Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

[pentium]

Wow. This is one hell of a laptop setup.
I picked it up during my little trip this weekend for $40 and it came with just the notebook. It was missing its battery, hard drive (luckily the caddy was still there), charger and two or three dust caps.
It also has no built-in floppy or cd drive but thankfully it has a USB and PCMCIA port so I can use an external drive.
Anyways, because this is so exotic I am having trouble finding the battery and the AC adapter.
I have no idea of the kink of battery it needs (would one from a Toughbook work?) nor do I know much about the charger.
Does anyone else here have any idea on where to locate these two items? Possibly even a dock?

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

There is a hole in your sock.

Laptop Batteries are proprietary but there are services that can rebuild them.
It isn't cheap.

Just changing cells won't often work.
Most have a circuit inside the pack and some monitor battery use-TIME since new and cut out the battery after so many hours of use or so many charge cycles. It's supposedly a protective feature. I think it's planned obsolescence myself.
That ciruit needs reset if fresh cells are put in the pack.
I don't know how to do that myself but someone else in here might.

.

[arneson]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

Should have spent the fourty bucks on new socks instead.

[willawake]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

this notebook is Getac W120 i believe

your fingernails are dirty

[Wizard]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

And,

What the memory and CPU are on this? Open it up and take picture of memory modules pulled from notebook we can ID that.

And this type of notebook might have really bizzare chipsets that you can't get drivers for 98, 2000 or XP. So be careful.

Investigate these stuff I mention first before plunking on battery. Chances this one is too old.

On other hand, I picked up A21m with pack and a dud battery for 40. And IMPORTANT value to me was XP COA sticker on it that I used on other machine. The A21m is now serving as NAS box using freenas software.

Cheers, Wizard

[pentium]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

Here is the inside.


From what I heard, it has either a Celeron or a PIII installed and while there is no SIMM in the ram slot, there should be more on the board.

this notebook is Getac W120 i believe

It looks like it is.
http://www.dealtime.com/xPF-Getac-Ge...W120-104128-10
Hmm, it also seems like I am missing the back handle on the thing.
EDIT: Holy crap! I think this also has a touch screen!

[willawake]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

i dont see why ac adapter is a problem. what about those universal adapters.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

http://www.getac.com/English/service/download.aspx

http://www.getac.com/GETAC2/MISC/M01...&fileid=103839

[pentium]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

Thanks Bonez.
I'll look over the manual ans see what I find.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

From what I heard, it has either a Celeron or a PIII installed and while there is no SIMM in the ram slot, there should be more on the board.

See circled item.
That's called a CPU.
They have numbers on them.
[Hint, Hint.]
.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

It says 100MHz FSB
Probably BX or ZX chipset.
ZX was 'economy' BX.

Adapter seems to be a standard connector 19vdc.
Wife's old (and broken) P3 1GHz uses 19v at 3.68amps.
That should be plenty for yours.
.

[Wizard]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

Fine on web, and office that's about it.

This is mobile PIII and I have 2 notebooks based on that mobile PIII. Just put on 2000 on it, make sure you can stuff 512MB at least. 20-40GB HD.

See if you can lift off keyboard and might have second memory slot. BTW this is
144 pin SDRAM PC100 or PC133 speed (available 256MB or 512MB, don't buy 128MB ones too small). Get memory from craigslist if possible.

Where is the hard drive caddy? Is it standard or need odd connector?

XP is too much for it.

Cheers, Wizard

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

Chipset max module size is 256MB/slot.
Only one slot available from what I can tell so 256MB max.
[Need double sided, low density - 16 chips on module]
Win2K will be fine on that as long as you keep the junk off it.
W98 or W2k were the factory OS's.
Linux should do well too.

.

[arneson]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

That screen could be a touch screen but I can't imagine why if it's meant for use in a dust and heat and banging environment.
There doesn't look like any provision for sound, and The screen gives me a sneaky suspicion that it's not color.
The thing was designed to be a communications uplink controler?
Could be that's it's job, two serial ports, nice.
Now adays I have to search to even find a serial port.
Everything I do needs one and the converters just don't work well for me.
I'll send you a blank hard drive if you'd like, you should not spend more on it.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

Probably is touch screen.
The site has touchscreen drivers for W98 thru XP.
As like: "WinXP_Tscr driver_W120"
.

[pentium]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

Where is the hard drive caddy? Is it standard or need odd connector?

XP is too much for it.

Cheers, Wizard

I took the caddy and the ribbon cable out in that photo. It's back in the laptop again. Also, I was actually planning to run Windows 2000 Pro on it anyways as XP can wait for my Latitude C810 (XP seems to like docking stations a little better than 2000 strangely) Also, there is only one ram slot on the thing. To get under the keyboard you have to completely gut the thing (and there is nothing else on the other side that looks interesting so that is why everything serviceable is on the underside).

I'll do my best to max the thing out with ram (256Mb currently runs my server and still seems like plenty for me and Windows 2000) and I was looking for say a 20-40Gb drive for the thing as my old Armada 1700 has a mere 4Gb drive and that's not enough for me anymore (was back when I still used 98 on a regular basis though).
I still think that Half-Life and Counter Strike should run fine on the thing. The Goldsrc engine is not a particularly taxing game engine.

I'll send you a blank hard drive if you'd like, you should not spend more on it.

Cool. How big?

There doesn't look like any provision for sound

There is a speaker on the underside. Mono though.

The screen gives me a sneaky suspicion that it's not color.

You have a point. I guess it would be best to first try and power the thing on and see what it looks like.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

Manual shows Audio Out and MIC jack under cap on left side near power switch.
Says: "Connects a Hi-Fi set."

Spec section says:

Integrated into Crystal codec CS4299, 20-bit stereo digital-to-analog
and 18-bit stereo analog-to-digital converter, Windows Sound System
compatibility and full-duplex capability.

10.4-inch TFT XVGA LCD, resolution up to 1024x768, 18-bit color.
8 MB (built-in on VGA chip).
Integrated into ATI RAGE Mobility-M1, MotionComp capability,
hardware aid for DVD playback and dual view support.
VGA port via optional docking station.

.

[pentium]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

Oh, so you can get a docking station (I gotta find one now!) and it IS color.
Hmm, That is a little better.

[zandrax]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

It seems a fair rugged portable but with a big issue: the floppy and cd-rom drives are in the docking station you don't own yet and I doubt the bios can boot from USB devices. The only way to test it is getting an old 2.5" hdd (10-20 GB should be fine), a 40-to-44 pin adapter and installing the hdd into a desktop; you can install any OS you want, copy all primary drivers onto the disk and put it into the notebook. Boot it and cross your fingers. Since you don't know the amount of ram soldered onboard (if any), then start with something lightweight: Dos or a lightweight linux distro should suffice for basic tests.
If I were you, I'd forget the battery for now: you've to be sure it works before buying or upgrading it. Get an universal psu for notebook: chinese ones are full of badcaps and heats a lot too, but they should work; another source are psus from old notebooks with the same power jack.

Zandrax

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Norsat NewsLink laptop battery and charger

There is no on-board RAM.