ibm thinkpad 600- lockup- newbie

[jc808]

hello, all, i have bought a second hand ibm thinkpad 600 that, up til now, kept having weird problems (graphics corruption, slow programs, crashing)

i reinstalled everything (windows 98se) and reformatted the hd. after a short period of only being able to see a 'small' screen (unchangeable 600x480 on a 1024x760 screen) the computer is now freezing on boot (one short bleep with, according to the manual here, SMAPI BIOS)

what now?? ;_(

pls bear in mind i am an idiot, so please dont be afraid to be completely condescending

 

[jc808]

also: its generally accepted that 'one short bleep' is a 'DRAM refresh failure' err

if this still applies to smapi bios, what does this mean?

regards, james

 

[Praetor]

kept having weird problems (graphics corruption, slow programs, crashing)

Without reading your second post I would have suggested a memory problem

that 'one short bleep' is a 'DRAM refresh failure' err

Try doing an extended memory check win BIOS and/or as soon as you get into windows. Any major PC benchmarking program should have a memory tester. PC Wizard (free) can be obtained from http://www.cpuid.com and comes with a memory tester If your memory has problems you will definitely have problems during this testing

 

[jc808]

thanks

however, i cant actually get into windows i get just the bleep, no startup screen, no bios no nothing... pressing 'del' to get into bios doesnt do anything...

what would you suggest?

 

[Praetor]

pressing 'del' to get into bios doesnt do anything...

Any luck with F1? While most desktops use "Del", laptops tend to use "F1"

what would you suggest?

Has this computer ever worked? Or is this a recent problem

 

[jc808]

strangely enough its just booted :-s

it has worked before

 

[jc808]

im going to try rerunning the 'setup.exe' windows file in the windows cd

i know when i reinstalled it, it wasnt recognising the cd drive properly, and i suspect some vital components werent transferred :-s

we shall see...

 

[Praetor]

So you can get into windows? (in order to do the memory testing)

 

[jc808]

will do

 

[jc808]

no memory probs, but im having another problem. im still getting the 'small screen' problem i mentioned ie on my 1024/768 display i can only get 600x480 in a small, bordered display. the screen res control wont budge

any ideas??

 

[Praetor]

im still getting the 'small screen' problem I mentioned ie on my 1024/768 display I can only get 600x480

Update video device drivers and you should be able to get that working

 

[jc808]

actually, its sorted

i needed a neomagic driver which doesnt come in windows

 

[Praetor]

Have a look here, might be useful: http://www.video-drivers.com/companies/717.htm