Ancient laptop

[Bo Rosén]

Congrats. Your machine may be middle-aged, it's nowhere near ancient.

A bit like me then, so hopefully we'll be happy together.

[mips]

I'll definitely get more ram (once I sort out what I can use), 2 gigs of DDR 2 isn't going to break my finances.
I'm looking at these, but not sure it they are the right kind, they look to be too fast: http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.aspx?sku=312372#extra

And a wireless dongle.

No, you need DDR2 SODIMMS. What you have listed is normal PC ram.

Get a internal mPCI wireless adapter instead. The antenna wires are already installed inside the lcd housing.

If your CPU is using a 400MHz front side bus (FSB) it's actually very easy to overclock it to a 533MHz FSB which makes a significant improvement in performance with no extra heat if you reapply the heatsink with Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste.

If you need help I'm here so just ask, I've been down this road myself.

[Bo Rosén]

No, you need DDR2 SODIMMS. What you have listed is normal PC ram.

Thanks, I wasn't sure. I've found some that should work: CORSAIR 2GB (2X1024MB) SODIMM DDR2 PC5300 VS

Get a internal mPCI wireless adapter instead. The antenna wires are already installed inside the lcd housing.

Right. Something like this? INTEL CENTRINO ADVANCED-N 6200 - NÄTVERKSADAPTER - PCI EXPRESS HALF MINI CARD - 802.11B, 802.11A, 802.11G, 802.11N

If your CPU is using a 400MHz front side bus (FSB) it's actually very easy to overclock it to a 533MHz FSB

If you need help I'm here so just ask, I've been down this road myself.

I'll check. Thanks so much for all the good advice and the offer of more I really appreciate it.

[mips]

Post the output of,

sudo dmidecode --type 17

here as it will give us your current memory type.

Post output of

lspci

Then run,

hwinfo >hw.txt

This will create a hw.txt file, attach it here or paste the content to http://paste.ubuntu.com/

This gives full hardware info for your laptop details.

Once we have all the above I can tell you more about the RAM, Hard Drive & wireless adapter.

Here is the service manual for your laptop, http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00970003.pdf download it so long.
Look at the manual (page 142, 6.18) to locate the access cover for the wireless card, open it (one or two screws) and look in side just in case, you might already have one that could be disabled in bios or simply turned off. If there is not then just verify that you at least have the antenna wires there.

That's actually a pretty decent laptop if it has the Pentium M cpu and not a Celeron, I would put Xubuntu on it.

Btw, what resolution is your lcd screen?

[Bo Rosén]

http://paste.ubuntu.com/1292456/ for dmidecode and hwinfo

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d3)
00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.3 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) IDE Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI M24 1P [Radeon Mobility X600]
02:04.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection (rev 05)
02:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx21/x515 Cardbus Controller
02:06.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
02:06.3 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx21 Integrated FlashMedia Controller
02:06.4 SD Host controller: Texas Instruments PCI6411/6421/6611/6621/7411/7421/7611/7621 Secure Digital Controller
02:06.5 Communication controller: Texas Instruments PCI6411/6421/6611/6621/7411/7421/7611/7621 Smart Card Controller
10:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 11)

The screen runs at 1280 x 800

Oh, and thanks for the link to the manual. I'd actually manage to find it myself and had it open on the page you mentioned

[offgridguy]

The computer I am using at this moment is a restored older acer, with a new 350 gb
hard drive, ubuntu 12.04 as the only OS. yeah it's kinda fun to use linux to bring an old
computer back to life.

[mips]

Ok from lspci it tells us you already have a wireless card installed

02:04.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection (rev 05)

hwinfo tells us though that it is switch off. Try turning it on with the wireless button located above the F3/F4 key, the first LED on the front left of the laptop should come on. Else check in the BIOS to see if it's not disabled.

<4>[   14.775416] ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
<4>[   14.775416] Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work.

From dmidecode --type 17 it tells us you have 512MB 533MHz DDR2 SODIMM (PC2-4200), the service manual also confirms this as the fastest RAM it can use.

Size: 512 MB
Form Factor: SODIMM
Locator: DIMM #2
Type: DDR2
Speed: 533 MHz

So you should be looking at buying 2x 1GB 533MHz DDR2 SODIMMs (PC2-4200). One will also do as that will give you 1.5GB minus a bit used by the integrated GPU. A extra 1GB will make a huge difference.
Faster RAM should work but there are no gaurantees.



hwinfo tells us you have a Pentium M 1.73GHz cpu, 2MB cache! family 6, model 13 which is a 90nm "Dothan" architecture based chip with a 533MHz front side bus so you can't overclock it the same way I did my 400MHz FSB chip but I will look for alternate methods if possible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...22_.2890_nm.29



hwinfo allso tells us you have Hitachi Travelstar 5K100 HTS541060G9AT00 60GB Hard drive. Drive spins at 5400rpm, has 8MB of cache and a 44-pin PATA connector so unfortunately you cannot use your SSD.
http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/98F75D1B2B25C42F86256EBC0065A2F9/$file/T5K100_sp.pdf

I would check the SMART info on this drive (Gnome disk utility can do this) to check for any alerts seeing the drive is old.

If you are up for it and feel comfortable opening the laptop you should do so and clean out any dust. Remove the heatsinks and clean of the old thermal paste (must be rock hard by now) with alcohol & a cotton bud and replace with new Arctic Silver 5 (AS5) thermal paste.

[Bo Rosén]

yeah it's kinda fun to use linux to bring an old
computer back to life.

It is, except mips is doing all the work for me I don't have a lot of money so getting a free useable laptop is actually more than just a nice extra.

[Bo Rosén]

Ok from lspci it tells us you already have a wireless card installed

And suddenly it works. When I tried it yesterday I couldn't find any networks around (and yes, I had it turned on on the laptop) so I thought it might have been a driver issue or something. Perhaps it helped that I opened the computer and scowled at the network card.

So you should be looking at buying 2x 1GB 533MHz DDR2 SODIMMs (PC2-4200). One will also do as that will give you 1.5GB minus a bit used by the integrated GPU. A extra 1GB will make a huge difference.
Faster RAM should work but there are no gaurantees.

I thought faster RAM wouldn't be a problem, but better safe than sorry I suppose. Thanks for the warning.

so you can't overclock it the same way I did my 400MHz FSB chip but I will look for alternate methods if possible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...22_.2890_nm.29

That would be nice if it's possible and doesn't make the laptop burn a hole in my lap.
I'll check the drive as well.

If you are up for it and feel comfortable opening the laptop you should do so and clean out any dust.

I had it open after your earlier post, and managed to get it together again, even if the kbd refused to work properly again at first. I got cotton swabs the other day so I fully intdended to do a little house cleaning. Once I find the courage again, that is...

[mips]

I thought faster RAM wouldn't be a problem, but better safe than sorry I suppose. Thanks for the warning.

It's usually not a problem but I have seen a few rare instances where it does not work. If you can take the laptop to a shop and install the ram there to test then it should be ok. I've done this a few times.