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Tom Franklin said: > If I were stuck with a MWave machine, I would only have the DSP handle > sound and MIDI. I would buy a separate PCMCIA 56.6 modem and uninstall the > MWave modem. It would still be slower when playing sound, but at least you > would get the 56.6 and be able to hear MIDI while online. > > ---------- > > > I had a TP760ED machine that had MWave and I got rid of it and bought a > > > TP760EL that had the ESS sound chip. I found that the machine was much > > > faster. Everytime the MWave goes to play a sound, the machine slows. > > > Additionally, the MWave takes up additional memory. > > > > Except for shelling out another $5,000 or so, is there anyway that you > > know of to replace mwave on the 760ED? > This is good advice, Tom. I had so many problems trying to use that darn Mwave modem on my 755CD (TFT 486-100/810MB/40MB). Whether using Windows 3.1 or Windows95, with every Mwave release, the problems people are describing all came up. -GPF errors, hangs, reboots, shutdown hangs, generally flakey Windows OS. -Slow response when using modem and sound simulateously. DSP resources overcommitted errors. No MIDI. Sometimes extremely long delays to hear sound/receive data. -Poor reliability at 28.8, dropped connections. If you had a poor quality phone line you had to settle for 14.4k instead of 24k. I grew to hate my ThinkPad because of these things. I use my laptop primarily for Internet use. IBM designed this thing without realizing the importance sound would have for Internet applications. Stubbornly, and with 10 years experience integrating PC hardware and software, I kept trying to make the silly Mwave work. I called the IBM help desk regularly, but how could they help, most of the above problems are design flaws and bugs. I kept hoping a magical Mwave update would appear on the IBM BBS or website that would fix these problems. Finally, I gave up and bought a Megahertz modem. Instant success, I chided myself for waiting so long. Now Mwave on my machine does sound only and the modem is in the PCMCIA slot. Everyone is happier. Much more reliable and faster all around. No more hanging/crashing. I still load the Mwave modem, it's there when I want to fax while connected to the Internet. (aside to laptop designers: of course I now have to card swap ethernet and SCSI in and out around the modem, painful, please build ethernet and SCSI into high end laptops.) I too will never buy another ThinkPad with Mwave. And because of the bad experience, I may never buy another ThinkPad at all. aaron@designcraft.com