Upgrading from Windows 98' on a refurb notebook?

[BenderGonzales]

No, to be honest you're right. I should've been a little bit LESS cheap and bought something that already had XP and wireless.

Unfortunately the return policy includes a 15% restocking fee. Gotta make it work now.

 

[rjcap]

No, to be honest you're right. I should've been a little bit LESS cheap and bought something that already had XP and wireless.

Unfortunately the return policy includes a 15% restocking fee. Gotta make it work now.

Maybe not.

If you can make the argument that what was delivered was not what was advertised/ordered they will happily waive the return fee.


Also, 15% of $300 is only $45 bucks. Are you sure you want to commit to spending $150 or more to make this thing work ???

In addition to XP and the wireless card you will have to upgrade the RAM for XP to work well. How much is that going to cost you ???

Cut your losses and try to return the thing.


AS you can tell, I have been down this road before.

 

[BenderGonzales]

True, but IF I can keep windows 98' on this thing and just pay $40 or so for a wireless card then it's still a good deal. I don't want to launch the space shuttle with this thing, just look at the internet on overnights!

 

[JimNtexas]

I posted this under non-aviation topics but didn't get much response. Thought I might try here:

I bought a refurbished IBM Thinkpad T22 on Overstock.com for around $300 to use while traveling (FBOs, hotel rooms, etc). Nothing spectacular. It's a refurb, got a DVD drive and wireless.

....

• 900 MHz Pentium III processor
• 256 MB SDRAM
• 32 GB hard drive

..

My wife has the same computer, she uses it when she travels or when she wants to sit at the kitchen table and pay bills using our home wifi network.

I would not upgrade it to XP unless you have a application that requires XP. Win98 still works fine for most things. If you do decide to upgrade be sure IBM/Lenovo can provide XP drivers. I can't see paying another $100 to Bill G to install an OS that probably will be very sluggish on an older machine like this.

We have two PCMCIA wireless cards that work in this computer, one from 2Wire that came with my dsl modem/router, and another that I got for ten bucks at Frys from Trend Micro. Any PCMICA wifi card will work. We run them with a wifi program that I wrote, which is far better than the crap programs that come with the cards, but the program that comes with the cards will be OK. I do find that the more modern WPA security doesn't work as well on Win98 as it does on XP.

Win98 isn't as reliable as XP, you will get blue screens and freeze ups. Be sure and backup any important documents you create on this laptop. Your T22 should have a restore partition on it. We find that about once every six months to a year we have to restore Win98.

It's certainly worth $300, enjoy it as it is.

 

[JimNtexas]

Would anyone recommend an upgrade to 2000? If so, does anybody know a place to get a Windows 2000 upgrade CD CHEAP?

You'll be in device driver hell, even though you can probably "borrow" a W2K disk from someone.

 

[BenderGonzales]

Jim,
What kind of wireless card did your wife get for her T22 that was compatible with Win98?

Thanks

 

[JimNtexas]

I edited my first response to mention that we use a 2Wire card that my DSL provider gave us, and a ten dollar Trend Micro PCMCIA card I got at Frys both work fine.

I actually write wifi software for a living, and I have another T22 that I am touching at this moment as I type this. I've found pretty much any PCMCIA wifi card that has a driver for Windows 98 (which is most of them) will work fine.

I have my work T22 setup with ghosted images of Win98SE (you need SE, but you probably have it now), Win2K, and WinXP. The T22 works OK with XP when you have 512M, but I wouldn't recommend it with 256M.

From what you wanting to use this laptop for I just wouldn't spend the money on more RAM an an OS upgrade. It'll work fine as is for watching DVDs, web surfing, email, word processing, etc.

It wouldn't be the best choice to edit the next Pixar cartoon feature, but it doesn't sound like you're into a lot of audio/visual work.

 

[BenderGonzales]

Thanks Jim. I'll find out when it gets here if its got 98 or 98SE. Sounds like if it's got SE then i'll leave it as-is. If the blue-screen of death starts to bug me a few months from now, i'll add some more memory and upgrade to XP.

How hard is it, by the way, to add memory to a T22? I saw on walmart.com that I could get 512MB of SDRAM for around $90.

 

[Famous Dave]

Dude, I have an old laptop. PIII 600 mhz with 192 MB ram. It originally came with Win 98. I installed a full version of XP Pro. I bought a 802.11b PCMCIA and the intenet is super fast. The notebook you have is more than qualified to run XP. I would not install the upgrade version. Rather I would completely reformat the hard drive and install a full version of XP. Keeping 98 would just waste space and maybe cause some hang ups. My laptop was purchased in 1999 and is solid as a rock. Good Luck.
Dave

 

[hyper]

Return it or sell on ebay and get your $ back out of it.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=iB120S1&s=dhs

add the wireless and you're into it for $489. WITH XP, larger HD, CD burner and warranty.

The only way you can make your IBM practical is to use it the way you have it and add a wireless card. Outside of that, you're upside down compared to a new one.

You HAVE to have 98SE to run wireless. You may have it already but upgrade disks were going for $50-90 on ebay. (I have one I'll sell ya cheap)

Upgrading to XP is not cost effecient and unless you're well steeped in driver update knowledge, you'll be frusterated to no end.

You'll be LUCKY if 98 doesn't drive you nuts, and if it doesn't, use a friends computer with XP......and it will.

Good luck