Compaq Presario 1230 No Boot (Cyrix MediaGX Laptop!)

[68k]

So I recently received this laptop and it was listed as working. Upon arrival, the laptop does not post at all. HDD spins up, but no other activity.

There is a post from 2000 (on another forum) where someone claims they had the same issue, but claims to have resolved it in the thread title... however they did not share how!

Anyone else have one of these Presarios with the MediaGX processor or have some suggestions?


Check out where the thermal pad for the CPU was located. The assembly line worker had one job...

 

[Capt. 2110]

I don't have one, but if the thermal pad was like that when you got it, try finding a replacement CPU. It's probably fried.
Otherwise, check for bad caps. Good luck!

 

[acogman]

Hi,

This thread is a little old and I'm not sure if you fixed your 1230, but I've been through the same thing and maybe this will help people in the future?
The Presario 1200 line (a huge number of variants with different specs) all seem to have a fault with the BIOS chip, the BIOS gets corrupted and then they don't boot anymore.

There's a huge archived thread about it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20100702084654/http://www.ltcomputers.com/compaq.cfm

The BIOS chip is an Atmel AT49F002, some have PLCC packages, some have TSOP.

I don't think there's a way to update the BIOS in-place, you have to de-soldering the chip and flash the BIOS using an external programmer then re-solder the chip, or buy a new pre-programmed chip.

It's a bit of work but I've repaired, a 1230, 1246, 12XL122 and a 12XL302 using this method.

I hope that helps,
Andrew