compaq armada 1750 thread o' issues

[ratdude747]

found this at college surplus warehouse for 15 bucks. in near-mint condition minus a broken right screen latch

specs:

pII 333 dixon core (256kb ON die L2)

64mb ram built in and 128 on upgrade chip (can slip a 256 in but it must be low density)

6gb hd

large, 1024x768 screen

1 usb 1.1, 2 pc slots, rca vid out, vga out, serial db9 port, paralell port

1 battery included, floppy removeable for a second batterybay/ ls120/zip100 bay)

gets .5-1.5 hr per charge


questions/issues

1. slow, even with win 2000. switching from ff to opera helps some. thunderbird seems bloated. i am using avira antivir. hd de-fragged. is there a better free antivirus that is win 2k compatible?

2. compaq has no utility to my knowedge for the 4 programmable hotkeys. autohotkey detects keys but i have had no luck in figuring out how to make scripts in it. hotkeyboard doesnt detect them. anybody have a 1700 series cd with the driver on it that could email me the file? or know of a free (not shareware) app to help me map them?

3. is it worth looking for a dock and other parts for this beast? i have one battery and a floppy. would more used batteries help? and is a low-density 256mb chip worth finding?

4. did i get a good deal? i might do a poll on it. yes, wizard, i now you answered this but i wand more opinions.

remeber that i will be getting my eee pc back soon. it is off on warranty repair.

[Newbie2]

Re: compaq armada 1750 thread o' issues

1. PII 333MHz is very old and slow. Try using Windows 98 Second Edition on it, that might run faster.

2. I don't think hotkeys will really be useful.

3. You could do that if you want to invest more into this ancient laptop, I don't think finding low density 256MB of RAM for it is necessary though due to the slow PII.

4. For a junk laptop to mess around with, I think $15 is a good deal.

That's my opinion.

A long time ago I had a Compaq laptop (I forgot the model) with an AMD K6-2 500MHz or 550MHz processor (I can't really remember) with 192MB of RAM total, it was fine with Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows ME, or Windows 2000, but it was slow with Windows XP.

[etnietering]

Re: compaq armada 1750 thread o' issues

I have an old gateway PII 333MHz with 192MB of RAM, and I put kubuntu on it, after getting fed up with windows 98 being so old and sucky. Runs faster now than it ever did with win98. Then you don't need an antivirus or anything either. And I got mine for free, so I don't know if it's a good deal or not...

[370forlife]

Re: compaq armada 1750 thread o' issues

I have a dell inspiron 3500 with a 333mhz dixon and 256mb of ram with a 4gig hard drive, and it has windows xp on it

Once it gets started up it really isn't that bad, but you just have to turn off all the visual effects and everything due to the 2.5mb video card. Hard drive speed is a lot of it, get a newer faster 60 or 80gig. My inspiron saw a full 80gig hd in the bios when my friend needed me to check it. The 256mb of ram would help, too. (I don't use this laptop anymore for obvious reasons)

For $15 that is about what they are worth. Its just everything thinks they are worth $100, so $15 is a pretty good deal.

[Phaihn]

Re: compaq armada 1750 thread o' issues

Before i got the computer i am useing now i had a Pentium 1 I dont remember how fast it was but it had windows 95 on it i upgraded it to 98 SE

[ratdude747]

Re: compaq armada 1750 thread o' issues

yeah, the hd could be it.

no 98, no antivirus for that and no pnp usb support. i want to use the keys for say launch home page, go to email, etc. id use autohotkey but i dunno how to program it. onece it gwts rolling it seems good. ff was the problem.

btw, hopefully my eee pc will come back soon. no monef for hd unless i gut my maxtor onetouch III 50gb, but that would be a pain to put back together. and im using it.