Compaq Presario al-lin-ones

[Caluser2000]

I'm curious as to how many others have them and what do you use them for? As mentioned in my introduction I've got a CDS 524. Just dug it out of the shed after a 2 year plus hiatus. The thing booted up just fine and dandy, even showed the correct date. Around 45 mins ahead in time though(back to the future?). Gave it outside a bit of a vacuum and wipe over, surprisingly the inside was clean as a whistle, was expecting at least a mice nest but alas it wasn't so. Is currently playing some cheerful classical music. It's running Mandrake 6.1 btw. When I initially installed it all hardware was detected and networking it was a breeze to setup.

Any links to the setup disks would be greatly appreciated as HP seem to have dropped all links to these. Correction- I did find some dos/win3.x drivers though.

[wolfie]

i have still have one of those cds all in one computer. i bought mine about 7 years ago for $25. i use mine for testing certain hardware and software.

[glitch]

I've got 1.5 Prolinea Net/25s, shortly to become Raven's. I used to use one of them as a router, since they have integrated Ethernet cards, and the other was used for testing parallel port hardware under Linux. Fun machines!

[Raven]

I am absolutely obsessed with these buggers. I saw a review of the Presario 425 by my friend and member here phreakindee. Upon seeing that, the machine fascinated me and I spent a fortune to get one from one of those overpriced "surplus" dealers on eBay.

I've thoroughly enjoyed this machine, and recently saw another on eBay for almost nothing so I sniped it.

Soon, as glitch said, I will have some Prolinea machines of the same design but with included network capabilities that don't require use of an ISA slot.

You're fortunate to have a CDS unit - in my searching they haven't turned up (or I'd own one by now, heh). Not every CDS is an all-in-one, but the 500 series is.

Oh and if you're looking to sell in the future, think of me. ;D

I'm probably the authority on these machines... anywhere... at the moment, because I've done so much research through old archives and files on them. If you run into any trouble or have questions, ask.

I don't know so much about the CDS 500 series as I do the non-CDS 400 series, but I suspect much of the information applies (I found a short video clip on Youtube that by looking at it seems to confirm the design similarities).

They are pretty much the newer big brother of the 400 series - CDROM included (I'd likely put a 5.25" floppy in that bay.. one of the things I wish I could stick in my 425), and possibly a newer CPU. The 400 series shipped with 25 or 33mhz 486 with a max 20MB RAM (4MB on mobo, 2 slots w/ 8MB max per slot). What does your 524 have? How much RAM, and do you know it's maximum?

[Caluser2000]

Raven it has a 486dx2/66 and is maxed out to 64 megs of ram. I still have the old original hdd (540meg I think) which has MSDos 6.x and Windows 3.1, along with an all time favourate game of mine-The Incredable Machine. Though I havn't used that hdd since putting in a 2 gig drive and installing Linux. Can be maxed out to 8.4 gigs without overlay software I think. I fitted a network card (ThinNet of course-got given quite a bit of coax and it seemed a waste not to make use of it) and a better than the standard 9600 baud modem (was 14400 in the US market models I believe)

She's a keeper .

Most of the posts I've found on the interweb thingy related to folks trying to alter bios settings there never really seemed to be any definative answers. I've tried F10 at the cursor after the long memory count but no joy. Just asks for boot media. Found reference to a combo ALT-ESC or ALT-F1 as well. Installing Linux makes full use of all the hardware anyway. Damn sight easier than hunting down drivers and what not for other OS's. Window Maker is my fav front end for my Linux boxen.

I see you have an Evergreen chip in your one Raven. Are they easy to get hold of?

[Raven]

At the moment, there are moderately priced ones on eBay (~$30). I got mine with another chip that died shortly afer getting it, so I pretty much got mine for $30 too.

With the additional RAM, your system is a much better candidate for Win9x or Linux than the older models. After the memory test there's a square in the top right of the screen that sits for a moment - during that pressing F10 brings up the BIOS configuration screen on my model.

As for drivers, DOS doesn't need them ofc, and Win3x only needs a video driver and a driver for any soundcard I put in (in my case SB16, easy to get software for).

You can also put an Intel Overdrive (25x4=100mhz), Am486-100 (33.?x3=101mhz or 99mhz), or any processor with a voltage adapter and way to handle the additional multiplier, such as the Evergreen I use.

Am486 can be either 5v or 3.3v, so if you end up going that route make sure to check which one your processor takes, get an interposer. I have successfully used 3.3v chips in 5v boards, but that may well damage a chip given a long enough time.

Edit: Oh, and also, the above assumes that they used the same Socket 1 as the 400 series uses - if you've got a Socket 2 it can use a Pentium Overdrive but otherwise has the same options, and if it has a Socket 3 then you have all of those options plus possibly some others if it supports 3.3v.

Edit 2: Oh and I forgot to post this during that whole above rant, lol. I found a decently priced Prolinea all-in-one model on eBay, but it's on the west coast. For any of our community members over there, check it out.. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

[Caluser2000]

I'm pretty sure its a socket 1 with jumpers to select either 25 or 33mhz. There's also a jumper for SX or DX selection looking at the pdf. Just realised I have the original keyboard too, using it the type this on my "high end" (which is not so high end) pc. Built like a brick sh*t house it is.

[Raven]

Please get me numbers from the label of that keyboard and a picture or two of the topside! I am trying to hunt down the proper one for the 400 series and it may well be the same. phreakindee owns the original mouse to his unit, for reference, as well as the manuals. I've located the control center software, but it's intended for a different unit (it's generic software that autodetects what unit) and so doesn't contain the digital documentation that came with the machine in the form of a "learning center".

The diagnostic tool used on these machines works on any machine, but the version intended for the US market is one version behind the others for some reason, and crashed on my 425. By transplanting the driver file (from the Japanese version), however, I was able to bypass this and get the diagnostic software working as well.

The CDS 500 series should be easier to find docs for, I'm sure, than the 400 series. I almost got Compaq to go digging for documentation on my 425, but then they escalated the problem or someone else saw it and they told me "sorry but it's too old" (simplified), heh.

[Caluser2000]

KB-9965 is model no. Definately pre win9x era. Don't have a digital camera here at the moment. Her in doors has it. Can't recall if if mine came with the orignal mouse or not.

Must have a decent gander in the boxes in the garage.

[Raven]

KB-9965 is model no. Don't have a digital camera here at the moment. Her in doors has it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Compaq-KB-9965-K...#ht_3055wt_879

These?--^

If that's the case, not the one for the 400 series. Easy to replace still, though, which is lucky for you should something happen to yours.

[Caluser2000]

That's it. Not too worried really. Any PS/2 model will do the trick ($15NZ for cheapies). Just got a Genius kb attached to it now which I swap around between PCs.

Forgotten I had this one.

Good luck with the auction, good find. Especially with handbooks.

[Raven]

My $10 Presario 425 came in, and I immediately ruined it by breaking the CMOS battery from the motherboard (it had weak solder joints in three points, thought it was a removable battery). On the brighter side I'm getting a tray from a Prolinea (same case) that had it's monitor broken, so that will go into this machine and make it functional. I will at that point have three 400 series Compaq all-in-one machines.

I'm looking into getting the battery from that machine soldered back on, anyway, just as a backup or swappable unit (could have Linux on one unit, DOS on another, swap motherboard trays to switch OSes, lol).

I need to find a 500 series (with CDROM and speakers built in) for those later games like CNC and Quake.

[wolfie]

i was looking at my the mother board from my cds 524 and saw this. it says tv/radio and i was wondering if it has a built in tv/radio tuner?

[Raven]

I doubt this, that looks like a sound card header. There are TV and Radio cards for PCs, I have an FM radio card in my 5170 (see signature, lol ) and it uses one of those connectors to connect to the sound card for output. 500 series machines have built-in sound cards and speakers iirc, so that would make sense for that header to be present (you're lucky, really, because as a cost-cutting measure most companies probably wouldn't have included that). Basically it's just an AUX input to mix into the sound output.

For future reference, by the way, 99.9% of TV tuners (older ones like you might see in a 90s machine, anyway) have large metal boxes (faraday cages I believe) that are quite distinctive, with holes around the sides and such - so if you don't see one of these on the board it's not likely to have TV tuning capacity.

The only all-in-one machine by any company that I know of with an integrated TV tuner is the Apple TV (I've confused the name, the Apple TV is the new one... don't remember what it's called.. it's black, and that's distinctive for an Apple).

[wolfie]

there is no metal box of any type. i didn't think there was i built in tv tuner but i thought i would ask.