received this pc without original hardisk. had no idea how difficult it was going to be to get running. it seems that the bios is installed onto the hard disk on this model. the only way for me to get it running is with the orig Compaq setup/diagnostic disk. hp no longer supports this PC. and...

I have a factory refurbished Compaq 2100 series notebook that quit booting. AMD 2.xx, 512megs,60?gig hdd, CDR/?DVD, XP Home. It quit booting, no video, all I get is the power button light, power light, and wireless NIC lights flashing 5 times the on steadily. No video of any kind. The manual said...

My laptop won't boot. I've been everywhere trying to solve this problem. I have a 1200XLxxx with 320Meg Ram and a K6 500Mhz CPU and has a DVD and I think about a 6Gig HD. I can't even ascertain which model it is, i.e.xxx. There seemed to be about a million configurations to that model. I...

As I want to replace the hard disc in my Compaq Presario 2700, anybody has any info on how to reach the hard disc in that laptop model ? Thanks in advance

I have a drive which is not original to a compaq. I put the drive into a Presario 5000 series (circa autumn 2000). The sound is onboard. The chip is Via AC'97. I took the directory c:\cpqdrv from a running compaq hd, with working sound, and copied it to the new drive. I tried to use the inf file...

Having just taken possession of this Presario 5000 with a Duron 800 and running ME, I came across a web forum post where somebody was complaining about how slow his similar machine was. So I started up System Monitor and discovered that at idle, the cpu usage was a whopping 35%. The machine was...

If I take a hard drive from a Gateway (Essentials, running ME), and put it into a Presario 5000, it apparently might or might not run. BUT, is there any danger to the hd in trying? Could anything on the hd become overwritten, or would the bootup just fail? Thanks. (I'm waiting for delivery of new...

I'm thinking of getting an old Presario 5000 (5WV254) and installing a new motherboard, CPU and RAM - keeping the drives, the PSU etc. and installing '98 Is this doable? I'd be happy to have something running at around 2GHz, and drive transfer speed isn't that important. Can anybody suggest...

When did Compaq begin using ATX motherboards? I have a broken Gateway (with FlexATX MB and ATX PS) computer, and I think the power supply is what's gone bad. I'm hoping to use the power supply from a Compaq that is about 6 years old. I haven't seen the old Compaq yet, and I don't know if it's worth...

Very slow to boot, nothing on Control Panel functional (so no diagnostics), suggestions from the group?? System had been unexpectedly shutting down after running ~1 hour - but now doing better (up 5 hours) after removing cover and vacuuming out years of dust. Does this Compaq require "Compaq...

I posted this last week with no response. I'm hoping someone can help me with this old laptop. I Have a Compaq Presario 1010 notebook with a dead mobo ( thought it was a 1020). I picked a new board (1020) up on ebay. First of all, is the 1020 compatable with the 1010 unit? Also, if I wanted to...

I Have a Compaq Presario 1010 notebook with a dead mobo ( thought it was a 1020). I picked a newboard (1020) up on ebay. First of all, is the 1020 compatable with the 1010 unit? Also, if I wanted to upgrade from the P120 cpu, what are my options. How do I go about getting the BIOS software...

Hi. Subject says it all....anyone else have one? What do you think of it? I added a second hard disk...replaced the HP DVD-writer with my Pioneer A06...replaced the CD reader with my Plextor CD-writer, added my Audigy 2 soundcard, and a Geforce 3 Ti200. I am disappointed that the 120 Gig drive is...

I acquired an old Presario 5184 recently. It had Win2000 installed on it. The OS has become corrupt and I'm trying to install Win98 on it, after repartitioning and reformatting the HD to get rid of all the old stuff. I'm seeing a couple of messages during boot-up that make me think there is...

I don't know if anybody is familiar with the older Armada 1750 laptop, but my question may not be laptop specific anyway. I was given this laptop in its original packaged hardware with a Pentium 2 and 64k ram. I'm wondering if I bumped up the memory to 128 or 256k ( leaving the processor...

Hi, Someone in this group gave me some good instruction on upgrading the Armada 1750 that someone had given me. I upgraded the memory and now have 192 mb. That was easy, but I'm not confident enough in getting the right hard drive, say from eBay, or elsewhere because I'm not familiar with...

I have an old Armada 1750 ( which was given to me) and I would like to set it up as a wireless laptop via internet connection with the Westell 327W. Knowing a whole lot more about desktops, I have no idea what it is that I need for this laptop to produce a wireless connection. I have 2 cards:...

I'm trying to install an ethernet card in my 12XL212 but it will not recognise it? This is the second card it won't recognise, it wouldn't recognise one for my Minolta scanner. I don't have any other cards to try. Is this a common problem and is there a fix? Alan

I keep getting a meeage saying data1.dat can't be found on my W4000 running XP. Does anyone know what it is and how to fix it? Thanks Alan Kerr

I fitted a 2940 SCSI card to my W4000. Adaptec haven't written a driver for XP to support the 2940 but it works fine with the XP driver. The problem is when I boot up it stalls and I have to hit F1 for it to finish booting up. Does anyone know how I can fix this problem Thanks Alan