[plug] Laptop Problems

[Clinton Butler]

G'day all,

I just got hold of, for myself, a laptop by the brand of Ompaq and the 
model of (it's an old one) LTE 2810E.
This is a 486 laptop with 82 Mb HDD, 20Mb RAM, 75 Mhz processor, 14.4 
kbps internal modem, onboard trackball, 640x480 256 colour capable LCD 
screen... I think that's about it.

Now the problem is... when I got it... I boot it up and it comes up with 
an I/O error. I have seen this system working before and worked fine (but 
rather slowly). It freezes whenever I put a floppy in it for boot (DOS 3.20).

I wouldn't mind getting this little thing working and maybe have it as a 
project to attempt to put other components into the shell to make it 
better. This could be a good learning experience for me, but I need to 
know what is up with this before I can play with it.

I have plans for this system to become integrated with my car stereo as an 
MP3 player. I have an external IDE --> LPT unit for it (comes with CD-ROM 
support, but I found drivers to have an external IDE HDD on it) which will 
house an IDE HDD for my Mp3's.

I did not pay anything for this unit... so it is no big loss if I can't 
get it working... but it would be great to get it up and running.

If anyone knows much about the old Compaq laptops could they please 
contact me on/off list about the availability of parts. I also am looking 
for a compatible Networking card for it (PCMCIA) which, I think, will 
take the place of the modem.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,


Clinton Butler