[Thinkpad] New T20 owner

Hi folks,
    I've been off and on this list over the last couple years and since I settled on a new flavor Thinkpad I figured it was time to catch up on things. I realize the T20 may be old news to most folks here, but I'm quite eager to get it home and simply mess with it. Curently starting my third year as an EE student and needed something to carry to labs and around campus. I settled on the T20(ITU) because it seemed to be a good ballance of mobility(size, battery life) and speed/functionality(and of course they aren't too expensive now days). My primary uses will be modest embedded programming, maybe some light cad work, the usual word processor stuff, web, etc, etc.

    Despite the planned usage I picked up the lower-end model with the 13.3" screen. I have read that this is the same screen as the 600E, which I havn't had the pleasure of owning. I saved a couple bucks in the end and am hoping this will gain me a little battery life and/or weight(or at least I like to think so...;-). My prior laptop was a 560X(12.1") so this will be a welcomed increase in physical landscape either way.

    But anyways I do have some quick questions I havn't seemed to find answers for in the archives. First, I hear the T20 is one heck of a lap-warmer. Not so much worried about the comfort factor, but has anyone run into stability issues? FWIW, the heat seems to be centered around the PCMCIA slots, which I use a lot on campus(802.11b). Does power management help this at all?

    Power management: is there an existing TP AC adaptor which is capable of supplying full power(meaning more than the 72W produced by the 'stock' adaptor) to keep 'er running at top-notch(speedstep), even without a battery? I realize speedstep can be disabled.

    Speaking of speed, anyone have extremely slow boots in Win2k? I get the blue-screen, then preparing bla bla net bla, then blue again, then looong wait. Like 5-6mins. No HDD activity. Fresh install, SP4, all IBM drivers. Just got my machine back from EZServe with HDD replacement and Win98 reload - slow also. 196Mb Ram installed.

    Last but not least - anyone have any reccomendations for a small carry case? Looking for something with a tad more protection than the old wetsuits(not much), but same travel size/weight in mind.

(deep breath)
-Jamie K

PS - would love to hear comments about Slackware on the T20(or any other distro for that matter) - Is there a comprimise for latest kernel(support) / speed?

T20 - active duty
560X
760ED
701C Butterfly

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Received on Fri Aug 8 21:36:50 2003