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NEC Prospeed 386sx for parts

A

alex_theman45

Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2013
Messages
24
Location
Florida
Hi guys, long time no see, and I still have the non-working NEC luggable, this time missing its failed AC Adapter (that is a long story in itself) and with no way of testing it (obviously available to me. Still has the leather case, though and battery as well. I live in the outskirts of Gainesville, Florida, in Haile Plantation. Not providing any shipping for out of Alachua/UF folk because it costs a fair bit of money to ship a brick "laptop." Price range for my intent to sell thid is anything greater than 15 dollars, maybe 20 as a fair price considering it doesn't work. I abandoned this for being too hard for an electronics novice to repair, and maybe someone else can enjoy restoring it from the Florida garage wear and tear mess I got at a flea market. PayPal is my primary means of payment, and I won't use the friends and family nonsense used by sleazy sellers.
 
alex_theman45 said:
Hi guys, long time no see, and I still have the non-working NEC luggable, this time missing its failed AC Adapter (that is a long story in itself) and with no way of testing it (obviously available to me. Still has the leather case, though and battery as well. I live in the outskirts of Gainesville, Florida, in Haile Plantation. Not providing any shipping for out of Alachua/UF folk because it costs a fair bit of money to ship a brick "laptop." Price range for my intent to sell thid is anything greater than 15 dollars, maybe 20 as a fair price considering it doesn't work. I abandoned this for being too hard for an electronics novice to repair, and maybe someone else can enjoy restoring it from the Florida garage wear and tear mess I got at a flea market. PayPal is my primary means of payment, and I won't use the friends and family nonsense used by sleazy sellers.
Click to expand...

It's a shame we live so far apart, as I would have been interested in this unit ( if it is indeed the NEC ProSpeed SX/20 386SX portable/luggable computer I am thinking about). i have one as well, bought it as broken, and I tried restoring it (spent an insane amount of time sourcing a million new capacitors, removing the old ones, soldering in the new ones), but only managed to get it to work for one day. For some reason from the next day on the system became dead, and it's been like that ever since.

I don't have the skills to troubleshoot it any more either, the only way I could possibly make some progress was if I had an other system, so I could swap out certain components, daughter boards and the power board, narrowing it down what's causing the issue.

I live in the UK, so shipping is definitely not an option for a trashed system that weighs a ton. Hopefully sooner or later I will find someone local (or at least within Europe) with this particular unit. But please don't throw it out, even if there won't be interest towards it for a long time. You might will come across someone in the future, who will be in the same situation as I am, but local to you. The thing is, none of these computers work any more (they were made using bad quality capacitors), so having two units would greatly help a restoration project.

Anyway good luck with your listing!
 
zoltan said:
It's a shame we live so far apart, as I would have been interested in this unit ( if it is indeed the NEC ProSpeed SX/20 386SX portable/luggable computer I am thinking about).
Click to expand...

It isn't, it's the different Prospeed SX/16 machine, which might (from doing some sleuthing online a few years previous) have more in common with an earlier 286 portable. I think it doesn't have much relation to the SX/20, but I haven't seen a service manual for either so (shrug). Having service manuals would be really nice for either of these machines, but seems like they are rarer than hens teeth.

Edit: Indeed, the (Kingston) memory card that came with the system has a part number of PS286.
 
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My bad, indeed it's not the SX/20. The similar name confused me.

By the way even though I don't have a service manual, I have scanned in all the documents the ProSpeed SX/20 came with (quick start guide, DOS reference book, the large user manual etc.). If you or anyone else needs them, I am happy to share the files. I remember spending a good few hours scanning all of them in, as some of those booklets are pretty hefty, not like nowadays when all the computers come without any documentation.

Funny thing is, someone is trying to sell these very documents for like £40 on eBay Canada, absolute joke. I am actually thinking about making a listing on eBay with these scanned in documents for £0.99, so anyone who needs them could just message me there (and being eBay, they would find these docs easily with a simple Google search).
 
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