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Rebuilding ruined mid-1990s Pentium Laptops

Capt. 2110

Experienced Member
Joined
May 23, 2015
Messages
362
Location
Texas
I found two old laptops on the side of the road, a Dell Latitude LM, and a Toshiba Satellite 445CDX, both dating from around 1995-1996, and being structurally damaged, along with being rusted badly. I'll probably give the Dell to my favorite store for parts, but I'd very much like to get the Toshiba running. What are some things I need to look for after a laptop has been rained on, and put outside in the heat?
 
I had a 386 laptop with just some very minor water ingress, every once in a while I had to clean out dendritic growth until it just fried it brains out and never worked again

dealing with densely packed surface mount, possibly lead free electronics thats been wet is usually not fun, you can scrub them out with high percentage iso-alcohol and let them dry out, other than that look for the usual, bad caps, burnt components etc
 
Thanks for the advice, Osgeld, I'll see what I can find.

And I probably would look for a better one, if they didn't cost so much when they work. o_O About $150 for a working unit. If you can even find one.
 
At first open them and let them dry if they are still wet.

Especially the Toshiba are pretty much water proof, I have an old satellite that was on the floor of my old appartment when a water pipe bursted at night and it had been under water for several hours. just opened up the case and let it dry for a few days - and worked like a charm, no repair necessary. Actually it still works today, including the battery, which is not bad after over 20 years. Guess it's that kinda quality they don't make any more.
 
I think they're dry now.
Nice! Just wondering, where can I find the power adapter for the Dell?
 
The Latitude LM uses a unique power plug system called the "Dell Annoying plug (TM)". No seriously, it sure IS annoying since you can't use any universal or standard adaptor because of the weird shape. If you're good at carving you can probably make a custom one, but otherwise you are rather dependant on what's on ebay or Craigslist...
 
That's the best, most accurate name ever. I think the bottom pin is an ID pin of sorts, from what I've found. Could I ignore it, since I have no need to charge a totally dead battery? I have a couple of retired laptops that use similarly rated AC adapters, so I could probably make an adapter, right?

Also, no matter how much I want the Toshiba, I'll start with getting the Dell going, since I found a service manual for it, and I can confirm that it has on-board RAM.
 
Just tested one of the drives. Oh, it's dead.
https://youtu.be/WpOryp8pSIs?t=1m12s
Sounds like this one, almost to the millisecond.

I also have another one that does "work". It's 172 MB, but Windows 10 thinks it's 200+ GB. Really, Microsoft?
 
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That's the best, most accurate name ever. I think the bottom pin is an ID pin of sorts, from what I've found. Could I ignore it, since I have no need to charge a totally dead battery? I have a couple of retired laptops that use similarly rated AC adapters, so I could probably make an adapter, right?

Also, no matter how much I want the Toshiba, I'll start with getting the Dell going, since I found a service manual for it, and I can confirm that it has on-board RAM.



Well maybe this helps you... Actually one of the 3 pins is a dummy according to the guy:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/7792185
 
It very much does, thanks! BTW, do you know what's wrong with the smaller drive? I'm guessing the larger 2.1GB one had a head crash, but I'm not sure what's up with Windows saying that it's a 280+GB drive.
 
usb adapter?

I admit I have never seen that issue, but I havent tried a legacy drive on 10 yet, 7 had no issues with my 120 meg though usb
 
Pardon me for stating the obvious, but I have issues with my own USB drives if the port isn't supplying enough power. Have you tried with a powered hub, or a 2->1 USB cable (one just has the =5v line and Gnd connected, so together they can draw 1A)?
 
Under drive manager, it won't "Initialize" the drive, no matter how many times I try, so I'm kind of wondering if the controller is hosed.

I think It's supplying enough power, since on the USB 2.0 ports, it won't spin up, but on the USB 3.0 port, it does. :/
Also, USB 3.0 should give off 900 MA, while the drive should only take 500.
And no, I haven't tried with a powered hub of 2->1 cable. I don't really have either. (The powered hub is attached to my G3 iMac, and it's USB 1.1)
 
If it won't initialize then good chance that the drive is really broken. If you have a 2.5" IDE to CF adaptor you might wanna consider that since these laptops run faster from a simple Cf than from a stone age HDD anyways.
 
Well, I've decided to try fixing the Toshiba, since the Dell is going to need a bit of repair. There seems to me a board missing. If anybody has a Toshiba Satellite Pro 445CDX, could you tell me is you have anything in the bottom right corner of the laptop, and if so, what is it? (please don't be the sound board...)
 
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