New to the CF-30, have a cpl Questions

Hi guys, just found this forum and its been great reading all the threads.

Here is the ebay link for the CF-30 I got

</title><meta name="description" content="Panasonic ToughBook CF-30 C2D L7500 1.6Ghz 2GB TOUCH in Computers Networking , PC Laptops Netbooks |eBay"><meta name="keywords" content="Panasonic ToughBook CF-30 C2D L7500 1.6Ghz 2GB TOUCH, Computers Network

Now I been trying to figure out the gps, I went into the device manager and cant see it in there. Do I need to install the driver still? It did get its hard drive upgraded to 1Tb, so maybe not all the drivers got installed.

Other question is about the phone/data part of it. Do I just insert my sim card into the computer and go? Or is there some sort of phone/data software I need to install? I live in Canada if this makes a diffrence.

Thanks,

Greg.

 

GPS is listed as a com port, most likely com3
Make sure its enabled in the bios
Hit F2 while booting
Advanced tab
Serial and Parallel port settings
Set GPS to Enable

 

Hey, thanks. You were right. It was disabled. But now I have another problem. When I enabled it, when windows rebooted, the mouse courser was jumping around like crazy. couldn't control it with the track pad.

Any one know the reason for this?

 

Yes
Read the sticky on the top of the forum with the driver links
Go to Panasonic downloads and download the gps registry fix driver for your model and O/S

 

gsotis,
I purchased the exact same ToughBook. It is a great computer, but be advised, the O>S> is loaded with a "Dell" oem version of Win XP & not all the drivers have been installed.
Go to the Pany web site and get all the drivers for that model along with the "installation instructions". Uninstall each driver then install the new one, in the order listed in the instructions. some of the drivers are there but not exicuted.
In short order I will be reloading mine with Win7.
Happy computing, You will have the "I can't have just one" in short order.
Rick

 

Looks like we are in the same club here
I also bought one from the same seller a few days ago: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/120790088354

Thanks for the early experiences you have shared here. Looking forward to getting mine in the mail in a couple of days.

 

Alex , if they used the restore disk would this also fix this problem ?

 

I'am not Alex, but it has been difficult to find a restore disk for this CF-30 Mk2 with GPS, WWAN & BT.
Also, I'am moving mine to Win7

Rick

 

Thanks Alex, that fix worked perfectly.

Rick, thanks for the heads up with the drivers. Probably just saved me a lot of headaches down the road.

Is win7 that much better then XP? I have never used it before. Also would it slow down the comp much?

 

This guy has a LOT of these laptops... I just bought 40 from him

 

Do you know if his PC's normally are correct described on ebay and that he has a good reputation??

 

HE's VERY GOOD! Most that I had issues with would be missing power and USB rubbers (typical of course)... Other than that, no, no problems.

 

GOOD!
I have bought a TB CF-30 from him the other day and having it sendt to Norway just now. Difficult to claim any warranty or file complaints, so your comment just made me relax a bit. Hopefully this is as described in the AD...

 

Well mine is a MK1 and Windows 7 runs fast on mine.

 

GSOTIS,
I don't have any first hand experience with Win 7 on panasonics, but others on this forum have had this experience. Plus I like the Vista/Win 7 look and feel better than XP.
Just a note, These CF_30 Mk2's are reported to run faster under Win 7 with 4Gb of ram. Faster even than the Mk3's.
I have 2 CF-29H's & 2 CF-30F's (for some reason I can't get them & others to show up in my SIG).
The plan is to switch over to Win 7 on one of the 29's and both of the 30's.
Also the seller of these units sent them with an IBM case thet has enough room and padding to lug around 2 fully rugged CF's.

Rick

 

I was away during the summer, and must have missed the posts on the mk3 running faster than the mk2

Frankly I don't beleve these claims

Anyways on W7 on the cf-30
The cf-30's were all designed to run Vista
W7 is similar to Vista in resources required and you should not notice a difference between xp and W7 , if running at least 2GB of ram
BTW if a ssd upgrade is ever planned down the road , xp is a very poor choice as you really have to tweak xp to use a ssd

 

Alex,
there was a post I think last week from a poster saying that the Mk2's were faster under Win 7 than the Mk3"s (untested). I myself don't think that the differance between the two would be that great. As for the SSD's, $400.00 for 250Gb's is a bit much. But I'am considering the Intel 320"s or the the Seagate Hybrid's
All in all, I've got all the drivers and the OS, just need the time to get it all done.

Rick

 

Me too. I think it has to do with hdd utility setup thats why it may think mk2 is faster than MK3. I do have MK3 carcasses on the lower case without its LCD panel. I use external one if i want to and it run beautifully faster than MK2 that I sold a month ago.


ohlip

 

@rick 10p
Toyo is our expert on these, hopefully he will see this
The performance difference going up in mk's would be small anyway, maybe 10% to 20% in processer for each step up, and since none of us run our processers maxed out, you would not be able to tell the difference, unless using a benckmark program

My software that I use for blu-ray playback on my mk2 hits 75% by the way ,and its a resource hog

As to the question of hard drive size, well thats a decision each of us has to make
I don't trust hard drives ,I backup to dvd all the time so 80GB works for me

I use an external 250GB hard drive as well


@ohlip

Teo , why are you short the lcd? was it broken when you purchased it?

 

Toyo was the one that said this a few weeks ago...will see if I can find it

 

Here is his post

http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/608146-i-just-dont-get.html

 

OK, there is some errors in his post that I can see
Toyo has never owned a cf-30 mk1 , he has a cf30mk2 and 3, and he states in the post that the poor performance is on his cf-31
BTW in the W7 status thread he has stated that his mk2 and mk3 cf-30 run perfect

Anyway without compairing the same hardware in each model and running benchmarks, its hard to tell whats up
And he was one of the guys that like 64bit systems, I wonder if his W7 load in the cf-31 is 64bit

I bet that he has had the cf30's for long enough to tweak them to perfection , and that in time the cf-31 will be running fine

 

Alex,
I will clear those past statements up a little, kinda make hem more current

In regards to the MK3 running perfect; I was referring to the drivers and all the FN keys. I believe I made that post in the thread you started about getting all the drivers working on certain models. The only thing I cannot seem to work is when I update the video driver to a current Intel version is the screen brightness control. Support sent me a email explaining that it should work with no problems and that in fact we should be using the latest video drivers. This is a known documented fact from all. However, I still can't seem to get it to work.

My 30MK2 without a doubt runs better than my MK3. I can run all kinds of tests that confirms this. It is much snappier, runs cooler, better battery life, etc. I have interchanged the SSD's, memory, etc with no change in the performance. I feel it is the BIOS that makes the difference. It might simply be my MK3 that is "defective" for all I know.

I am not running 64 BIT in any of my 30's. I gave up on that headache

Thanks for pointing this info out.

 

OK I believe you now, your cf-30 mk-2 runs better than your cf-30 mk-3


I still think you messed up something in the w7 software loads and if both were factory stock with either xp or vista that your mk-3 is faster

 

You know me Alex, I more than likely did

Maybe one day I will put the OEM Vista disk in it and see how it runs. It's been so long I can't remember.

 

Toyo, there is a CF-30 MK3 Windows 7 restore DVD out there.

 

And me makes four. We should start a club. Mine has to make it from Canada to Holland, so I'll probably have to wait a bit longer.