Itronix Rugged Laptop Driver Software

Posted on November 22, 2007
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General Dynamics Itronix Rugged Computers - eBay - Sofware

Itronix Rugged LaptopSome time ago I purchased a handful of Itronix computers through ebay in hopes that I would have affordable entry level computer durable enough to give to my youngest daughters. Each computer was sure to suffer some battle scars as the machines get hauled around which had me concerned. After a great deal of searching I was glad to discover that eBay had several rugged laptops from Itronix listed and all reviews for the item were quite positive. Retailing originally at or about $3,500 it became clear that I had found the ideal solution. A great buy considering other options, after upgrading memory and hard drives the total investment proved to cost less even combined than a well put together desktop system. My girls are happy with their new found mobility and rugged features of the laptops so I’m happy.

I ended up winning the bids on three IX-250 models and a single IX-260 all in relatively flawless condition as each was a corporate lease return item. The only issue I discovered was the absolute lack of support software and system drivers necessary to load an Operating System on each as these machines are on average, 3 - 5 years old. However, after spending many days of searching downloading and installing software, I decided to package each of the driver packages up in case someone else finds the need for the software. Below is a basic outline and download link should you consider similar options.

Itronix Go Book IX 250 - Software Drivers

The Go Book IX-250 is a great entry level machine for children and of all those I’ve stumbled upon, I’m glad I found several with CD-ROM’s as not all are equally equipped.

Each has a P4 CPU running at 850 MHz and CD-ROM and a touch screen with stylus. Naturally with the plummeting cost of memory and storage devises, I quickly upgraded to 512 meg of RAM and a 60GB shock resistant IBM hard drive. An affordable WiFi card and new stylus for each put three of my girls in command like never before. No fighting over the computer anymore and each machine is capable of running several learning game software programs they love and plenty of MSN and chat features keeps em busy for many hours a day.

IX 250 Software Download  For Additional downloads for the Itronix Computers is available in the Downloads Area

Itronix Go Book IX 260 - Software Drivers

Itronix Rugged LaptopThis single machine I purchased for myself after having my Dell crash on me only to discover that tech support with Dell was vastly lacking. Not only was the Dell computer tech support call forwarded to India, the language barrier proved so difficult I still haven’t been able to resolve the problems related to hardware to this day. So Dell is OUT and an affordable travel worthy bullet proof tough book is in. Costing about $500 and change the IX 260’s feature an 1.7ghz CPU that can be upgraded along with the RAM and HD to compete with similarly older machines but still providing the forgiving design characteristics of a rugged laptop should a coffee cup spill over onto the keyboard.

After my brother examined the machine, he set out to purchase several off of ebay for his construction company for off site estimators and project appraisers. His wife, a professional real estate insurance agent often finds the need to photograph properties and would love to have a solution that could survive traveling woes and the Rugged Itronix seems to be a sure win as computing power is not as essential as durability in both their occupations.

Should you end up with the Itronix IX-260 please find the software drivers here.

IX 260 Software Download
 For Additional downloads for the Itronix Computers is available in the Downloads Area

Military and Law Enforcement Grade Computing

Itronix Rugged Laptop Military UseA few final notes on the computers is that not all of them come equipped for you to install an Operating System via a CD-ROM or DVD. Since many of those on eBay are either Law Enforcement turn-ins, these Military grade computers very rarely have the kinds of common peripherals that normally come in your average laptop. Ideal for contractors, construction related businesses or just a person that wants to toss the computer in the back seat of his H2 before he heads out fishing as I do; then these are ideal computers. I figured if the Military and Police Departments find them rugged enough to use than my three youngest daughters will find them difficult to destroy. Weaning kids on computers is not really avoidable. The idea is to get them started on computers that can survive spilled juice, a drop down the stairs, bumps and bangs getting in and out of a car among all the other potential hazards was my goal. These computers, each less than $300 was WiFi capable, touch screen and multi media capable, have proven to be great first computers for children.

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23 Comments so far
  1. Jeff Mikowitz November 22, 2007 11:58 pm

    Jared, I visit your site almost daily and had no idea I’d find the ideal suggestion for a Christmas present for two people by reading your blog.

    Pure genius in your writing, I have a 5 year old son that my wife and I were planning on buying him a computer he could ONLY use with us watching over him. Laptops are fragile but your idea is just perfect because he can sit on the couch next to us or in the family room while we watch a move or something. Very clever idea you had for your children, one I had not thought of.

    BTW I too have a family member in construction that lost thousands of dollars worth of records after his laptop fell from his truck crashing the drive. I’m going to point him to your article this evening.

    You saved me a bundle with this post pal, $300 is a lot less than I had planned on and this looks to be a better option. Thanks Jared and keep up the good blogging.

  2. Jared Ritchey December 3, 2007 1:56 am

    Hey, glad it worked out Jeff. I’m actually getting two more since I found ways to upgrade the CPU to a 2.2 range and with a GB of RAM its plenty fast for casual work when I travel.

  3. Tim December 7, 2007 9:04 am

    Jared, I bought an IX250 on ebay for my 2 yr old son for Christmas. I got it today and started loading games and movies but one of the key features I was excited about was not working.

    The touch screen software seemed to be installed but the drivers for one device was not wanting to install. The device having a problem is now considered a ‘unknown usb device’ and when i try to reload the software from itroix.com it still does not work.

    Is there something I’m just not doing right? I’ve looked all over the internet to find these drivers and i stumbled upon your blog. Just wondering if you could help.

    OS: Win2K SP2

  4. Jared Ritchey December 7, 2007 9:14 am

    Tim if you downloaded the drivers from my download area you may have noticed that the IX250 driver is in two places for the touch screen. The reason for this is that both IX models use the same driver but install it in different places for some reason.

    I think what happens is that when you load the OS the drivers can get substituted by the OS and with these machines that wont work. Then when you try to install the device driver, it rarely overwrites or updates as it should.

    I’m guessing you have the CD ROM for the Itronix (they run about $70 on ebay) so loading the OS is easier?

    What I’d suggest is downloading a copy of CCleaner from http://ccleaner.com and using it to first, clean the system up because laptops are usually resource poor and this tool keeps your system nice and clean, and second, uninstall the drivers using CCleaner. If you restart the machine, windows should detect the device again “TWICE” and it may call the same device two things as it happened in my situation. Just be vary careful and look in your device manager to be sure you install the correct driver.

    Simply point WindowsXPSP2 to the driver location when it asks for it. That is what I had to do to get my USB to work (which is a USB and not USB2) and then I followed with the touch pad (different from touch screen) and last the touch screen driver. Yours may or may not have come with a touch screen stylus, but to test it you can just use your finger to test it once you load the drivers and restart the machine.

    Let me know how it goes.

  5. J Jenkins December 9, 2007 10:19 pm

    2007-12-09 THANKS FOR YOUR HELP !!!!

    Jared, I recently purchased an Itronix 250 off E-BAY. Due to the USB-1 ports inability to support a webcam, I installed a COMPUSA PCMCIA USB V2.0 CARDBUS with two USB ports. However, I was having trouble with this device as only one port seemed to be recognized as a USB-2.

    I contacted the manufacturer by e-mail and was told that I had to disable the built-in USB-1 from the BIOS as the USB-2 could not be used with a USB-1 on the same machine.

    I could not find any way to do this by entering the BIOS setup, so I disabled the built-in USB-1 port thru “device manager” - not realizing that the touch screen uses this port for the mouse emulation.

    For several weeks I have not been able to use the touch screen until my brother-in-law found your blog a few hours ago. Although I had gone to the video manufacturers web site and downloaded and installed drivers for this device I was still unable to get the touch screen to work.

    After reading your write-up, downloading the drivers and installing them, I was immediately able to use the touch screen without restarting the computere. This process took only a few minutes !!!!

    Thanks again for your greeat help !!!

    Do you know if the USB-1 port can be ugraded to a USB-2 on this computer? If you have any ideas, please let me know.

  6. Jared Ritchey December 10, 2007 1:53 am

    I use a PCMCIA card for my USB2 but I have the ITRONIX IX260 and had the same issue. I purchased two external laptop hard drives with those little tiny caddy units from Tiger Direct and at first I couldn’t get them to work until I again, visited Tiger Direct and just purchased a USB controller card which seems to work WITHOUT the need to disable the USB1 Driver.

    I tested the card in my daughters computer (IX250) and you are correct, this does look like it needs to be disabled in the BIOS. I’ll work on a solution and post it in the morning.

  7. Joey December 25, 2007 9:32 am

    Oh wow I have been trying to find software for the IX250. I just got 2 for under $250 !

  8. Chris December 29, 2007 9:57 pm

    Hello there, I just read that you were able to upgrade your ix250 to a 2.2ghz processor. THAT IS AMAZING! As I am looking at one of these for my truck, I would LOVE to get any information at all that you would have on the upgrades available that you’ve found. At the going price for these things, and the readily available cheap upgrades, I’ll have to pick up three or four!

    Thanks

    Chris

  9. Ronald C Barton December 30, 2007 8:23 am

    I have a IX250 and I need either a DVD or CD writer for this unit. Can you help me.
    Thanks
    Ronald Barton

  10. Jared Ritchey December 30, 2007 11:36 am

    Chris; the laptop was the IX-260 not the IX-250 with the CPU upgrade. The board for the IX-250 isn’t capable of being updated as best I know.

    Joey; Yes I did as well. I managed to find a few internal radio cards too instead of using a PCMCIA for my wireless internet. A guy on ebay has an alternative that works inside the itronix for $60

    Ronald C Barton; The CD/DVD-R I have is from a HP computer that is the same model and make or should I say design that fits the Itronix CD bay. Since the CD/DVD-R is made by the same company for both Itronix and HP in Spokane Washington (both companies were based there) I believe that software is also compatible. Ebay is where I’d look.

  11. Joe January 8, 2008 8:35 pm

    Do you know what to do with the yellow radio wires, one goes up to the screen, and the other is sitting next to O2 card, I am waiting for a RIM card to see what it can do as well. I’m not really interested in the wirless cause my card doesn’t stick out anyways. thx

  12. Jared Ritchey January 18, 2008 10:13 am

    Joe you want this;

    Itronix Internal WI-FI Kit

    The yellow wire isn’t used for anything outside of a docking station if its the one I’m thinking of.

  13. David January 25, 2008 11:56 am

    I am considering upgrading from an ix250 which I presently have to an ix260 that comes without a hard drive or cady. Do you have any suggestions for either adapting the ix250s HD/cady to the 260 or another alternative? Have you tried using an external HD with any of yours? If so, what is needed?

  14. Jason Riley January 29, 2008 5:48 pm

    Joe, the Yellow wire goes from the RIM card to the external antenna on the top/right of the screen(if equipped).

    Also, Jared, a note on the IX250’s upgrade ability. Max Ram is 512MB consisting of (2) Low Density 256MB PC100 SODIMs.

    Processor can be upgraded to a Pentium 3 Mobile 1GHZ (SL53S). That is the limit due to 100MHZ Front Side Bus and Socket type.

    When upgrading the processor, to achieve full speed, you must go into the BIOS. And under the Power Management Section and set it to PERFORMANCE under “Greyscale (SP?)”.

    CD or DVD drives. In order to boot from the CD drive it must be a Teac 24X, or the DVD offered by Itronix. Once Windows is installed, however, you can change out the Teac 24X in favor of a DVD burner.

    Hope this helps somebody.

  15. Jamey February 29, 2008 10:50 am

    I have an Itronix IX260 with a hard drive that is going bad, can anyone help me find a compatible replacement? I can’t really take it apart right now to get a model number for the current one, as it is in use as a POS machine.

  16. Jared Ritchey February 29, 2008 11:14 am

    You can replace the HD with an IBM shock proof drive. Its the one I updated to and it works fine.

  17. Jamey March 14, 2008 9:24 am

    Thanks Jared this is exactly what I was searching for.

  18. Chris March 16, 2008 3:16 am

    Hello again,

    I just picked up eight of these (IX250) for use in several service vehicles. All is going very well thanks to you and these drivers you’ve congregated in one place, but I do have one question (for now ;) ). I just installed a DVD drive in one of these for DVD playback ( lunch breaks of course), and the playback is horribly choppy. Also like to be able to get a little better screen size than 600×800. Please help. PS…other than several having different sized hd’s, these are all 850mhz, 128mb systems with the 12″ touchscreen. Thanks

  19. Jared Ritchey March 16, 2008 8:28 am

    Chris, thanks for your response.

    I have two of the IX250 models I got for two of my daughters because they are pretty tough and reliable. What I did with each of those is update the RAM to 512 and install OEM versions Windows XP Pro on each I got from TigerDirect.com

    The memory will make a difference with these computers that I can certainly attest to. Next, as far as screen resolution goes, I one of my girls machines and visited TV Okay and loaded an episode of The Family Guy and sure enough once it buffers it plays the video just fine.

    TV Okay

    I have the DVD in my IX-260+ and I tested some of our video tutorials that are on DVD for the Rapid Template Design Series and it loads clean with no choppy performance. My guess for your situation could be the driver and memory with worse case being a bad drive.

    I’ve just now uploaded the other drivers I had in archive I forgot about and you can get those once I activate the links in the download area.

    ~ Jared

  20. Itronix Laptop Software Drivers | IX250 IX260 IX260 plus » Jared Ritchey Design March 16, 2008 8:38 am

    [...] get a lot of emails and traffic to the original post regarding the laptop drivers I had assembled.  After spending a great deal of time locating [...]

  21. Lauren Hoen March 16, 2008 11:03 pm

    Thank you for this info. I’m researching different brands of rugged laptops and it is comforting to see you have the drivers necessary. Thank you.

  22. Joe April 20, 2008 9:21 am

    Hello, Great information. However, the link to the IX250 Software Download doesn’t seem to work. Is it still available? Thanks in advance, Joe

  23. Jeremiah June 10, 2008 2:31 pm

    Jared, I have had some similar issues on my 250 as Chris (march posting) with playing media (DivX, DVD, etc.). Everything runs fine, however, for the first few seconds, but when the CPU fan ramps up, it suddenly becomes choppy. Many games do this as well. It seems processor load and the subsequent heat may force the CPU to downclock or something. I thought it may just be an anomaly, but my friend bought the same machine, and upgraded it to a P3 1GHz in hopes of avoiding my problem, but he has the exact same issue. I am wondering if there isn’t a power management driver or software package that may fix this issue. It shouldn’t be terribly necessary to downclock a Celeron 850 for heat issues in a machine like this, I’d imagine, because it all seems well vented. If you have any info regarding this issue, I am sure many of us would be extremely grateful. Thanks for the great resource here as well!!! Your site has already been a lifesaver!


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