Compaq Presario 5522

[Caluser2000]

Picked up my new to me Compaq Pesario 5522 last night. A nice 100km evening drive with Bella the mooch riding gunshot. It's in very clean condition and came with all the original setup CDs and disks to set it back to factory defaults if the need arises. Of everything currently on it will be wiped. Also came with a few dos shareware games CD compilations(Wolf brand) and a Windows 95 upgrade CD. Indications are the original install software included Dos/ Wfw/Tabworks/MS Works but I haven't come across a product review as yet.

Same form factor as my CDS 524 but sports a P75 as opposed to a 486DX2/66. Fired it up and it counts up to 24megs of ram, has a 605meg hdd. Looks like it has a built in modem but unsure of its speed as yet. The keyboard LH Ctl & Alt keys seem to be non functioning or disabled but the RH ones are fine which appears to be the only issue with it.

At the moment its set up to run a Compaq branded trial version of "Buttons", a Dos based graphical menu system I haven't seen before. The Windows 95 button pops up with a nice dialoque box stating Windows 95 will take 60-90sec(only that long) to start up.

Anyway, another nice compact Compaq system to play with. Anyone else own one of these or others in the 5500 range in another life?

 

[Caluser2000]

Ran the upgrade cd and Windows 95 is displayed on startup in glorious 600x800 16-bit colour. Can go to a bigger screen size but there's noticable flicker. Now to party like it's 1995 baby!!

The screen the display doesn't reach out to the edge of the CRT and there is no way to adjust that without taking the back of a fiddling with some pots. Its one thing I adjusted on the CDS524 and should've been done before they left the factory. Sound is crisp with the 3 speaker function buttons on the rhs all working. One is mute the other two raise or lower the speaker volumes.

Some curious software is on it. Including what I listed above there's Compaq Operater which appears to be a fax/phone assistant, Print Artist and a lot more. Most is registerware though so will be biffed.

Having a gander at whats on the hdd it looks like it was mainly just used for running Dos games, a Warcraft cd was still in the cdrom drive.

$NZ30 well sent.

 

[wesleyfurr]

I worked for a local computer repair type place for 4 years right out of high school. I remember working on one similar to this once upon a time. Never did much care for those all-in-one jobbies...but that's a personal preference. I remember that one specifically...I forget exactly what the problem was, but I remember the older guy looking at the properties on the C: drive and seeing it count up thousands and thousands of files and complaining about how many files there were and how that was probably causing problems to have that many, etc, etc. From what I gather, the guy went WAY back in computer days...when a few files on a disk were a lot! I don't recall it being any speed demon either...but likely just a pokey hard drive as much as anything...

On the desk behind me still sits my wife's college computer a Presario 4112 - P120. I think it's got 4 or 8Mb on board and I added something like 32 or 64Mb to it at one point. Hasn't been turned on in years...but makes a cute monitor stand. It actually was her brother's (2 years older) when he started college. But...my wife's computer for college was one of those crappy MediaGX Presario's (2200 series or something like that) and had no expansion slots, so she couldn't add a NIC. Ended up swapping with her brother who was no longer on campus and didn't need the NIC. I think she ended up with the better machine...

At that job, I was sent to training class and worked as a Compaq certified repair tech, and we did warranty repairs for Compaq. Should still have some old copies of the Maintenance & Service guides around here somewhere if you ever need detailed info of any sort...

Wesley

 

[Caluser2000]

Cool. Thanks. Having two ISA slots at least there's an option for a NIC. That was one of first things I did with my CDS 524 after I got it. Windows 95 is quite snappy without the IE garbage. According to the software installed it'll take a max of 72megs with 8megs on the slide in mobo. I think I've still got two 72 pin Simms floating around somewhere.

Tried cleaning the Ctl and Alt contacts but no joy. I've got plenty of spare ps/2 keyboards if needed but I'll keep an eye out for a Compaq branded one when browsing about the thrift stores. Usualy I don't bother but would look neat on display.

 

[Caluser2000]

Jordon you PMed me but I can not reply as your mail box is full. I did find this https://www.manualslib.com/manual/275384/Hp-Compaq-Presario-Presario-5526.html#manual HTH

Also you are welcome to add your experiences to this thread. It could be a good resource for others 5500 series Presarios.

 

[Caluser2000]

Started to carry out some mods on this old girl a week or so ago. I've puled the 9600 modem out and cut a piece out of the rear panel I can now fit a D-Link DE220 isa network card and have two isa slots left for other peripherals if I have to add something else to the system. I've made the cut out a bit larger to allow for a bit more air flow.At the moment I've replaced the P1 70mhz cpu with an AMDK5. I'll see how that works out. If I feel it needs more oomph I've plenty o other cpus to choose from

 

[Caluser2000]

I'm absolutely ecstatic aboat the final out come of the modem to nic conversion.

 

[Caluser2000]

Finally got around to putting some shelving up in my shed "computer area". Makes things a lot tidier and easier to access the plastic b with various spare parts and old software in. I can access the bins now without having to remove hardware off and vise versa.

Unfortunately I must have dropped something rather heavy on old dear, possibly a crt monitor and the from lh bottem piece cracked at a 45 degree angle from the inside by the monitor down though to the outside. the crack is a couple of mil wide in places. Also I the other three corners have split but not cracked right through.

No need to cry about it, just come up with a plan to repair it. I'm quite good at plastic welding repairs because l've repaired motorcycle plastics over the time I been riding since I was 18 years old in 1978.

 

[Caluser2000]

Pics of my newly organised Computer Area out in the shed and examples of my plastic repear work I've done on the two m/cs I currently own. The black '76 CB550F Super Shops fairing blade and side covers. My '98 XF650Ws RH front mid plastic fule tank cover/faing which had half a dozen wide puncher wounds when the quy I got it off drooped it. I use both m/cs on a regular basis.

This is especially for that mysterious vcfed.org member NoBody .

 

[Caluser2000]

I've decided to take a different approach to my usual use of a pyography iron and plastic. While I was at Bunnings this morning getting a 20mtr role Cat6 cable to go from the ISP router(modenif you will) to the computer area in my shed and a 500 hellogen workshop lamp to disrupt the criminal scum that have been roaming around our street over the last fortnight or so. I got some PVC welding sticky stuff and Putty/filler for repairing the Compaqs plastic. I had breakdown 8 years ago and spent 5 years orbiting Jupiter. This sort of thing is great for the grey matter up top . WhileI was at Bunnings I also got a 4 switch plug adapter and new pair of crimpers for doin RJ45 connectors. I'd misplaced mine about 25 years ago. All up around 70 NZ pesos worth of stuff.

Stay tuned.....

 

[Caluser2000]

First phase of the repair done. Undid the torx head screws holding rear portion of the systems cover from the front bezel. Opened the crack a bit future with a frat bladed screw driver and applied the plastic welding cement. Not too much but enough to cover the whole surface of the inner edge of the crack. Used a ratchet tie down strop to pull the surfaces of the crack together to mate up and sqeeze any excess cement out. Use some fine emery paper over the crack. The plastic dust will help camouflage the crack. Wipe off any excess cememt/plastic dust from around the crack and leave to completely dry.

 

[mark0x01]

Nice repair job.
I had a few breakages during my inter island move, and a few cases are in need of something similar.
What were the products you used ?

 

[Caluser2000]

Pics in a post above Mark.

Thank you for the compliment btw

 

[Caluser2000]

Phase two. Masked out the crt. Heat the bezel up with a heat gun to show the real nature of the damage in the other 3 inside corners. Get a 5.25 beige PC drive cover out of my spares box. Use an angle grinder with flap well attached to skim off some of the plastic and put it in a small container. Put some PVC cement in the container and crush the plastic until you have enough beige paste to put on the cracks in the computer. Then I applied the paste to the cracks with one of my digits. Looks messy but will come up fine when completely dried, sanded and custom beige from a sprey bomb made up for my local automotive paint supplier.

 

[mark0x01]

How does it look on the inside around the CRT frame mounting points?

 

[Caluser2000]

OK now. Thats the I used the heat gun. Show up any further damage than you can see with the naked eye. Should be completed in 1/2 and hour or soo

I'll show the pics and a bit of a write up this evening. Going for a motorbike ride once I've finished and cleaned up everything.

 

[Caluser2000]

DONE! See you all in 200kms or so........

 

[Caluser2000]

You should be able to figure out what I did by just viewing the pics above.Pictures are better than a thousand words after all.

The large power button had one of its power switch retaining tangs broken off. there was no it would hold its position by its own so I cut a 1.5 mil ring out of a plastic car tyre air filler cap. Dropped that around both tangs, let a few drops of plastic cement in, position the broken tange so it was up against the plastic ring I made and leave it overnight to set. I fitted it this and the power switch clipped in just right. There is now no possibility of it falling out when I tip the system to around 45 degrees of more

I also noted one speaker center cone was almost entirely pushed in. I pulled both speaker assy out and will replace them with way smaller speakers I pulled from a HP slimline P4 system I broke down about a decade ago. I'll solder the leads off the old speakers to the replacement ones. This leaves a ton of spage behind the to insert other small devices such a 2.5 hdds/ssds /cf cards with suitable adapters.

Also cleared the grease I used to mask the LEDs and switches.

 

[Caluser2000]

Replaced the AMD K5-133 cpu with an Intel P200MMX cpu and set the cpu voltage and speed jumpers appropriately. Fitted a DVD reader optical drive in place of the original CDRom drive. Selected Red Hat 7.3 to use on this system as I still have the fully functioning 4 gig IDE hdd I had fitted to my very first full time Linux only system... It's Anoconda hardware detection program is really quite good at detecting this era hardwere

In the process of soldering the speaker leads up. I don't have any small heat shrink os I stripped a piece of insulation from a disused usb cable which I place over each soldered connect with a larger of heat shung to stop it from sliding off the soldered connections.

I haven't seen that mysteriousvcfed.org member NoBody around lately, Has any other members?

 

[Caluser2000]

I have quite a few ide hdds preloaded ready to tes various hardware with and have found the Linux/GNU is by far the best OS to use when swapping hardware between different x86 32-bit system set ups. MS Windows 9x and NT nor IBMs OS/2 are not anywhere near as flexable.....

Facts don't care about feelings.....