My buddy's CF-29mk2

Hi all,
On behalf of a buddy, I bought Ludedude's CF-29EWPGZKM that was listed in NBR's BSTF.

Upon tearing up the packaging, like a child on Christmas night, he was impressed by the excellent condition and built quality. A far cry from the beat-up CF-27 500mhz he's been toying with. In 3 words... he loved it.

The installed Intel 2200BG mini-PCI was left intact but RAM was further upgraded. He took some pics while at my home last Saturday...





The 29 worked beautifully right out of the box and the only issue we had was turning 'ON' the Intel wifi radio via ProSet utility, which sent us into a cycle of BSODs. It was only after disabling it within safe mode, were we able to boot back to WinXP.

Three restore CDs were included and we wanted to see if the same problem will be replicated during system restore. I have an extra caddy with new HDD and since we were both game to experience the entire process, why not try?

During the process, I opted to create a secondary partition and the restore went surprisingly well but again, the same issues with Intel 2200BG wifi going BSOD once 'ON'. IIRC, the 29 was restored to XP SP1 and online updates did not resolve the issue.

In separate PMs, Alex tipped me to download the latest Intel drivers, forgo the ProSet utility and use XP's instead. I've informed my buddy and we'll see how that goes.

Adam, I just wanted to thank you for the good correspondence and a smooth transaction, making my friend a very happy camper. I'm green with envy and although all I have now is only a 29's HDD caddy, I shall patiently wait for my turn [at least till funding eases up].

Best regards,
Ron in SG

 

Excellent! Funny you post this as I was just about to send you an email asking if you received it or not!

I'm glad it got there in one piece! I was nervous when I opened the thread but was relieved after reading it! Thanks again Ron!

 

*cough* can we say kickback *cough* hehehehe j/k I'm very happy to see you are pleased and have been treated well (except from me) LOL

 

Adam,
I'm sure there were in fact 3 very nervous toughbookers...
One, for sending it in a flat rate cardboard box (but heck, these aren't Dells! )
Two, for not knowing exactly what surprises to expect [after being shortchanged on the 27].
and three, the one being skewered in the middle... that's me!

If not for the fact that my buddy is using a D-LINK DWA-142 (Draft-N) Wireless USB2.0 Adapter (I think), I would try convincing him to go for the Engenius 600mw card. That'd be sweet.

Anyway, apologies for the late update. I've been kept busy housebreaking a dumbaśś, uber-active 2year old Jack Russell terrier. It's messin' up the place and the darn mutt broke the glass dome off my Gustav Becker 400-day ticker!

Kickback? Definitely and hopefully, I need not wait too long for Adam's good news <VBG>. Treated well? Don't recall ever been mistreated by the nice folks here? Heh, then again, my memory is not what they used to be.

Regards,
Ron in SG

 

Ron, Just install the driver and wireless switch for the wireless card and its gonna be fine. I never use the intelproset wireless utility and it much better when windows control the system. As this is based on experienced and the other thing is it consume almost 80mb of your harddrive when you used that utility.

teo

 

Ron

A technical question if you don’t mind

What’s holding the table together on the first picture?
I’m thinking telephone wire, but I can’t tell for sure

Btw… Your friend got a great laptop at a great price
Now its up to you to tell him, that he is not finished yet
It's a Toughbook you know
Now its time to start the mods
First should be a dvd multi drive


Alex

 

I'm pretty sure its a black zip tie.

I'm typing this on one of Lude's machines- its great!

 

Alex, that's a very abused rubber-wood stool (neat little saw stand) and I've not gotten round to fixing it. Temporarily held together with zip / cable ties until I get new dowels.

Upgrades are in the pipeline...
About that DVD multi drive, I've been looking at the UJ-850 like this one. Some are labeled for Toshiba, HP, etc. Does that matter and will I require further work for it to fit the CD caddy? Think some soldering might be needed to modify the master/slave configuration. I'll leave that to my buddy since he has better eyes.

Moxie, good to know yours got in ok. Are you connecting to the internet wirelessly via the Intel card and have you experienced any of those BSODs I mentioned previously?

Regards,
Ron in SG

 

yup, I'm using the oem Intel card, no bsod, I hope saying that does not jinx it.

I do believe I will follow Ohlips advice, I don't like the inte lproset wireless utility.

Cheers, Tim in Peoples Republic of Arcata

 

I am also planning to install a engenious 600mw card,found it for $37 at http://www.flytec-usa.com/detpro.cfm?wid=35421 , I'll be interested to see which cd/dvd you end up doing.

Tim

 

An update...
The mods start
Ron has a UJ-850 dvd recorder on order



Alex

 

Not so fast, Alex. The unit coming in is to replace a cranky one in my 28S but I have a feeling that soldering will be required. I'll have my buddy help out since I don't see well without my loupes and also because I'm electronic-handicapped. That way, he'll know what to do when he decides to upgrade his.

Still looking out for one more to upgrade the other caddy <vbg>

 

One more?
Ron, you must think its easy for me to find you a good drive for only $35 lol



What model drive do you have (the cranky one)



Alex

 

Alex,
I don't have the exact specs but both are CF-VDR281 (DVD-ROM & CD-R/RW). When I can find replacements, I'll upgrade. Nope, the good stuffs are never easy to come by and even harder to have sellers willing to ship overseas. Thanks for watching my back!

Tim,
Any chance of piggy-backing on your Engenious order? I cannot remit via Bank-funded Paypal (simply because I don't have US bank accounts) but I'm good for Card-funded. PM me if we can arrange something. Thanks!

Regards,
Ron in SG

 

Toughnut.... By the way... A black Sharpie marker will help tone down the dock marks on the front of your laptop where the paint it scraped away... In some cases it will make them disappear! Try it out. (Below the handle)

 

Rick, what's a Sharpie? Permanent-ink marker? If so, it's already done Thanks for your thoughts.

Regards,
Ron in SG

 

How many do you want?, I submitted an order last night but they have not processed it due to our MLK holiday. I probably can change the order.

Tim

 

Tim,
PM sent... if it isn't too late already.
Ron

 

You got it!

 

Dear all,
I fiddled with the 29 again yesterday evening and have gotten the Intel 2200BG card to work.

IIRC, the sequence went something like...
1. Download and unzip Intel drivers.
2. In Device Manager, disabled two items relating to Intel WIFI.
3. In Control Panel, Add/Remove program to delete the Intel PRO utility.
4. Back to Device Manager, in properties of Intel card, to update driver (but windoze will prompt whether to enable the device)
5. Enabled card and repeated driver update.
6. Rebooted. Optional, but old habits die hard.
7. In Network Connections, properties of connection, to check box that allows windoze to configure settings.
8. Wala!! Did an AP scan and detected my Engenius N-router. Entered the WPA2 key but couldn't get in... hmm....
9. Edited the router's MAC filter and BAM, we were good to go!

My friend can now access his home's AP and can safely swap/fiddle with XP restored to my other caddy (which still has BSODs).

Something I couldn't figure out though. The Intel wifi was to part of Centrino® marketing, so Windoze & Intel ought to have seamless component integration (not go into a cycle of BSODs when the radio is enabled!). Any thoughts to this?

Also, I'm curious whether those who've gotten 29s from Adam, are experiencing something similar or it worked right out of the box without further hair loss.

BTW, I've encouraged my buddy to hop onboard this forum to learn more about his 29. He's been digging into the archive and still conscious of his command of the English language but I assured him that the regulars will go easy.

Cheers!!
Ron in SG

 

I bought two and they worked right out of the box... But I only turned them on for testing reasons as I always swap out the hard drive anyway and reload with Recovery Disks.

Are you SURE you got the Panasonic version (If there is one)? I had a similar issue with a WLAN driver/software. I had to make sure I got the corect driver!