Compaq Luggable :D LCD Dispaly fun, pics inside. Also small problem

[Excelsior]

Hey all..

All right, here's the deal.

I got a compaq luggable (seen here) (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3479834941&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1) from ebay for $40 shipped.. IW as only interested int he LCD really, but I figured I'll prolly use the comp itself as a cheapo netbsd firewall, what the hay.


Overall unit from the front:
http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/luggable.jpg


A look at it once I got the back off:

http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/backclosed.jpg
Right here I noticed the cable coming from the LCD (orange)

I got kinda worried, since I was *hoping* there was a long shot and it was standard vGA, but no matter, I continued going on in...

I hate compaq screws with a passion. Compaq makes special screws on thier cases, as you probably know, that needs a special screwdriver to open. Since I couldn't find my compaq screw, I had to use a regular screwdriver, which basically meant me pushinga s hard as I can and turning very slowly. This got quite excruciating after about 70 screws in :P

http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/halfopen.jpg
AHa! The orange connector lead to a videocard... *Drumroll* that's PCI!

I was ecstatic, hopefully this would mean I'll just take the unit with the pci card and the power source and stick it in my comp to fire it up... well there are a few problems with this scenario.. but that's for later on, for the time, I continued ripping it apart.


http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/vidcablecardmobo.jpg
There's a better view of the whole thing, things were lookin up at the time.


So then I removed the rest of the backing and here's a shot of the entire thing overall:
http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/overallmobo.jpg


That uberfast 3.8 gb quantum hard drive
http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/hdd.jpg



So I removed the little daughtercard that hosted the PCI slots as well as the ISA slot as seen here:
http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/allstripped.jpg



And here's a shot of the card I removed:
http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/pciisa.jpg

I then removed the mobo which left this pesky frame:
http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/dremel1.jpg

The one thing about these screws, they were bigger than the other stupid compaq screws.. and I've had about enough of these damn things, so I decided to get my dremel out :attn:.


It made quick work of the aluiminum.
http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/dremel2.jpg


Under that alumi frame I saw the 4cd changer cd drive (Yeah 4cd changer drive!) and the floppy as well as all the cables left
http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/underbox.jpg


So I followed the black cord near the orange flat cable, and I found that it used to connect to the mobo, which discouraged me a bit, since I thought maybe they'd have had it standard molex or similar. I continued on, disconnected that and beheaded the LCD of the main unit itself.


front shot of it:
http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/lcdfront.jpg



http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/lcdoff.jpg
The cables went back into the mysterious LCD box itself as you can see.

I then opened the panel casing itself to meet a pleasant surprise:
http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/thankgodmic.jpg

Wohoo! that black cable was a mic for the comp not power for the LCD! I examined everything and apparently it draws power from the PCI slot from the vidcard.

Shot of vidcard itself:
http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/luggable/vidcard.jpg


All right so everything is gravy right?

Well not so...

I took the unit to a spare comp I was fairly certain worked, I plugged it in the pci exactly the same way it was.. bascially it was the lcd unit itself with the orange cable to the pci vidcard. I plugged it in, turned the comp on.. and nothing. No display, the comp turned on but nothing else happened.

So I went back downstairs somewhat discouraged, and I plugged the power connectors into the old mobo and put the daughtercard back into the slot. I then plugged the display in via the PCI card and fired it up.

I was greeted by the nice compaq logo and a bunch of text as it did before whenI fired it up.. ODd

So I go upstairs to my comp that has my 9700 pro.... I plug it in there and turn on the comp. the computer LED output read FF which means booted fine pretty much, and everything made the usual sounds.. but no display on LCD. Heck, oddly enough, the keyboard wouldn't even work (display alpha lock light etc.)

so I plugged my vga monitor into the LCD's pci vidcard since it also has a vga output, and it did the same thing.

I removed the 9700 pro from the mobo so basically all that was there was that pci vidcard and it did the same thing.

I then took the pci card out, and put my 9700 pro back in and fired it up with my normal CRT... Everything booted fine and the alpha and num lock keys showed LEDs.

So, bsically, I'm wondering what could possibly be happening here? Any IRQs I need to change, any bios settings etc?

This seems like it's been a fun project, and if I get this to work it might be a new thing to watch out for if someone wants a cheap nice looking LCD display.

Let me know if anyone can help,

-Excelsior

[Krusty]

I've gotta say that this sounds like one hell of a great project and a very nicely priced LCD if you do get it working.

Only thing I could think of trying is plugging in both the 9700pro and the lcd card into the comp. Use the display from the 9700pro to go into the bios and see if there are any settings you may be able to change to free up an irq channel for the card.


You sure it doesn't require any power aside from the PCI slot?

[Excelsior]

I've gotta say that this sounds like one hell of a great project and a very nicely priced LCD if you do get it working.

Only thing I could think of trying is plugging in both the 9700pro and the lcd card into the comp. Use the display from the 9700pro to go into the bios and see if there are any settings you may be able to change to free up an irq channel for the card.


You sure it doesn't require any power aside from the PCI slot?

It's kinda odd, as I said in my post the 9700 pro and the LCD in at the same time for some reason won't display anything,a nd I can't even get numlock keys to work.

I'm positive it requires nothing else, going to take a few pics now, but simply right now there's the LCD with the orange cable sticking out that goes to the PCI CArd. I fi stick it in to the old mobo pci slot it works fine and displays plug n play.

I've not nearly given up hope, hopefully somoene might know what I Should paly with with IRQs or something.

-Excelsior

[Excelsior]

All right, I have some pics of it in action with the old computer.

Sorry about crappy quality, but I can't find the charger for my digicam so I had to use my cell phone then put the media card into a card reader just now.

http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/lcdpart2/W.P.jpg
Unit standing up in my room.. does NOT display anything with it connected to MY motherboard.

http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/lcdpart2/Image(24).jpg
all hooked up downstairs with old mobo to pci slot


http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/lcdpart2/Image(25).jpg
Showing the regular old riser, nothing fancy.


http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/lcdpart2/Image(26).jpg
Single connection that bonds the pci vidcard to the lcd and also powers it.



http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/lcdpart2/Image(27).jpg
There it is on.. it's giving errors since nothing is plugged in in the way of keyboards or hard drives



http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/lcdpart2/P.jpg
'nother shot of it on with the old mobo



http://www.excelsior.zerobrains.com/lcdpart2/Image(32)(01)m.jpg
Normal PCI/ISA slot riser card...

COMPAQ ASSEMBLY NO 005556-001 REV A
DIAGRAM NO 005557
RISER BOARD

it has 3 connections on one side:

SLOT 2 - PCI CONNECTOR 2

SLOT 1- ISA CONNECTOR

SLOT 0 - (VIDEO)

the pci vidcard works in both pci slots.


-Excelsior

[Enyo]

compaq suck. we have a room of 16 compaqs 8 older 266's and 8 newer 800's

they are bascily use the same internals as your pc with the sisterboard etc. but the graphics cards are brand name eg.. s3... cyrix .. etc. your card looks disturbing like my 1995 maxtrox MGA it has similar connectors and a secondary board at the end of the card like yours. what you might want to do is A) check for any brand names on your card (if it has a brand name you can find out if it is a normal graphics card or just a interface for lcd to your mobo) B) check for dipswitches or jumpers other then the vga connector .. C) make sure your motherboard is even set to use a pci video card (newish computers do not like using them and usualy need to be set in bios to boot pci video).

i think your screwed though. the graphics card is most likely designed to be used with the comaq mobo. like the old rage tv tuner cards which needed to be connected to a rage graphics card to work.

what is the other pci card in there? and is your pci slot getting enough power to run the lcd screen?

[Excelsior]

compaq suck. we have a room of 16 compaqs 8 older 266's and 8 newer 800's

they are bascily use the same internals as your pc with the sisterboard etc. but the graphics cards are brand name eg.. s3... cyrix .. etc. your card looks disturbing like my 1995 maxtrox MGA it has similar connectors and a secondary board at the end of the card like yours. what you might want to do is A) check for any brand names on your card (if it has a brand name you can find out if it is a normal graphics card or just a interface for lcd to your mobo) B) check for dipswitches or jumpers other then the vga connector .. C) make sure your motherboard is even set to use a pci video card (newish computers do not like using them and usualy need to be set in bios to boot pci video).

i think your screwed though. the graphics card is most likely designed to be used with the comaq mobo. like the old rage tv tuner cards which needed to be connected to a rage graphics card to work.

what is the other pci card in there? and is your pci slot getting enough power to run the lcd screen?

The graphics chipset is S3 96CM65 On Board.

REPLACE WITH COMPAQ SPARE 240907-001

There doesn't look to be any dip switches on it, and I'll have to check online if I have to change anything with my 8rda+ to use a pci vidcard.

Ihave trie dit so there is ONLY the vidcard on the pci and agp bus so it should be getting enough power.

-Excelsior

[Krusty]

Ok, heres a different idea that will require some extra effort. Even though the ribbon cable is carrying both the signal and the power for the lcd in the same ribbon, those two must EVENTUALLY be separated somewhere with the casing of the lcd. So tear apart the lcd and look to see if you can figure out where the power goes. Then grab a multimeter and see what the voltage is on the power. I'm guessing it's 12v because everything uses 12v. Hook the monitor to the old crappy computer to get the voltage readings. Then hook it up to your new computer and see if you can get the same voltage readings.

Your first step is just to ensure that the monitor is indeed getting powered.

[Excelsior]

http://www.epox.nl/manuals/mu-8rda&%2B11.pdf

There's a link to my manual for my mobo, there are no jumpers to play around with that affect the pci slots.

-Excelsior

[Krusty]

A little googling of the part number didn't yield any answers, but it yielded another person with a similar question:

> I have inherited a Compaq Presario, Model 3060 to that was lightning struck.
> My diagnosis indicates that the problem with this system is the PCI video
> card. This PCI video card is based on the S3 chipset and has the Compaq
> designation of SP 240907 -- 001.
>
> The system functions perfectly when this video card is replaced with a
> standard PCI card. The problem is that the defective video card is also
> driving a flat screen display that is integrated with the computer. I am
> able to make the system run only by connecting the replacement PCI video
> card to a freestanding monitor.
>
> When I contacted the Compaq replacement parts distributor, I was informed
> that this PCI video card would cost $295, (obviously I have no intention of
> doing this).
>
> The design of this unit is elegant and I would love to have it functioning
> 100 percent. My main hope is that this card and the method by which it
> interfaces with the flat screen display is not totally proprietary and could
> be secured from some other source. I am not necessarily looking for the
> exact duplicate of this card and will accept anything that will drive the
> flat screen display.
>
> On the upper edge of the video card are 2 rectangular slots into which the
> thin data ribbon cable is plugged in. each of the two tabs on the ribbon
> cable appear to have 22 tabs.
>
> 1. Perhaps this is a standardized interface and I could easily secure a
> replacement PCI card if I knew where to look.
>
> 2. I have often seen video cards that have the capability to drive a
> separate device and maybe it would be possible to have a gender
> changer/adapter that would allow this LCD screen to be interfaced?

What can be gathered from this is the following:
1. It is definately a regular old pci device
2. Perhaps you can find some sort of adapter to make it dvi or vga.