[george.campbell]

I have just bought a thinkpad 390x old and cheap I know but I'm a student
whenever there is a lot going on on the screen it gets all garbled, when I turn down the amount of colours from the display settings it helps but the problem does not go away
I have tried to download drivers from the ibm website and install them but nothing helps it
the laptop is running on windows xp
any ideas
thanks
george

[StuMegu]

Have you experimented with the refresh rate?

[george.campbell]

I have tried to but it only gives me the 60 hertz option is it possible that the bios is outdated and too old to run xp - I know that from the ibm website you can update it, however you need a fully charged battery ro run the diskette and I am running the laptop from the mains I was going to buy a new battery but if this doesn't fix it then I wouldn't bother - could it be the bios

[NeedKarma]

From the IBM website:

• New, powerful Intel(R) Mobile Celeron (TM) processor at 400 MHz(2) with 128 KB onboard L2 cache memory or Mobile Pentium(R) II processor at 400 MHz with 256 KB onboard L2 cache memory
• Large, brilliant XGA TFT(3) 381-mm (15-in) active matrix, XGA TFT 358-mm (14.1-in) active matrix, or SVGA TFT 308-mm (12.1-in) active matrix displays with vibrant colors
• 64 MB of 64-bit SDRAM memory expandable up to 256 MB (4)
• 4.8 GB(6) or 6.4 GB(5) HDD, expandable or replaceable with optional 6.4 GB or 10.0 GB HDD

So it's a bit underpowered for XP. Perhaps the issue has to do with video drivers that don't exist for XP. I would format and use Win 98 on that laptop. I have the same setup at home with an old laptop that I want to use wirelessly.

[StuMegu]

I agree with Need on this, from his description it sounds a bit underpowered. Using win 98 or adding extra memory (upto the 256mb limit) might just make it bearable.