After removing my new ThinkPad from the box, I proceeded as follows:

1. Installed 1024M of memory (two PC133 144-pin SODIMMs from Crucial).

2. Removed the "Designed for Windows XP" sticker, which is printed on a thick metal film attached to the case with rubber cement. I had to use a pocketknife to pry up one corner to get things started. On the plus side, the rubber cement comes off cleanly...

3. Attempted to disassemble the machine to check exactly which Lucent chip is used for the modem, in the hopes it might prove to be a variety supported under Linux. I gave up because there are too many screws and pieces to remove and the Hardware Maintenance Manual (see ftp://ftp.pc.ibm.com/pub/pccbbs/mobiles/02r2913.pdf) indicates the screws are only intended to be used once...

4. Got into the BIOS setup utility (by holding down F1 when prompted during POST) to check various things - the BIOS was downlevel (1.190 [1FETA9WW dated 02 May 2002]).

   • Disabled Wake On LAN
   • Left Flash Over LAN enabled (allows BIOS to be updated over LAN). I thought I would need this once and intended subsequently to disable it until I needed it again, but as it turned out I simply downloaded the new BIOS directly and performed the update on the R31 itself.
   • Left Processor Serial Number disabled
   • Left Serial Port disabled (the machine doesn't have one...)
   • Enabled infrared with default parameters (I/O 2F8 IRQ 3 DMA 3)
   • Left parallel port enabled; changed Mode to ECP and took the default parameters (I/O 3BC IRQ 7 DMA 0)
   • Left PCI IRQs alone (1st and 2nd IRQ 10, 3rd and 4th IRQ 11)
   • Left Legacy Floppy Drive enabled (although I don't have one; I might someday, and I really don't see how one can set up a hibernation file without a floppy drive)
   • Changed Trackpoint to Enabled (I won't have an external keyboard, and the default setting is rumored to cause occasional X hangs on TP600X)
   • Left Typematic rate Normal
   • Left Fn Key Lock Disabled
   • Changed Boot Display Device to LCD (strange that the default isn't that already)
   • Left HV Expansion On
   • Left Brightness Normal
   • Changed DC Mode Suspend timer to Disabled
   • Changed DC Mode LCD off timer to 60 minutes
   • Changed DC Mode HDD off timer to 20 minutes
   • Left AC Mode timer settings alone
   • Left Hibernate by timer Disabled
   • Changed Low Battery Action to Hibernation
   • Left Suspend when LCD is closed Suspend
   • Left Intel SpeedStep technology Automatic (I think this may have to change in the future to convince the chip to run at 1GHz rather than 733MHz)
   • Left Screen Blanking Enabled
   • Left Power Control Beep Enabled
   • Left Low Battery Alarm Enabled
   • Changed Volume Beep to Enabled (just to see if the BIOS is recognizing the volume buttons under Linux; once I know I will disable this since it's *really* annoying...)
   • Left Extended Memory Test Disabled
   • Left IBM Security Chip Disabled (this model doesn't have one)

   I was expecting to see a setting for the amount of RAM to allocate to the video controller, but there was none. With 1G in the system, XP reports 48M in use (24 for each "pipe"). The BIOS "Installed Memory" line, however, implies only 8M. I can get 1024x768 at 32-bit resolution, but that only needs 4M, so I'm really not sure how much shared RAM BIOS has carved out. Inasmuch as I apparently can't do anything about it, I suppose there's no point in worrying...

5. Booted WinXP; the first thing it does is convert the C: drive from FAT32 to NTFS.

6. Examined the device manager; the modem is said to be a Lucent AMR Soft Modem.

7. Bought a Xircom RM56G RealPort PCMCIA modem on eBay.

8. Installed the latest BIOS (1FETE4WW 22 Oct 2002) on general principles and in the hope it would help with the "wild cursor" problem when asking the BIOS about the battery status. (It didn't...)

9. Rebooted and checked the BIOS settings and set Flash Over Lan to Disabled. Changed PCI IRQs to 4, 5, 10, and 11. (This doesn't seem to do anything - the device manager reports everything is still on IRQ 11.)

10. Noticed the left palmrest (over the wireless card) gets noticeably warm, at least on occasions. It's not uncomfortable (it would make a nice hand warmer in cold weather) but it's pretty clear the machine isn't really intended to be used on one's lap. (The bottom of the machine gets quite warm.)