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Success Story: Packard Bell PB286LP Repair

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68k

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2013
Messages
155
Location
Fort Worth, TX
Howdy!

I recently picked up this extremely clean Packard Bell PB286LP portable/laptop from eBay. It was listed as working, but with faults. I have a weakness for bulky old pre-386 portables, so I rolled the dice on it.

ebaylaptop.jpg

The seller did a great job packaging the laptop, so it arrived unscathed (always an issue with ebay sellers with this kinda stuff).

Initial testing showed that the backlight only flickered for a split second, and the PC speaker was emitting a steady beep, with the screen displaying a "101 stuck key error"

I began cracking the laptop open to investigate. I started by reseating all of the ribbon cables and daughterboards. To my surprise this fixed both issues!

Someone had configured a BIOS password... and the RTC battery STILL WORKS. Unfortunately, I removed and replaced the RTC battery to clear the password, but I am still amazed it has been keeping the CMOS live for 26 years.

Anyway, here are some pics of the system after the repair. The 20MB Conner HDD still runs perfectly!

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I am surprised it even had a BIOS password, that didn't really become common place until 3 or 486 era, don't know if I've ever seen a 286 with that. Knowing PB's penchant for low end hardware, I am guessing this probably was released well into the 386 era though, as a low cost laptop.

Backup that Connor hard drive if there's anything neat on it, the seals on those are well known to turn to goo and its just a matter of time. Looks like it should be bog standard IDE though so a replacement drive should be easy when it goes.
 
Very nice machine and a job well done! Looks like it "needs" a 287 though. ;)
 
68k, could you show me what kind of memory you installed in the slots? I have the same exact machine and NONE of my 30 pin SIMMs work right in the machine.
 
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Beautiful machine, nice find. We need a youtube video of that beauty playing Zaxxon. Would love to see it with an ethernet card and a CF-IDE upgrade. And the other poster is correct, it needs a 287. Maybe you could find a Makeit486 (took me a year after I started looking) and trick out that pony.
 
I don't have any memory SIMMs installed unfortunately. I thought about buying one of those 286->486 upgrades off of Yahoo Japan Auctions, but I think i'll keep this one original. I have a Compaq SLT/286 i'm currently working on that will probably see the CF treatment!
 
Bumping this old thread. Just picked one of these up too! Mine would not POST without a RAM stick installed; not sure why as it should have 640k onboard. Can't wait to dig into this one!
 
Help!!!

Help!!!

Hi 68k! greetings from Argentina!
I bought the exact same computer (for usd 1, true story), and I wanted to know if you can help me find a bootable disk. As I'd read, this computer uses MS DOS 3.3.
When it starts, appears the message "CMOS RAM ERROR, CHECK BATTERY/RUN SETUP" once I try to enter bios for setup, it ask me if I want to change the password (already changed, no problem there) and after it says "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER". I have already copied a bootable image of MS DOS 3.3 into a floppy disk, and try to use it to boot or install, but it doesn't seems to solve this problem. I don't know if I need an specific "system disk" to boot or if I'm just dumb... :confused:
Anyway, sorry and thanks in advance, I'm new in this passion! :)
 

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First thing you'll need to do is replace the CMOS battery (without that, any changes you make to the CMOS/BIOS would be lost when you power the machine down).

Check that the BIOS setting for the floppy drive matches what's actually in the machine. A dead CMOS battery will cause these settings to be lost or changed incorrectly.

A bootable DOS floppy (doesn't matter what version) should be able to be read when this is corrected. If not, it's possible the floppy drive is bad as well. It may (or may not) be quite difficult to find a replacement if that is the case.
 
Hi guys. Just got a pretty same laptop, PB286LPV for 60 cad, the only charger is not working. Laptop works fine. I saw the files dated 1994 lol.
If someone tells me briefly how to disassemble it - I will be really appreciated.
 
Hi all. I got same laptop, working just fine. Please describe brifly how to disassemble it. I want to clean it and memory.
Thank you!
 
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