Compaq Portable

[billdeg]

I have a Compaq Portable (the original one). When I turn it on, the disk drive spins for about 2 seconds, the hard drive does nothing, the screen does not light.

I *assume* this is a power supply issue. I hope it's not a motherboard issue.

Anyone second my diagnosis? I did not remove the protective covers to the power supply, yet, to test voltages.

Bill

 

[chuckcmagee]

Mine has some funky connections inside. I have tried reseating the hard drive cable. Didn't do a lot. If I reach in there with the power on, most of the time the hard drive will spin down. Same with the video signal. Flaky.

Once the hard drive spins down, I have to turn it off and leave it off for like 2 minutes or so. If I turn it back on quickly, hard drive doesn't spin up, doesn't boot.

 

[frozenfire75i]

Mine did the same thing, Drove me nuts that and a few other reasons is why it went to the trash ;-)

 

[Micom 2000]

Ohh, that pains me. Please don't post such depressing news in this forum. I would have bought the original keyboard off you had you offered it, as would likely others on this forum
who need parts for this computer. It's a bit like kids who trash vintage cars. My Compaq portable with the red plasma monitor works with a Compaq KB, but not the one which also served as a faceplate cover. For shame, my man, for shame.

Throwing away is easy, conserving requires a certain impeccability.

Lawrence

Mine did the same thing, Drove me nuts that and a few other reasons is why it went to the trash ;-)

 

[Yzzerdd]

Well as I recall him telling me, the keyboard was trash. Didn't work and turned pee-yellow. Ick. I'm looking for a nice Compaq Portable I or II on eBay without yellowing and possibly with manuals. I'll be watching the vintage computer auction site as well. If any one has one, let me know. Of course, I DO need to get about $600 before June 10th, and seems I have no job, am 16, and without a car, that will be a challenge. Hopefully the economy will improve so I can get selling....

--Ryan

 

[MikeS]

Ohh, that pains me. Please don't post such depressing news in this forum. I would have bought the original keyboard off you had you offered it, as would likely others on this forum
who need parts for this computer. It's a bit like kids who trash vintage cars. My Compaq portable with the red plasma monitor works with a Compaq KB, but not the one which also served as a faceplate cover. For shame, my man, for shame.

Throwing away is easy, conserving requires a certain impeccability.

Lawrence

---------
Well, you can chastise me too then; I scrapped a working Portable III because I wanted to use the plasma screen as a wall-mounted display, but once I looked at what was involved it ended up, no, not in the trash but in a box, so if you want the keyboard badly enough to pay shipping I could probably part with it. I do still have a complete and working one of the 486 LCD versions though.

mike

 

[billdeg]

I guess for now, I will hold onto the machine. As always, you get the machine for free and then you end up spending money to fix it. I bet a power supply can be found eventually, but they'll be expensive.

 

[Terry Yager]

Well as I recall him telling me, the keyboard was trash. Didn't work and turned pee-yellow. Ick. I'm looking for a nice Compaq Portable I or II on eBay without yellowing and possibly with manuals. I'll be watching the vintage computer auction site as well. If any one has one, let me know. Of course, I DO need to get about $600 before June 10th, and seems I have no job, am 16, and without a car, that will be a challenge. Hopefully the economy will improve so I can get selling....

--Ryan

Manuals? Mebbe...I'll see if I can locate 'em again. Mebbe even original bootdisks.

--T

 

[frozenfire75i]

Well Lawrence maybe you should know a thing or two about the situation before you go and post something like above… Number one the Compaq computer was not worth repairing it had a host of cosmetic and hardware problems, you know at some point some of the more common systems are just not worth saving and putting money in too, that is unless you’re the type that finds half of a later model C64 and puts 100’s of dollars and man hours in to it, clearly not worth it.

About the trash part most all of us have thrown away vintage computers either it be thought not being able to take everything at a rescue mission parting out systems to save others scarped systems and so on and so forth.

"conserving requires a certain impeccability" yes very well said, I thinks that why I run my site vintageibm.net and all of us hang out here and enjoy this crazy hobby ;-).

Ohh, that pains me. Please don't post such depressing news in this forum. I would have bought the original keyboard off you had you offered it, as would likely others on this forum
who need parts for this computer. It's a bit like kids who trash vintage cars. My Compaq portable with the red plasma monitor works with a Compaq KB, but not the one which also served as a faceplate cover. For shame, my man, for shame.

 

[grant]

You guys don't know depressing until you visit a "recycler". Imagine a pallet stacked 5 feet high of P3s! G3s, iBooks, flat panel monitors... 25% of the stuff works!!!

It gets shredded and turned into more junk people don't need.

 

[frozenfire75i]

Oh ya I don't like to think about it or see it! And I would care to forget that word "RECYCLER"

You guys don't know depressing until you visit a "recycler". Imagine a pallet stacked 5 feet high of P3s! G3s, iBooks, flat panel monitors... 25% of the stuff works!!!

It gets shredded and turned into more junk people don't need.

 

[tezza]

You guys don't know depressing until you visit a "recycler". Imagine a pallet stacked 5 feet high of P3s! G3s, iBooks, flat panel monitors... 25% of the stuff works!!!

It gets shredded and turned into more junk people don't need.

Yep, At the Govenment recycler I got a drive off once it was more like two 15 feet mountains of monitors and units in this huge warehouse. I've never seen anything like it.

Most of them were P2s, P3 and P4s and I imagine most worked. They were due to shipped away to get the gold out of the circuit boards.

Tez

 

[Micom 2000]

Frozenfire. That was really just a gut reaction. I myself have placed a Dec Rainbow on the curb because I could find no takers. When I left Toronto I abandoned possibly 20 XT/At and many monitors and parts (I still regret that I didn't take that 386 with SIPPs.) Most people however simply take part in the ritual of the disposable society, Toss IT. And I must admit for that being the basis of my too-massive collection. Not to mention too much old electronics which I can't bear tossing. Many older people who came out of the depression 30s have a similar kink. Mine was always to repair it and make it usable again or to turn it into a social statement. Discardable as art.

The returning world warII veterans of what I call the "Formica generation" would toss old wooden furniture which has now become valuable and paint over beautiful wooden molding, some of which could be mahogany, to achieve the monochrome styling of the 40s and 50s. The period just called for conformity.

Most of modern-day habitats are similarly fairly antiseptic, conforming to whatever happens to be the accepted style as presented to us on TV, and we are as quick to toss the "out-moded" which the manufacturers have made easier to discard by cheaper carbon-based plastics. The skilled labor and devotion which went into creating quality "objects" is fast passing, and we are diminished because of that in the western world.

I am haunted however by images of impoverished 3rd world countries where whole families who live on the edge of "garbage dumps" make a living selling the discards of the societies emulating ours, where even a good plastic container can be sold for enough to feed one family member for just another day.

And that doesn't even touch the problem of the surplus of electronic waste materials, where even China is refusing the pallets of computers we used to send them. One of our major problems is what to do with the casualties of production which are ovewhelming our disposal capacities with "outmoded" computers, TVs, Ipods, P2s, and the like, not to mention the other non-degradeable detrimus of our indulgence.

This is perhaps a "Rant" which could be better placed in the scheme of the forum but you provided me with a platform by your easy criticism. Sorry.

Lawrence

 

[Sharkonwheels]

I guess for now, I will hold onto the machine. As always, you get the machine for free and then you end up spending money to fix it. I bet a power supply can be found eventually, but they'll be expensive.

Bill, I gots a C-I for ya, but..... ya gotta take the whole thing
I don;t really have the spare cycles to be pulling stuff apart at present...

Y - If ya REALLY want a C1 and C2, I got some you can have for the price of shipping, plus throw me a bone, like $10.

lemme know if you guys are interested. Last I checked, I think I had at LEAST one of each, possibly 2 of each. I have given out I think (3) C-1's, and (2) C-2's, and they freaking keep popping up in the garage.

Must be a little Compaq bed in the back of the garage where they're fornicating. I must remember to seek out some CompaqCondoms so they can stop reproducing!


T

 

[Sharkonwheels]

You guys don't know depressing until you visit a "recycler". Imagine a pallet stacked 5 feet high of P3s! G3s, iBooks, flat panel monitors... 25% of the stuff works!!!

It gets shredded and turned into more junk people don't need.

A friend of mine is the owner of recycledpcparts.com here in Miami.
You haven't seen depressing, until you've seen about a half-pallet of plastics crushed to fit into the size of a milk crate.

I also mentioned, about when I met him around 1999, when they were disposing of hundreds upon hundreds of Apples from the school system - Apple II's of all sorts, pluses, e's platinum e's, SE's, Classics, SE/30's. i mean he had to have had at least 400 compact macs outside in the weather...I swear I could hear them crying....

The motherboards were stripped out, socketed chips removed and tossed into a large garbage can, and then the motherboards tossed into this plywood-made-box. Must've been a thousand mainboards in there....

I have grabbed so much stuff from him over the years, it is ridiculous.
And the stuff I;ve turned down is ridiculous. I mean, when does it end? Right now, I have a PATH cleared through my GARAGE, and I haven't even SEEN HIM in like a year!

T

 

[glthornberry]

---------
I scrapped a working Portable III because I wanted to use the plasma screen as a wall-mounted display, but once I looked at what was involved it ended up, no, not in the trash but in a box...

mike

could you give a brief description of what changed your mind on the plasma screen wall display? I posted a related question a few days ago. I'd like to connect my plasma display to a mini-itx board but, at this point, don't even know if it's feasible. Some insight from someone who's done the research would be helpful.

glthornberry

 

[frozenfire75i]

Ya I guess you call it rant, I totally agree with you on everything it just makes me sick it’s not only computers they do it with classic cars house’s ect there is a “was” at one time a really nice mobile home here in my court most likely from the early 50’s the type that had wood everything ceiling walls cabinets someone just went in and painted over everything and put a fake ceiling in just about killed me now here shortly I get to watch it healed to the dump. Nothing is built like it use to be! The old console radios and what not! Now everything has a built in lifespan to ensure you have to re-buy and thus letting them make the profit all over again! It’s all about greed and money!

I don’t even want to think about the computer problem…. It’s like someone said they can spend millions making and selling it but they can’t spend a fifth of that to do something about the old stuff. All the problems the human race is facing have already been fixed or can be fixed easily but no one dose anything about it! Google the GM EV-1 (gas prices and oil with electric cars)…… Solar power can replace everything we get from fossil fuels but do anyone do anything nope! Totally screwed up!

Frozenfire. That was really just a gut reaction. I myself have placed a Dec Rainbow on the curb because I could find no takers. When I left Toronto I abandoned possibly 20 XT/At and many monitors and parts (I still regret that I didn't take that 386 with SIPPs.) Most people however simply take part in the ritual of the disposable society, Toss IT. And I must admit for that being the basis of my too-massive collection. Not to mention too much old electronics which I can't bear tossing. Many older people who came out of the depression 30s have a similar kink. Mine was always to repair it and make it usable again or to turn it into a social statement. Discardable as art.

The returning world warII veterans of what I call the "Formica generation" would toss old wooden furniture which has now become valuable and paint over beautiful wooden molding, some of which could be mahogany, to achieve the monochrome styling of the 40s and 50s. The period just called for conformity.

Most of modern-day habitats are similarly fairly antiseptic, conforming to whatever happens to be the accepted style as presented to us on TV, and we are as quick to toss the "out-moded" which the manufacturers have made easier to discard by cheaper carbon-based plastics. The skilled labor and devotion which went into creating quality "objects" is fast passing, and we are diminished because of that in the western world.

I am haunted however by images of impoverished 3rd world countries where whole families who live on the edge of "garbage dumps" make a living selling the discards of the societies emulating ours, where even a good plastic container can be sold for enough to feed one family member for just another day.

And that doesn't even touch the problem of the surplus of electronic waste materials, where even China is refusing the pallets of computers we used to send them. One of our major problems is what to do with the casualties of production which are ovewhelming our disposal capacities with "outmoded" computers, TVs, Ipods, P2s, and the like, not to mention the other non-degradeable detrimus of our indulgence.

This is perhaps a "Rant" which could be better placed in the scheme of the forum but you provided me with a platform by your easy criticism. Sorry.

Lawrence

 

[MikeS]

could you give a brief description of what changed your mind on the plasma screen wall display? I posted a related question a few days ago. I'd like to connect my plasma display to a mini-itx board but, at this point, don't even know if it's feasible. Some insight from someone who's done the research would be helpful.
glthornberry

--------
Well, it was a long time ago and I wouldn't call it "research" ;-)
I couldn't see any way to drive it without the motherboard, so it looked like the only practical way would have been to put the motherboard with a boot FDD behind it and run a cable to a remote power supply, or just extend the system<>plasma cable, and drive it via the com port.

mike