8500, 8700 & 8900

8500, 8700 & 8900

Kapok/Clevo 8500

"The Mother of all Laptops" - just joking, but this is one huge laptop and one that can easily be called a desktop replacement. In many ways the 8500 series evolved into "kitchen sink" laptop of all times. This is a large (really large) early laptop that evolved into a powerful machine with just about every feature (except for light weight) that could be packed into a laptop. Even the keyboard was special, it had all the normal keys - plus there was a numeric keypad off on the right-hand side. Just what an accountant or CPA might want to have on a laptop keyboard.

It's not a light laptop and the overall weight with the battery and AC adapter is in the 10 - 12 pound range. Quite a bit to carry around all day.

The 8500 series of laptops were first produced as a Kapok laptop and then became a Clevo machine when Clevo took over Kapok.

MetroBook (Model DT) Sager, Prostar and others have sold these machines and each will have their own numbering system for laptops sold under their names - so I use the Clevo/Kapok numbers on this web site. The 8500, 8700 and 8900 models all share the same laptop motherboards and only differ in the outer plastic case designs. All the motherboards will be marked as 8500 motherboards. However, over the years the motherboard was updated and revised several times to use newer faster CPU's. Each of these revisions may, in turn, have several sub-variations that restrict CPU's and other components.

The LCD on most of these laptops was a Hosiden 15.1" TFT (active matrix) with dual backlights. Upper and lower backlights where powered by their own inverter and they differ depending upon upper or lower inverters, so do be sure to specify what inverter you need.

There are a few machines will have a Lucky Goldstar (Now LG Phillips) LP150 (15.1") LCD with a single backlight and again this LCD has a it's own inverter and signal cable. Note: If you can see a thin strip of bright metal along the lower edge of the bezel opening, I believe that this identifies your 8500 as having the LG LCD installed with the Hosiden bezel.

Note: A newer laptop (the 8800 series) has replaced the 8500 series and has a 15.7" and can use an optional 16.1" TFT LCD. Wow!

8500 Drive Modules

All 8500's can support CD-ROM, DVD, CD-RW, DVD-CDRW (Combo), LS120, Floppy drives. Just about any other drive type ever used in a laptop can be installed in some if not all of the 8500 series by using one of the two USB 1.1 ports found on most if not all 8500's (or the 1394 (Firewire) ports on the later versions)

Motherboard details

8500 (or T) = Socket Seven Intel CPU's

8500C = Socket 370 Celerons

8500M = MMC1 PII or MMC1 Celerons

8500P = MMC2 Celerons, MMC2 PII & MMC2 PIII - all 66 MHz FSB

8500V = MMC2 P3 CPU's with 100MHz FSB.

As shown above, the 8500 started out as a Pentium Socket Seven motherboard and stayed in production with updated motherboards until where the last versions were replaced by an updated P4 laptop that owes much to the 8500 design..

Memory - some motherboards will have three memory sockets and others will have only two sockets. and maximum RAM varies with motherboard revision. Speed ratings on the memory will also vary with motherboard bus speed. Motherboards up to the "P" motherboards need only PC66, the "V" motherboards should have PC100 memory.

The original #3001 or #3002 Li Ion batteries are no longer in production. There is a new smart Li Ion battery that will work in most later revision machines (M, P or V), but may not work in early machines. I'm trying to work out the details as to just which machines can or can not use this battery. I believe at this time that some 8500C's can use this battery, but not all of them. Earlier laptops may need to have their batteries rebuilt - which is expensive.

If I can collect some dead batteries then I will attempt to have rebuilt batteries in stock on an exchange basis. Please don't toss out an old dead 8500 battery that you may have - send it here.

8500 Motherboard

The earliest and original version of the 8500. Sometimes may be called 8500T, I believe. This motherboard has a Socket 7 CPU socket.

I have very little specialized information regarding this version.

85M00 Motherboard

The 8500M series used Intel MMC1 CPU's. The motherboard will be marked (85M00-D0x, x = sub-revision.

The Dash D02 (and earlier) motherboard with have two connectors for the LCD video signal cable and most of these will likely have a LVDS adapter board plugged into the two connectors. That board converts the motherboard output to match the LCD input needs. This D02 video signal cable is different that the later D03 and 8500P LCD cables.

The Dash D03 motherboards will have a single LCD video connector on the motherboard and it is the same connector as found on later 8500P motherboards - with which they also share LCD video signal cables.

Video circuitry for the "M" motherboards has only 4MB of video RAM.

With BIOS update the "M" motherboard can use large hard drives (greater than 8.4GB's. However the RAM limitation is at 256MB - even with the last BIOS revision. I have used Windows XP (Home) on a 400 MHz PII "M" (20GB HDD & 256MB RAM).

85C00 Motherboard

This 8500 version used Celeron Socket 370 CPU's. The "C" is a later design than the 8500M and so the video circuitry for the "C" motherboards has an ATI Rage chip and it has 8MB of video RAM on the motherboard. The circuitry can drive the LCD, a TV set and a CRT all at the same time and with three different screen resolutions.

I have a "C" that is running a 500MHz Celeron and so I believe that this verson of the 8500 can use any 66 MHz FSB Celeron that was produced in the Socket 370 package.

Has 128KB L2 Cache.

More details added later.

8500P Motherboard

The motherboard will be marked (85P00-D0x, x = sub-revision. Per factory information, some

motherboards may work with only P3 MMC2 modules, however all the "P" motherboards that I've seen do support both PII and PIII CPU modules. Installation of too fast of a CPU module may result in what appears to be a dead machine. Same thing for 100 MHz FSB CPU modules - only 66MHz FSB modules will run in a "P" motherboard. Updating the BIOS to the last Clevo version is normally necessary if a fast (higher than about 500 MHz) CPU is to be installed. My own testbed 8500P would not boot with a 650 MHz PIII until the BIOS was updated. This is a good clue that the BIOS needs to be updated and this must be done with the old CPU module reinstalled. Flashing the BIOS to the latest version solved the won't boot with a P3 CPU problem for me.

The "P" motherboard has a 256KB L2 cache and so Celeron CPU's are still quite fast - but P3 is always faster at the same CPU speed..

Note: Some motherboards may not be able to use the 750 PIII CPU module even after the BIOS is revised to the latest revision.

Video circuitry for the "P" motherboards has 8MB of video RAM and the circuitry can drive the LCD, a TV set and a CRT all at the same time and with three different screen resolutions.

The "P" revision also added a new feature - an IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port.

8500V Motherboard

All "V" motherboards can support 133 MHZ P3 CPU's up to at least 1GHz. The video circuitry has 16 MB of video RAM and can drive the LCD, a TV set and a CRT. Audio has 3D sounds. More soon

Regarding flashing a BIOS

Be sure to know what version you have - a "M" BIOS will not run in a "P", nor will a "P" BIOS run in an "M"and some later motherboards have the BIOS chip directly solder to the motherboard. Flashing the BIOS in these machine involves a larger risk - a major costly repair problem if you screw up.

The early "P" motherboard BIOS also didn't support 256 MB RAM modules. The last BIOS version changed all that and so not only will the "P" motherboard run with the faster PIII CPU's - it will also support these larger RAM modules if you do update.

There's two DIP switches on the motherboard that need to be moved to "Flash" configuration before the BIOS can be updated. Do remember to return them to normal when you are finished.