Re: ThinkPad 360PE

["Paul Khoury" <pkhoury@loop.com>]

On Mon, 15 Dec 1997 22:02:45 -0600, Mike Welch wrote:

>I just received my 360PE in the mail today!!  Yipee!!
>
>Now.  Anybody out there have one of these?  I don't know what some of
>the function keys are for as I don't have the documentation.
>

I remember quite a bit about my 355C, including EVERYTHING
inside, so ask away!

>Also, could somebody tell me how to enter the CMOS setup?  Tried
>Ctrl+Alt+S, which works on Phoenix and/or some flavors of Award BIOS. 
>Tried F10 which works on Compaqs and I seem to recall some PS/2s, but
>nothing happened.
>
F1 when you boot.

>For those who might be interested, I took it all apart (down to the
>point that there wasn't a THING in the case) and thought I'd share what
>I found.  I was hoping the DX2/66 CPU would be socketed so I could put
>an AMD 5x86 in it but no such luck.
>
That should be correct.  I don't know of many notebooks with socketed
CPUs, except maybe the 755 and the Kiwis.

>Here's what I didn't know and what I couldn't find on IBM's web page or
>from anybody on the web:
>
>1.  As stated, the CPU is surface mounted.  I know that there IS an
>upgrade module for it (for $300!  yowee!).  Anybody have any experience
>with these upgrade modules?  Does somebody actually resoulder a 5x86 CPU
>on the motherboard, or what?
>
Good luck.  The clock speed is probably fixed, and it may not
support it anyways.

>2.  The hard disk, floppy disk and battery are all accessible by lifting
>the keyboard at the front of the unit.  Hard disk pulls straight out.  I
>was worried that it was proprietary (meaning an expensive HD upgrade)
>but it turns out that IBM just used a proprietary cabinet and inside is
>a standard 2.5 " laptop hard disk.  Cool.
>
Yup.  I use a 340MB HD that someone sold me.  It just came out of a 755,
and works great.  In fact, I have it on right next to me, since that machine has no case.

>3.  This thing has the 8MB memory upgrade card and it's for the 700
>series notebooks, so it looks like memory is interchangable between the
>two.
>
Well, the memory comes in a PCMCIA-like form factort, but I have no idea
if it's compatible or not.

>4.  If you ever want to see the CPU in your 360PE have fun.  It's about
>as burried in the system as it could possibly be.
>
Yeah, it's on the bottom, from the top, the left hand upper corner, then you
turn it over, and it's there.  There are a lot of screws to go through though, but
thank goodness it's not as bad as the 701.  UGH!

>5.  Components:  The following systems are simple, removable components,
>meaning if you had to replace it you could do it yourself (and it
>wouldn't require a new motherboard):  PCMCIA units, floppy, hard disk,
>battery, CMOS battery (and some other kind of cmos battery, perhaps for
>the standby stuff?),

Yup.

 AC --> DC converter unit, and sound unit. 

Your's came with the sound card in it?  Mine had that option, but came factory
installed with a crappy 2400bps modem.  It was a weird modem, though.

>Everything else is on the system board.
>
>Well, that's everything I learned.  Hopefully someone will benefit from
>me typing all of this...and maybe I'll get a couple answers too :)
>
One question, though - do you have the original preload?

Later,

Paul