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Compaq Portable II No boot

H

Haemogoblin

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2011
Messages
233
Location
Sheffield, England
Hey everyone

I'm hoping to get some advice, someone I know is selling a CP-II but he says it doesn't power up, all that happens is the lights bink on and off. I'm not that familiar with the Compaq Portables and wondered if anyone with more experience might be able to offer some insight.
 
Sounds like a shorted tantalum capacitor to me. Pretty common issue with old PCs. If you have basic soldering skills and a multimeter, it’s an easy problem to fix. My Portable II actually blew a capacitor on first start, but I got it replaced and it’s been running great ever since.
 
Haemogoblin said:
Are there a lot of them? I can replace caps. Just so long as I know where I'm going.
Click to expand...

There’s a few in the power supply and a bunch of the motherboard and the expansion cards. You really don’t have to replace them all, just the shorted ones. They can be a little tricky to find, but with a multimeter and some patience it can be done.

Test the 5v and 12v rail for shorts to ground, and keep removing components until the shorts go away, then that will at least tell you which component has the bad capacitor on it.
 
Watching a few youtube videos, it does look like a simple case of popping open the CP and replacing the solid caps with some electrolitic's. I've asked the guy if he might accept a little less than his asking price, as shipping costs are going to be a son of a gun and there's no guarantee I'll even be able to get it booting.
 
Lost a Portable II to P/S caps. They're a frequent problem. Never got back to repair it since it's such a b*tch to get into (too many hex-head screws for the RF cage surrounding it). Was fun when I had it going with the optional higher res green monochrome display. Threw a multi-IO card (IDE/2x comms/joystick) and even had it on the web with the Geoworks browser and a few other text-mode browsers. Stuck a 40MB WD IDE drive in it.... you actually can do a lot with 40MB if you're "thrifty" on what you install.

​​​​​​By the time I actually started missing the machine, it was too late. Had changed to DSL and now don't have even that or a landline to connect anything via modem anymore.
 
Excellent! I’ve actually always really liked the PSU design of the Portable II. As far as I remember, (once you have the main case off) you remove a few screws and it comes out as a module. No cables either, just a card-edge connector that plugs straight in. Really couldn’t be easier IMO.
 
I’m wondering if I should strip down the system and replace all those caps that cause so much bother.

Though I’ll have to read up on what i need to replace them with.
 
Well the CP2 arrived and due to poor packing is trashed. All the plastics have been damages. Front fascia has a huge crack down the side next to the monitor.. The runners on which the access panels slide on have broke loose internally. So everything fell out on removing the shell.
 
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