TH2002
Experienced Member
As per the title of this thread, I have finally acquired a Compaq Contura 3/25 from a seller on Bonanza! I've been wanting one of these for a good while, and this one is in very good physical condition. Even the rubber pad on the bottom of the computer has not deteriorated in any way, which seems to be a common issue with these.
First order of business was to see if the thing powered on per the seller's description, and it does, but I was confronted with two major issues: the hard drive was dead, and either the backlight or the inverter board is shot (the CMOS battery is also dead, but that's an easy fix since it's a standard coin cell).
Took it apart to see if I could get the old hard drive working - and my efforts to resurrect the old Conner drive inside were successful! The computer now boots into Windows 3.1.
So this leaves the backlight as the remaining major issue. I assume the inverter board is somewhere in the LCD assembly, but I have yet to attempt removal of the screen bezel, and I'm still entering unknown territory in that regard. I know the panel itself is fine, since the image on the screen is definitely legible when holding it up to the light at the right angle, as per the photo above.
So, the question is: does anyone have any experience working on these computers, and would I be better off trying to recap the existing inverter board or replacing it completely? Any advice is appreciated!
First order of business was to see if the thing powered on per the seller's description, and it does, but I was confronted with two major issues: the hard drive was dead, and either the backlight or the inverter board is shot (the CMOS battery is also dead, but that's an easy fix since it's a standard coin cell).
Took it apart to see if I could get the old hard drive working - and my efforts to resurrect the old Conner drive inside were successful! The computer now boots into Windows 3.1.
So this leaves the backlight as the remaining major issue. I assume the inverter board is somewhere in the LCD assembly, but I have yet to attempt removal of the screen bezel, and I'm still entering unknown territory in that regard. I know the panel itself is fine, since the image on the screen is definitely legible when holding it up to the light at the right angle, as per the photo above.
So, the question is: does anyone have any experience working on these computers, and would I be better off trying to recap the existing inverter board or replacing it completely? Any advice is appreciated!