Computer Hope

Hardware => Hardware => Topic started by: comda on August 19, 2014, 06:47:04 PM

Title: Trying to find some drivers....nightmare
Post by: comda on August 19, 2014, 06:47:04 PM

Greetings CH!

I just acquired an old IBM 390X. It came with some Cds like the windows 98 disk and some driver disks but none of them seem to have drivers for this machine. Any idea how i can get the correct drivers for this old timer? 

Title: Re: Trying to find some drivers....nightmare
Post by: patio on August 20, 2014, 07:05:05 AM

Start at the MBoard manuf. site,,,and go from there.

Title: Re: Trying to find some drivers....nightmare
Post by: comda on August 20, 2014, 09:39:59 AM

That's my issue. I couldn't find that model on lenovos website. This is a windows 98 laptop even before Lenovo bought out IBM.

Title: Re: Trying to find some drivers....nightmare
Post by: patio on August 20, 2014, 09:45:55 AM

Try the IBM archives.

http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/support

Title: Re: Trying to find some drivers....nightmare
Post by: Lisa_maree on August 20, 2014, 06:17:43 PM

Hi

I found the drivers here
http://www.notebook-driver.com/thinkpad/ibm-thinkpad-390e-windows-drivers-software/

Careful where you click and read everything before downloading as it is a 3 rd party download site.
 

Title: Re: Trying to find some drivers....nightmare
Post by: comda on August 20, 2014, 10:57:44 PM

Thanks Lisa_Maree! I used the main drivers from here plus the utility and installed windows 98 SE and windows XP home. I noticed that in home the fans are quiet versus in windows 98 they run at FULL RPM! is there anything i can do to quiet them down in 98?

Title: Re: Trying to find some drivers....nightmare
Post by: DaveLembke on August 21, 2014, 02:45:32 PM

Speedfan can be used sometimes to alter fan speeds. Last I knew it still supported Windows 95 and newer. Here is the link to info about it. As seen in the screenshot at the wiki, you can set fan speeds by percentage so if you want to quiet a system down you can set it to like 70% etc, although be very careful with this as for you could slow a fan down to the point that it no longer cools the CPU/GPU enough and you can cook the system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpeedFan

Support for Speedfan to associate with older hardware is hit and miss depending on the system. Sometimes it will allow you to sense and make adjustments and other times it can not correctly initialize the hardware controls or the system is lacking a specific hardware control feature that otherwise would work with a different or newer system.

Speedfan is a good tool for looking at temps, but it can also be used to control the PWM ( Pulse Width Modulation ) to the fan(s) and so you can slow the fan speed.

Some info about PWM in relation to speedfan and its PWM controls. http://www.almico.com/sfarticle.php?id=1

Title: Re: Trying to find some drivers....nightmare
Post by: Lisa_maree on August 21, 2014, 03:05:35 PM

Hi

For fan speed control you need to have ACPI ( Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) enabled in Windows 98. The ACPI drivers were missing from the list I posted, but this  link may give a way to get Win98 to load that driver.

http://www.techadvice.com/w98/A/acpi.htm

Or if you haven't loaded much into Windows 98 you could use the re install option as described here .

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/windows98/tune-37.html

Title: Re: Trying to find some drivers....nightmare
Post by: mangotango on August 22, 2014, 05:32:20 AM

Did you contact IBM support directly? Maybe they can help

Title: Re: Trying to find some drivers....nightmare
Post by: comda on August 22, 2014, 03:38:15 PM

Ill give that registry fix a try. Just its a tad annoying because i spend most of the time on it on windows 98 side and the fans at full tilt versus when i log into windows XP home (no service packs, but ill be installing up to SP2 on it) the fan is nice and quiet. So quiet at first i thought they where not even running. I had to press by ear up against it to hear that it was. I also noticed i need Direct X 7 to be installed. Any other plug ins or add on s i need for games in windows 98?

Title: Re: Trying to find some drivers....nightmare
Post by: comda on August 23, 2014, 07:11:39 AM

So i followed as you guys said with the Registry fix and the system said it found new hardware and did a reboot loop without any drivers and it went through all the drivers installing them over again afterwards. After the second reboot The system fired back into windows without any difference in Fan speed.

Title: Re: Trying to find some drivers....nightmare
Post by: patio on August 23, 2014, 07:44:08 AM

Have you tried SpeedFan yet ? ?