Req: Tech Info Armada M300
(read the last paragraph or so if you want to skip the crap.. but the story has the history you need)
Hi Guy's heres the problem..
Boss decided to get a Cheap 2nd hand Lappie . as a cheap DVD player for his kids when traveling and sumthin cheap to play with....like a chicken farm..
so a quick ebay and Voila.. "hey Undies, gotta favor to ask"
Well I couldnt do a jolly rodger for him.. the DVD-ROM and FDD were dead..
THe box infont of me was a Compaq Armada M300 with a PII- 333, 128Mb of ram and a 6gb hdd.. oh and the docking bay with the DVD-ROM and FDD..
when the FDD was in a wash rinse cylcle of death.. and the DVD-rom was dead..
I now have a very bad feeling about this thing..
Next mornining a replacement DVD-rom arrives, cools some thing to break the monotony (anyjob for the boss means the boring customer jobs go on hold, and some of the other guys put more effort in and do the sales enquiries I normaly handle (the questions like - what is a CD-RW drive...is why dont you just sell burners.. or I can't see my canon printer on this Chart.. the fool has the empty cart in their hand.. "BC!-24- black madam" ..)
Ahh yes.. now.. sit the black mass on my desk and.. dead.. less than yesterday.. not booting..
checked.. I was booting from the Bat.. ok its flat.. no boss hait on charge all night.. ok and it showed full charge on its fancy LED graph test.. Ok what is the pin outs.. don't bother..seems still wont boot when the charger is pluged in..
ok quick check.. yeppers the CMOS Bat is dead.. any flatter and you cant see it sidways.. dambed soldered and fly leads with plug and a battery I dont stock.. k gerry rig something.. ok a tagged 2032 from stock and a quick transfer of leads.. and.. still no boot..
So I may need to Clear the CMOS, hmm no reset jumper visable. remove bat and short the pins on the mobo?.. nah no change..
Thank God for Google.. found an obscure post. man reseting the Bios was like .. hmm two episodes of Survivor.. fiddle with the termininals, remove main battery, bow to mecca, flick the power and reset switches, read the tora, yeh well it is involved..
Bingo.. with out the main battery connected and only the charger the machine booted.. would have loved to load a linux distro to spite the bugger..but it had to be the Co's Win2000 distro.. all loaded, and winDVD.. yep plays like a ripper..BUT the punk dosent recognise burnt DVD's..any burnt dvds DATA or movie.. bugger.. hmm no.. ripper that will fix him he has to buy his dvd's lol.. . so I had to test that dvd player,, 3 movies later yep this box is working a treat..ahh darn have to put the battery back in..
now the **** hits the fan.. won't start from the battery, ok in goes the charger.. starts.. boots to win.. no prob.. remove the charger.. display dims.. and system freeze..
Ordered a replacement battery.. same story with it.. except it was 2 seconds to dim screen and 2 more to freeze.. Both batteries show full charge and as best I can tell I have 14.4 and 4.98 v on the terminals.. so no amount of googling will show a result..
I am hunting for information on:
1/ the Pin outs of the Battery.. out, in, charge etc
2/ or perhaps some one who has one of these buggers who may have a ccircuit of this wiz-bang battery , I need to know what to expect at the terminals
3/ or if you have encountered this problem and short of useing it as a wheel chock, ideas accepted
and yes I have considered resetting the BIOS - cmos again.. no joy
so any sort of help appreciated..
cheers
