then (1+ years ago).

I'm about to install a 250gb bev with adapter and redo my install of xp. I'm looking at another hdd caddy, so I can swap them out and play without worry.

 

Whats the advantage of dual-boot aside from being able to switch between the two OS?? Is is application based?? E.g. certain APPs working better in non-Windows based systems?

 

it's a matter of personal preference;
security, stability, what programs will run and what they do, etc....

 

“WINE doesn’t make you fat, It makes you lean…. Against bars, tables, chairs, and poles.”

 

For me it give me a choice for different programs. I use the hell out of it for just web browsing when I am on the rig.

 

Which is pin 1 on the notebook hd connector?

 

that's kinda random. why do you ask?
it should be labeled?

But if you hold the HDD upside down
with the power pins on the left side
then the top left pin of the main header row is pin 1.
Most hdd's have it labeled.

Match the HDD to the FFC, from there trace it to the other end, and match it up to the mobo side.

Good luck!

 

Nah I need it on the 44 pin connector. It isnt marked. It doesn't seem like this is genuine panasonic after all...

 

Can someone help me out if pin one on the jae to ide cable is on the hd heater side or the non heater header side.

 

@Rob.. I've been here. Work has just had me slammed crazy lately so just really haven't had ime to post. I KNOW you know what that is like.