IBM Thinkpad 570

(actual model number: 2644-3AU)


570

[I sold this machine in a spasm of cleaning up old seldom/never used computer junk right after I retired. I never moved beyond Debian Eitch on it.]

I purchased this machine to replace the 390 as a 'spare' machine. The natuve OS was Windows 98 or 2000, but it came with Windows ME™ installed, and I have decided to keep that, for now. (Call it nostalgia, or masochism.) I did make room for a small PC-DOS setup, and of course, a Linux partition. I am again using the old BootMagic™ program as a boot manager. Debian Etch (as of 12/06) boots from LILO installed in the local partition. The machine came with a grab bag of extras, including a small USB 10/100 ethernet plug, which turns out to be a Realtek 8150 chip, and works fine, but most of the time for ethernet I'm using a Linksys WPC11 version 3. (The machine also came with a version 4 card, which works fine in Windows™ but not at all in any out-of-the-box linux.)

The key reason I chose this machine is that the separate Ultrabase™ makes the unit very versatile. The CPU by itself is very light, but has no spindles. There is a custom floppy port for an external drive (which I have added) and there is a space for either a floppy or second battery in the Ultrabase™. There is another bay in the base which can hold a CDROM or a DVD or a CDRW/DVD combo. Mine came with a CDROM and I've bought a DVD. Since the PII runs at 366 Mhtz, it should be able to play DVD's OK. The video is basically the same as the 390, but the audio works much more cleanly on the CS46XX. XOrg and ALSA work out-of-the-box, and MPlayer and other goodies from the debian-multimedia.org site seem to confirm the little devil's chops as a multimedia system.

APIC seems to work as designed on this system. The initial initrd boot image seems to load very slowly (much more slowly than on the 390, for example) but after that, everything behaves as expected. The only other quirk is that the dreaded Windows ME™ seems to fail every time on first boot, maybe because I'm not hibernating? On the other hand the first linux boot after Windows™ isn't always clean, either: Sometimes the ALSA seems to step on the PCMCIA and the WPC11 won't come active.

The biggest physical liability is that the screen bezel is cracked a bit at one corner and the hinge connection is a little flaky, so you have to play with the screen hinge a bit to find a stable position where you don't get various psychedelic manifestations flashing on the screen. All in all, however, the light weight (without the base), full VGA screen and borderline-but-sufficient CPU make this much more useful 'spare' than the 390 is/was. Not bad for $81 on eBay.


version

Linux version 2.6.17-2-486 (Debian 2.6.17-9) 
(waldi@debian.org) (gcc version 4.1.2 20060901 (prerelease) 
(Debian 4.1.1-13)) #1 Wed Sep 13 15:56:30 UTC 2006

cpuinfo

processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 6
model name	: Mobile Pentium II
stepping	: 10
cpu MHz		: 365.072
cache size	: 256 KB
fdiv_bug	: no
hlt_bug		: no
f00f_bug	: no
coma_bug	: no
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 2
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr up
bogomips	: 730.92

pci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03)
00:02.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1450 (rev 03)
00:02.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1450 (rev 03)
00:05.0 Multimedia audio controller: Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24 [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] (rev 01)
00:06.0 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:06.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:06.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:06.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
00:07.0 Communication controller: Agere Systems WinModem 56k (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2200 [MagicGraph 256AV] (rev 20)

modules

Module                  Size  Used by
ipv6                  211424  14 
nvram                   7304  1 
uinput                  7936  1 
button                  6544  0 
ac                      4868  0 
battery                 9220  0 
nls_iso8859_1           4224  3 
nls_cp437               5888  3 
vfat                   11520  3 
fat                    45852  1 vfat
dm_snapshot            15772  0 
dm_mirror              17616  0 
dm_mod                 48696  2 dm_snapshot,dm_mirror
loop                   13832  0 
hostap_cs              52116  0 
hostap                 97796  1 hostap_cs
ieee80211_crypt         5376  1 hostap
orinoco_cs             15748  1 
orinoco                34452  1 orinoco_cs
hermes                  7296  2 orinoco_cs,orinoco
snd_cs46xx             75336  0 
gameport               13448  2 snd_cs46xx
snd_ac97_codec         82336  1 snd_cs46xx
snd_ac97_bus            2304  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm_oss            35616  0 
snd_mixer_oss          15616  1 snd_pcm_oss
pcmcia                 33468  2 hostap_cs,orinoco_cs
firmware_class          9344  1 pcmcia
snd_pcm                71432  3 snd_cs46xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy           3844  0 
snd_seq_oss            27392  0 
shpchp                 33816  0 
snd_seq_midi            8096  0 
snd_rawmidi            21792  2 snd_cs46xx,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event      6656  2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                42576  6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
pci_hotplug            26420  1 shpchp
mousedev               10400  0 
tsdev                   7360  0 
snd_timer              19716  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device          7692  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
i2c_piix4               8464  0 
i2c_core               19216  1 i2c_piix4
irtty_sir               7552  0 
sir_dev                14724  1 irtty_sir
nsc_ircc               20240  0 
yenta_socket           23948  4 
rsrc_nonstatic         11904  1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core            36368  5 hostap_cs,orinoco_cs,pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
snd                    45668  10 snd_cs46xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
evdev                   8960  0 
soundcore               8800  1 snd
irda                  155324  3 irtty_sir,sir_dev,nsc_ircc
intel_agp              21020  1 
snd_page_alloc          9480  2 snd_cs46xx,snd_pcm
agpgart                29232  1 intel_agp
crc_ccitt               2176  1 irda
8250_pnp                8704  0 
psmouse                34184  0 
rtc                    11444  0 
pcspkr                  2816  0 
floppy                 52868  0 
parport_pc             31524  0 
parport                31944  1 parport_pc
serio_raw               6276  0 
ide_generic             1408  0 [permanent]
ide_disk               14976  6 
piix                    9220  0 [permanent]
generic                 4356  0 [permanent]
ide_core              107940  4 ide_generic,ide_disk,piix,generic
uhci_hcd               19464  0 
usbcore               108544  2 uhci_hcd
thermal                12680  0 
processor              21440  1 thermal
fan                     4484  0 

interrupts

           CPU0       
  0:      31181          XT-PIC  timer
  1:        332          XT-PIC  i8042
  2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade
  4:        181          XT-PIC  pcmcia0.0
  7:          2          XT-PIC  parport0
  8:          1          XT-PIC  rtc
  9:          1          XT-PIC  acpi
 11:         40          XT-PIC  uhci_hcd:usb1, yenta, yenta, CS46XX
 12:        149          XT-PIC  i8042
 14:       2094          XT-PIC  ide0
NMI:          0 
LOC:          0 
ERR:          0
MIS:          0

Document maintained by rgm at fabbnet.net. last update: September 25, 2009