Compaq Evo N410c overhaul

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

I've gotten one of those puppies free from work a few days ago.
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/q...11375_div.html

This one didn't power on - it just flashed the charge LED 8 times, then the HDD led blinked, and that was it. It took me a while to track it down, but eventually i found it - a cracked joint on one of the two inductors in the power supply for the NB chipset. Another small crack in the case showed that this thing's been dropped, so that explains it. Btw, this has gotta have the weirdest shape board i've ever seen. The board is very advanced for its age, all chipsets including the CPU are BGA (with good ol' leaded solder tho), and there's a couple more smaller BGAs too.

I know it's old, but it's pretty darn cute. It's very light, and extremely thin, especially considering it was built in 2003. It doesn't look out of place even now, and the matte screen is lovely. Also, from a performance standpoint it can still do most office/internet work, which is exactly what i want it for. It does 360p youtube without problems in the flash player, or 480p with VLC On a screen resolution of 1024x768, that is enough.

Of course, all this slimness comes with a price - i don't have the dock, so the only way to get an OS on it was via the network port, and PXE booting is a huge pain in the ass as some of you know. I've gotten it to work tho, and have flashed the windows-based BIOS update afterwards, and now it can boot off USB too.

Things that need attention:

• Left touchpad button does not work.
• Built-in microphone does not work (i likely pulled a wire somewhere).
• Need to secure the palmrest to the bottom case better, a couple clips are broken.
• Battery needs a rebuild as it only lasts a few minutes (should do up to 4 hours). Fortunately, it has a calibration option in the BIOS, so it's likely to not have any kind of lockout that would require an EEPROM rewrite. Just swap the cells, calibrate, and i should be good to go.
• Other than that, it's in pretty good shape.

So, here's the plan.

• Rebuild the battery.
• Max out the RAM to 1GB (256MB in this day and age... well... y'know).
• Get a CF card and a CF-> IDE adaptor to replace the clunky slow hard drive.
• Get a USB 2.0 wireless card and hack it into the multiport.

Wait, what's this multiport i'm talking about? I'll tell you about that later. Its existence surprised me as well, and is one of the reasons i'll be keeping this thing.

I've also found a dock for cheap that i may be getting, if anything, for the stereo speakers (the notebook itself only has one, at the bottom). The dock only includes a floppy drive, and the other hardware that can be added to the dock isn't cheap, so i might reconsider it.

[sofTest]

Re: Compaq Evo N410c overhaul

• Get a USB 2.0 wireless card and hack it into the multiport.

Wait, what's this multiport i'm talking about? I'll tell you about that later. Its existence surprised me as well, and is one of the reasons i'll be keeping this thing.

My second laptop was a N1020v (still got it). A few years ago I looked into this mod also, but as the multiport on the N1020v only supports USB 1.1 (good enough for the original multiport 802.11b-module), I decided against it. It's good enough for Internet access, but for access to NAS it's simply to slow for me. Does the multiport on the N410c support USB 2.0?

Have you seen this article?

I'm about to retire my N1020v. I just need tool up and transfer stuff to one of my other (better spec) laptops to do its jobs. The battery is dead and the optical is flaky on the N1020v. It's also to slow for some of the tasks I want to continue doing on it. IIRC, it must be around 10 years since I bought it new, so it's served me well.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Compaq Evo N410c overhaul

The Evo N410c has USB 2.0 ports, your N1020v apparently does not. So i'm pretty sure the Multiport on mine is USB 2.0. However, according to Wikipedia, your Multiport is USB 2.0 too. Is that not the case?

No, i hadn't seen that article, but i'd figured out most of the things myself. But thanks. Here's my progress:

• Fixed the left touchpad button. It was just dirt and sweat accumulated, just had to clean that off. Working fine now. Also replaced the cells in the battery. With other old ones, so it doesn't pass 1 hour, but it's better than 5 minutes. I'll order some new cells.
  
  Sorry, no pics of the battery after the rebuild. I was too busy testing it to take pics. But i will, when the new cells arrive.
  
  
• Ordered a UDMA capable CF -> IDE adapter. It'll take a while to arrive from China tho.
  
• Bought a Linksys WUSB54GC wireless USB adapter. Found it locally for $14.85 Got a free extension cable with it, but i'm not gonna need it...
  
• And today, an envelope arrived from Dr. Memory in the UK. You can guess what it contained... Yup, 2x 512MB SDRAM. Installed and working a treat, this puppy is already perfectly usable on the current-day internet. Can't wait for the adapter to arrive so i can order a card and make a SSD, to see how much faster that gets it.

[c_hegge]

Re: Compaq Evo N410c overhaul

[*]Bought a Linksys WUSB54GC wireless USB adapter. Found it locally for $14.85 Got a free extension cable with it, but i'm not gonna need it...

I never plug larger devices like wireless adaptors or mobile internet devices directly into USB ports. They are so heavy that they eventually weaken and destroy them.

[lti]

Re: Compaq Evo N410c overhaul

I think he is going to put it in the weird USB bay inside the top lid.

These things have the typical Compaq weirdness, but they're okay once you manage to get them working. I remember that the N400c had to have rubber feet placed around the keyboard to prevent the keyboard from making marks on the display, and its CMOS battery was a CR2025 with a cable welded onto it. It wouldn't be a Compaq without stupid design flaws.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Compaq Evo N410c overhaul

I think he is going to put it in the weird USB bay inside the top lid.

Exactly.

and its CMOS battery was a CR2025 with a cable welded onto it. It wouldn't be a Compaq without stupid design flaws.

On this one it was a CR2016... Funny enough, a common CR2032 fit perfectly in the slot provided for it under the palmrest.

[sofTest]

Re: Compaq Evo N410c overhaul

The Evo N410c has USB 2.0 ports, your N1020v apparently does not. So i'm pretty sure the Multiport on mine is USB 2.0. However, according to Wikipedia, your Multiport is USB 2.0 too. Is that not the case?

No, my N1020v got an ALi 1.1 USB controller and a NEC 2.0 controller (device list here), so Wikipedia is not correct. The Wikipedia article seem not to be quite consistent throughout on the USB theme, either. I'm 100 % sure my ordinary USB connectors goes to the NEC controller. I've tested that by disabling the ALi controller, and plugged in an USB drive.

I also found the forum tread that got me interested in this mod. It's found here. As far as I can see, none of the posters managed anything but USB 1.1 speed on various multiport laptops. It makes sense in a way, as IIRC the multiport adapters were 802.11b, bluetooth and GPRS. None of them benefits from anything better than USB 1.1. Hopes you succeed though.

I don't know if this is possible on your laptop, but while researching the above I remember someone who claimed he had replaced the modem card on the N1020v with a WiFi card, and strung antenna leads to the lid. I don't seem to have bookmarked this reference. I've not checked this, but I think the modem card is mini-PCI.

[tom66]

Re: Compaq Evo N410c overhaul

I remember having a laptop similar to this, I think it was the earlier model, with Windows 2000 on it. Despite only having a PIII clocked at 700MHz and 256MB of RAM, that thing flew really well.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Compaq Evo N410c overhaul

I don't know if this is possible on your laptop, but while researching the above I remember someone who claimed he had replaced the modem card on the N1020v with a WiFi card, and strung antenna leads to the lid. I don't seem to have bookmarked this reference. I've not checked this, but I think the modem card is mini-PCI.

Yes it is Mini-PCI... The problem is that it's a combo modem/LAN, and i need the LAN.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Compaq Evo N410c overhaul

Update. Been a while, eh?

The adapter arrived last week IIRC, but i didn't have the time to play with it. Took it out of the package last night, and i remembered i had a 512MB card from an old camera so i thought i'd try that.

The adapter works fine, apart from a little snag i'll tell you about later, as it needs pics to do it justice. The card got picked up as a hard drive and is bootable. But of course, there's not a lot you can do with 495MB usable space, so i installed Windows 98 SE. With all the unofficial updates and patches it does quite a good job at running fairly modern software, i'm posting from Opera 12.02 right now.

Even with this old card which only runs in PIO mode and tops out at around 8MB/sec transfer speeds, the super fast access times (0.2ms average) do make for quite a snappy experience. With 1GB RAM and this PIII-M 1.2GHz, Windows 98 flies. I got Win7-styled themes and even ClearType (!!!) working via the Revolutions Pack, so to the untrained eye, it looks like Win7. I also noticed i got un-banned from MSFN - i guess my ban expired, it's been a few years.

Also, my Linksys USB wireless adapter works in Win98 too. I found a good deal on a Transcend 16GB 400x card from the US, i'll be waiting for that to arrive and then put WinXP back on it.

[nitelite]

Re: Compaq Evo N410c overhaul

Things that need attention:

• Battery needs a rebuild as it only lasts a few minutes (should do up to 4 hours). Fortunately, it has a calibration option in the BIOS, so it's likely to not have any kind of lockout that would require an EEPROM rewrite. Just swap the cells, calibrate, and i should be good to go.

Back when my N410c was still being used daily, I had the battery professionally rebuilt. It never worked properly. Despite multiple calibration attempts it never fully used all the new capacity. All the info I found at the time suggested it was because the eeprom did need to be reset. I tried to find the links I had but none of them worked and they're probably outdated anyway.

I still have multiple batts and the machine in my junk box, so please keep reporting your efforts