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Soyo PW-9800 mini laptop

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willinliv

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Joined
Nov 8, 2022
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23
Finally located the last piece in my laptop sized puzzle - locating, restoring and upgrading laptops that I have known and loved in my youth. This being a Soyo PW-9800. A very small laptop 9 x 7", 8" 640x480 DSTN (I think) screen, with a Cyrix MediaGX with MMX-S SoC running at 233MHz, 32mb RAM. It comes as part of a nice package including an external CDROM and 3.5" Floppy drives, PSU, manuals and a small leatherette bag. I first had one of these as a daily driver when I was part of my way through my undergraduate degree - my father had been running a project in the Shropshire area (UK) where they had a quantity of these machines used to drive local community displays at various public places across the county (Harry Tuffins supermarket was one such place I remember), the little machines would be connected to a flatscreen display, and would automatically and periodically connect via dial-up internet to download what I think was an updated PowerPoint. When I received the machine I used to use it mainly for playing mp3 in the living room. I ended up selling it on ebay, but was happy to find one come up recently.

So this one has the bag and the cdrom and floppy, all working, with Windows ME, and a 6gb 2.5" laptop IDE HDD. Seemed to work ok-ish, but a few freezes especially when programmes change resolution. Upgrades includes switching out the HDD for a moderner equivalent - I tried a 64GB mSata (via an IDE adapter) but computer refused to boot, thought BIOS might be limited to 6GB, but fitting a 44pin IDE to CompactFlash I found that it would boot fine with an 8GB CF. So did a fresh install of Windows 98 and now very nippy. Prior to shifting from the HDD I had a look through Device Manager and took a backup of driver files for the soundcard and graphics - the audio was easy to re-install, but the graphics drivers I needed to locate driver 'NM2160' driver for the NeoMagix 128XD for an IBM thinkpad 380XD (which I don't think is an exact fit for the 128ZV+, but does not crash the system and seems to work). I will attach to this post the drivers from my machine and a backup of the article below. I then loaded it up with some games that I think is most suitable for it (my interest in old computers).

I found this webpage a useful resource: https://digilander.libero.it/electrons/Soyo9800.html
It also gets a negative review on this site: https://www.fantasticalandrewfox.co...part-3-which-laptop-will-next-wear-the-crown/
Tip off about that graphics driver: https://forum.winworldpc.com/discus...agicgraph-128xd-video-driver-for-windows-3-11
A video of the Soyo in action with a few games (note sound in Wolf has an issue, ECWolf is fine but slow):

I have found the plastic to indeed be quite fragile, one of the flaps at the back that covers the floppy port got broken and I have to glue the little hinge pivot back into place, and I can see from the bottom that overtightening screws causes cracks to some of it's hatches. The laptop I think is quite nice in operation/feel, but the keys are definitely very close together which would be difficult for typing to begin with. The screen, whilst it looks pretty sharp and ok colours, has a lot of ghosting in movement making many games unenjoyable to play. But I really like the dimensions, weight and feel of this laptop. With the CF and Win98 I have not experienced any system instability, it is nippy, and it is now quiet to use. The speakers are ok. There are a PCMCIA ports. The screen looks pretty good for some games (I like Red Alert). The trackpad is a good size and the buttons responsive. So all in all I like it a lot and it is a good final addition to my re-collection. I just will be carefull how I handle that plastic!


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The rest of the collection, a couple of Gateway 2000s, a Sharp PC-3000, and an Asus EEEPC 900 (WinXP) with a couple of others
 

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    PXL_20251230_142219282.jpg
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Nice collection!

The screen is terrible, the video card is terrible, but the soundcard is unusual, never seen this sound chip in laptops before.

The range of external devices is impressive too. And given this size, they at least kept the VGA connector, which is the right decision.

USB ports makes it the ultimate laptop!
 
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Its great to see a small laptop from that era with onboard sound. I know that was an issue with a lot of older small-form factor laptops.

What's the itty bitty smartphone looking thing?
 
willinliv said:
Finally located the last piece in my laptop sized puzzle - locating, restoring and upgrading laptops that I have known and loved in my youth. This being a Soyo PW-9800. A very small laptop 9 x 7", 8" 640x480 DSTN (I think) screen, with a Cyrix MediaGX with MMX-S SoC running at 233MHz, 32mb RAM. It comes as part of a nice package including an external CDROM and 3.5" Floppy drives, PSU, manuals and a small leatherette bag. I first had one of these as a daily driver when I was part of my way through my undergraduate degree - my father had been running a project in the Shropshire area (UK) where they had a quantity of these machines used to drive local community displays at various public places across the county (Harry Tuffins supermarket was one such place I remember), the little machines would be connected to a flatscreen display, and would automatically and periodically connect via dial-up internet to download what I think was an updated PowerPoint. When I received the machine I used to use it mainly for playing mp3 in the living room. I ended up selling it on ebay, but was happy to find one come up recently.

So this one has the bag and the cdrom and floppy, all working, with Windows ME, and a 6gb 2.5" laptop IDE HDD. Seemed to work ok-ish, but a few freezes especially when programmes change resolution. Upgrades includes switching out the HDD for a moderner equivalent - I tried a 64GB mSata (via an IDE adapter) but computer refused to boot, thought BIOS might be limited to 6GB, but fitting a 44pin IDE to CompactFlash I found that it would boot fine with an 8GB CF. So did a fresh install of Windows 98 and now very nippy. Prior to shifting from the HDD I had a look through Device Manager and took a backup of driver files for the soundcard and graphics - the audio was easy to re-install, but the graphics drivers I needed to locate driver 'NM2160' driver for the NeoMagix 128XD for an IBM thinkpad 380XD (which I don't think is an exact fit for the 128ZV+, but does not crash the system and seems to work). I will attach to this post the drivers from my machine and a backup of the article below. I then loaded it up with some games that I think is most suitable for it (my interest in old computers).

I found this webpage a useful resource: https://digilander.libero.it/electrons/Soyo9800.html
It also gets a negative review on this site: https://www.fantasticalandrewfox.co...part-3-which-laptop-will-next-wear-the-crown/
Tip off about that graphics driver: https://forum.winworldpc.com/discus...agicgraph-128xd-video-driver-for-windows-3-11
A video of the Soyo in action with a few games (note sound in Wolf has an issue, ECWolf is fine but slow):

I have found the plastic to indeed be quite fragile, one of the flaps at the back that covers the floppy port got broken and I have to glue the little hinge pivot back into place, and I can see from the bottom that overtightening screws causes cracks to some of it's hatches. The laptop I think is quite nice in operation/feel, but the keys are definitely very close together which would be difficult for typing to begin with. The screen, whilst it looks pretty sharp and ok colours, has a lot of ghosting in movement making many games unenjoyable to play. But I really like the dimensions, weight and feel of this laptop. With the CF and Win98 I have not experienced any system instability, it is nippy, and it is now quiet to use. The speakers are ok. There are a PCMCIA ports. The screen looks pretty good for some games (I like Red Alert). The trackpad is a good size and the buttons responsive. So all in all I like it a lot and it is a good final addition to my re-collection. I just will be carefull how I handle that plastic!


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Click to expand...
If the plastic seems weaker, it may be a sign that the plastic is deteriorating, and in the future will crumble. I'd get that checked out somewhere, but yeah this is an interesting piece, especially since it has sound.
 
hunterjwizzard said:
Its great to see a small laptop from that era with onboard sound. I know that was an issue with a lot of older small-form factor laptops.

What's the itty bitty smartphone looking thing?
Click to expand...
The smartphone is a bit of an odd one out, a HTC/TMobile G1, first Android phone with a very nice slide out qwerty keyboard. It was at hand for the family snap
 
xp0nentz said:
If the plastic seems weaker, it may be a sign that the plastic is deteriorating, and in the future will crumble. I'd get that checked out somewhere, but yeah this is an interesting piece, especially since it has sound.
Click to expand...
Do you think it's 3D printable before it all crumbles?
 
willinliv said:
The smartphone is a bit of an odd one out, a HTC/TMobile G1, first Android phone with a very nice slide out qwerty keyboard. It was at hand for the family snap
Click to expand...
I think I had one of those, briefly. A friend gave it to me, but I never used it. It was woefully obsolete by then. I miss when phones actually had character, instead of "which boring grey rectangle do you want?"
 
hunterjwizzard said:
I think I had one of those, briefly. A friend gave it to me, but I never used it. It was woefully obsolete by then. I miss when phones actually had character, instead of "which boring grey rectangle do you want?"
Click to expand...

I'd settle for just going back to having a few more buttons.

Having to use the touch interface for literally everything is a royal PITA. It also means that a damaged digitzer (can result from screen damage) makes the phone nearly useless.
 
xp0nentz said:
If the plastic seems weaker, it may be a sign that the plastic is deteriorating, and in the future will crumble. I'd get that checked out somewhere, but yeah this is an interesting piece, especially since it has sound.
Click to expand...
Quagmire said:
Do you think it's 3D printable before it all crumbles?
Click to expand...
It definitely suffers from "brittle plastic disease", the eventual fate of just about any ABS from the 90s. Unless the hinges give out, it should be fine as long as it's handled delicately.
You could definitely 3D print a new housing, provided you took the time to model the case in CAD.
I've written a detailed article on the problem here: https://macdat.net/repair/kb/brittle_plastic_disease.html
It talks about the Halikan LA-30A from LGR's video that was referenced earlier in this thread.
 
3lectr1c said:
It definitely suffers from "brittle plastic disease", the eventual fate of just about any ABS from the 90s. Unless the hinges give out, it should be fine as long as it's handled delicately.
You could definitely 3D print a new housing, provided you took the time to model the case in CAD.
I've written a detailed article on the problem here: https://macdat.net/repair/kb/brittle_plastic_disease.html
It talks about the Halikan LA-30A from LGR's video that was referenced earlier in this thread.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I was referring to that video. Try fixing it.
 
3lectr1c said:
It isn't possible to make the plastic flexible again.
Click to expand...
Ah, sorry if my post was a bit dumb, I am unfamiliar with this type of repairs. Also, does your site archive software? I'm going to go work on my site quickly, do you have any computer suggestions for me to make a page on?
 
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