Old Compaq Armada internal PSU repair

[yuuki47]

Re: Old Compaq Armada internal PSU repair

BTW, here's the laptop, with an awkward wire at the top...

And here is where the PSU used to be:


I'm thinking of gluing a DC barrel jack to the side there, awkward but will be fine.

The question is whether I should regulate the supply after the barrel jack somehow. Or will the laptop be fine with something less than 18.5v as you said?

[yuuki47]

Re: Old Compaq Armada internal PSU repair

15v will use more current but it's more available.
the laptop will probably run at 12v but it needs the higher voltage to charge the battery.

when i asked for psu pictures i meant the board btw

Oh, sorry, you replied as I was typing the update above...

Anyway, here:



It also has a daughter-board like module thats covered in a thick layer of paint or something. I think that's a controller of sorts?

But anyway, I don't really trust this flimsy power supply.

[yuuki47]

Re: Old Compaq Armada internal PSU repair

I took a gamble and hooked a 19v supply directly. IT WORKED!!!!!!!!

Passes RAM test and everything. I did a quick boot test with a Windows 98 startup diskette and it seemed fine.

Now this is a question of what I do about the dead PSU. Obviously, I cant use it with a hot wire hanging from the top. That's dumb. I could buy some third-party 18v PSU module and use it as a drop-in replacement with some gluing, but I hate the idea of gluing and internal PSUs. I think I'll solder a DC barrel jack and loosely glue it at the hole where the old Mickey-Mouse plug from the internal PSU was. Will be ugly but its an ok solution for now, can be reversed later.

I'm also concerned about input voltage, I'm not sure it's a good idea to use 19v on it. I think 18.5v exactly is best for long term health, no?

I wonder if I can wire an 18v regulator after the barrel jack? Will that work?

[stj]

Re: Old Compaq Armada internal PSU repair

15v will use more current but it's more available.
the laptop will probably run at 12v but it needs the higher voltage to charge the battery.

when i asked for psu pictures i meant the board btw

[yuuki47]

Re: Old Compaq Armada internal PSU repair

then feed it with 15v and show pictures of the original psu

With 15v? The original PSU is 18.5v. Is there a reason for that? I have an old Toshiba laptop (from the same era) power brick that does exactly 15v so I guess I could.

Here is the original PSU:



This thing is super light and super small, yet it does 18v 2a? No wonder it failed...

[stj]

Re: Old Compaq Armada internal PSU repair

then feed it with 15v and show pictures of the original psu

[yuuki47]

Re: Old Compaq Armada internal PSU repair

test without the battery - incase the battery is shorted and pulling the supply down.
those old machines use nicad batteries.

I did. I even pulled the PSU completely out of the machine but still nothing.

[stj]

Re: Old Compaq Armada internal PSU repair

test without the battery - incase the battery is shorted and pulling the supply down.
those old machines use nicad batteries.

[yuuki47]

Hi all,

I have a broken Compaq Armada 1510, and of course, the internal PSU *appears* to be shot.

The laptop does nothing when I try to power it on. When I disassembled it to have a look at the PSU, I found that it was connected to the motherboard via two black and red wires.

The first thing I checked was whether the red wires were common to each other, and whether the black ones were also commoned. They were.

The PSU appeared to be just a regular DC PSU that was just inside, there were just black and red wires, which means that its output isn't controlled by an extra pin like it is on ATX PSUs.

It had a label on the side that told me the voltage (18v 2a) so I hooked it to a multimeter and checked the output. It was just 1 volt.

Should I attempt to re-cap it? Is there any resources I can look into?

But further, as a test, am I alright to hook a PSU with a similar voltage to the connector and see if the laptop turns on? The thing I'm stuck about is whether the voltage needs to be exact. Obviously, the engineers of this expect only that specific PSU to be used, so maybe the input isn't regulated.

Any thoughts?