Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today

Sellers Image

Looks to be in amazing condition and I already have new main and CMOS batteries lined up for it with a processor downgrade to a PIII 600 (Has 1ghz model) it should be a super nice little DOS/Win98se machine, has a 20gb HDD, FDD, DvD Rw and 384mb of Ram, has an ESS sound card in it so should be perfect for DOS SB emulation. Not sure how the Radeon Mobility it has will do for DOS but it should fingers crossed but fairly compatible and the screen is XGA max 1024x768.

I see Mobile P3 CPUs that are 450mhz but I dont know if they will fit into the socket on this machine, 450 - 550 Mhz would be more in line with late DOS era machines. IT has PCMCIA ports so I might see if a CF to PCMCIA card will work with it.

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-16, 10:13:

Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today […]
Show full quote

Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today

Sellers Image

Looks to be in amazing condition and already have a new battery lined up for it with a processor downgrade to a PIII 600 (Has 1ghz model) it should be a super nice little DOS/Win98se machine, has a 20gb HDD, FDD, DvD Rw and 384mb of Ram, has an ESS sound card in it so should be perfect for DOS SB emulation. Not sure how the Radeon Mobility it has will do for DOS but it should fingers crossed but fairly compatible and the screen is XGA max 1024x768.

I see Mobile P3 CPUs that are 450mhz but I dont know if they will fit into the socket on this machine, 450 - 550 Mhz would be more in line with late DOS era machines. IT has PCMCIA ports so I might see if a CF to PCMCIA card will work with it.

Woow! This was my second laptop and I loved it! It's my all time favorite laptop!
Yours looks to be in a really good shape! It might have a Tualatin core CPU... Congrats for your purchase!

bearking wrote on 2021-12-16, 10:20:

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-16, 10:13:

Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today […]
Show full quote

Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today

Sellers Image

Looks to be in amazing condition and already have a new battery lined up for it with a processor downgrade to a PIII 600 (Has 1ghz model) it should be a super nice little DOS/Win98se machine, has a 20gb HDD, FDD, DvD Rw and 384mb of Ram, has an ESS sound card in it so should be perfect for DOS SB emulation. Not sure how the Radeon Mobility it has will do for DOS but it should fingers crossed but fairly compatible and the screen is XGA max 1024x768.

I see Mobile P3 CPUs that are 450mhz but I dont know if they will fit into the socket on this machine, 450 - 550 Mhz would be more in line with late DOS era machines. IT has PCMCIA ports so I might see if a CF to PCMCIA card will work with it.

Woow! This was my second laptop and I loved it! It's my all time favorite laptop!
Yours looks to be in a really good shape! It might have a Tualatin core CPU... Congrats for your purchase!

I wont know till I open it up for some love and care.

Im still trying to figure out what goes into the Multiport bay on the lid of it .. is it for Wireless cards ?

Yes, back then you could find bluetooth and wifi adapters... I had a bluetooth adapter

Intel got no multi control on PIII mobile? I 'member it was a kinda hyped feature on PentiumM so maybe it was new with that.

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-16, 10:13:

Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today […]
Show full quote

Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today

Sellers Image

Looks to be in amazing condition and I already have new main and CMOS batteries lined up for it with a processor downgrade to a PIII 600 (Has 1ghz model) it should be a super nice little DOS/Win98se machine, has a 20gb HDD, FDD, DvD Rw and 384mb of Ram, has an ESS sound card in it so should be perfect for DOS SB emulation. Not sure how the Radeon Mobility it has will do for DOS but it should fingers crossed but fairly compatible and the screen is XGA max 1024x768.

I see Mobile P3 CPUs that are 450mhz but I dont know if they will fit into the socket on this machine, 450 - 550 Mhz would be more in line with late DOS era machines. IT has PCMCIA ports so I might see if a CF to PCMCIA card will work with it.

If it's a socket 495 it should be good with a 450mhz chip.
But I read an "M" on the sticker, lowest is 733 (un less ultra low voltage 700). This makes it a socket 478 (or 479).

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-16, 10:13:

Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today […]
Show full quote

Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today

Sellers Image

Looks to be in amazing condition and I already have new main and CMOS batteries lined up for it with a processor downgrade to a PIII 600 (Has 1ghz model) it should be a super nice little DOS/Win98se machine, has a 20gb HDD, FDD, DvD Rw and 384mb of Ram, has an ESS sound card in it so should be perfect for DOS SB emulation. Not sure how the Radeon Mobility it has will do for DOS but it should fingers crossed but fairly compatible and the screen is XGA max 1024x768.

I see Mobile P3 CPUs that are 450mhz but I dont know if they will fit into the socket on this machine, 450 - 550 Mhz would be more in line with late DOS era machines. IT has PCMCIA ports so I might see if a CF to PCMCIA card will work with it.

I have the Pentium4 version of that laptop, the N610c. (I'm actually using it to type this.)
Here is the service manual, which also covers the N600c.
I can tell you for sure that the laptop is indestructible and will last forever. I've only ever had one problem with it, I dropped it from the desk onto the floor with the headphones connected and lost sound in the speakers. Solved by re-flowing the jack's solder.

EduBat

Nexxen wrote on 2021-12-16, 20:10:

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-16, 10:13:

Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today […]
Show full quote

Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today

Sellers Image

Looks to be in amazing condition and I already have new main and CMOS batteries lined up for it with a processor downgrade to a PIII 600 (Has 1ghz model) it should be a super nice little DOS/Win98se machine, has a 20gb HDD, FDD, DvD Rw and 384mb of Ram, has an ESS sound card in it so should be perfect for DOS SB emulation. Not sure how the Radeon Mobility it has will do for DOS but it should fingers crossed but fairly compatible and the screen is XGA max 1024x768.

I see Mobile P3 CPUs that are 450mhz but I dont know if they will fit into the socket on this machine, 450 - 550 Mhz would be more in line with late DOS era machines. IT has PCMCIA ports so I might see if a CF to PCMCIA card will work with it.

If it's a socket 495 it should be good with a 450mhz chip.
But I read an "M" on the sticker, lowest is 733 (un less ultra low voltage 700). This makes it a socket 478 (or 479).

Its the Pentium M so Ill hunt for the slowest I can find, the 1ghz version it comes with is a bit fast for DOS and 98.

EduBat wrote on 2021-12-16, 21:08:

I have the Pentium4 version of that laptop, the N610c. (I'm actually using it to type this.) Here is the service manual, which a […]
Show full quote

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-16, 10:13:

Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today […]
Show full quote

Bought this Compaq N600C Pentium III lappy today

Sellers Image

Looks to be in amazing condition and I already have new main and CMOS batteries lined up for it with a processor downgrade to a PIII 600 (Has 1ghz model) it should be a super nice little DOS/Win98se machine, has a 20gb HDD, FDD, DvD Rw and 384mb of Ram, has an ESS sound card in it so should be perfect for DOS SB emulation. Not sure how the Radeon Mobility it has will do for DOS but it should fingers crossed but fairly compatible and the screen is XGA max 1024x768.

I see Mobile P3 CPUs that are 450mhz but I dont know if they will fit into the socket on this machine, 450 - 550 Mhz would be more in line with late DOS era machines. IT has PCMCIA ports so I might see if a CF to PCMCIA card will work with it.

I have the Pentium4 version of that laptop, the N610c. (I'm actually using it to type this.)
Here is the service manual, which also covers the N600c.
I can tell you for sure that the laptop is indestructible and will last forever. I've only ever had one problem with it, I dropped it from the desk onto the floor with the headphones connected and lost sound in the speakers. Solved by re-flowing the jack's solder.

EduBat

Thanks !
I have the M version so I just hunt for the lowest I cant get.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-16, 08:39:

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-16, 08:13:

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-16, 07:52:

I also have an HD8650, right next to me right now actually. I have it marked as defective, though I can't remember what is wrong.

Any ideas on what to check on it first?

Is that one of the rebadged OEM models ? IIRC they didn't release any 8000 series to retail.

Interesting GPU to have.

That is one of the typo models 😁 It's actually an HD6950.

I have a Sapphire HD6970 that was my main GPU for five years, don't really know what to do with it now. It worked just fine when it was retired and it's been kept in its box ever since, so I'm sure it still works...

You can use SetFSB or another similar utility to shift the FSB of the CPU down. I believe SetFSB supports the Intel 830M chipset the N600c employs.

The N600c is probably one of if not the best Pentium 3 laptops ever sold IMO.

As for me, I spotted this ASUS CUSL2-C on eBay and tossed an offer at it immediately, winning. It's a Black Pearl edition which just has a different northbridge heatsink on it for some reason. It's one of only a few Pentium 3 motherboards which were sold which had a black PCB, the others being the Aopen AX6BC Pro II Millennium Edition which is unobtanium, or the AOpen AX3S models which have a lot of unnecessary features built on that I'd rather choose for myself with some snazzy black PCB expansion cards in a build.

Speaking of custom PCBs, didn't ABIT's ST6 come in a white variant as well?

PcBytes wrote on 2021-12-17, 07:19:

Speaking of custom PCBs, didn't ABIT's ST6 come in a white variant as well?

IIRC yes, pretty sure ive seen one (or one similar to it) on eBay that didn't work.

Just found a Freeway FW-6400GX / 150 Slot1 + Slot 2 board on eBay ...Slot 2 takes the PIII Xeons right ?

Im now wondering if I can shove one of the PIII Xeons I have in it, if so ..I might just buy it.

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-17, 07:42:

Just found a Freeway FW-6400GX / 150 Slot1 + Slot 2 board on eBay ...Slot 2 takes the PIII Xeons right ?

That sounds like a lot of fun. Let us know how it goes. I've never even looked at the Pentium 3 Xeon series.

Kahenraz wrote on 2021-12-17, 07:47:

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-17, 07:42:

Just found a Freeway FW-6400GX / 150 Slot1 + Slot 2 board on eBay ...Slot 2 takes the PIII Xeons right ?

That sounds like a lot of fun. Let us know how it goes. I've never even looked at the Pentium 3 Xeon series.

I have 4 PIII 700 Xeons sitting in storage from a pair of old Compaq servers along with 16 sticks of PC133 ECC Ram, so im hoping it works so I can test the CPUs, might keep two and sell the other two. Im curious if they can be overclocked and how much faster they are than normal PIIIs due to the extra cache.

Restoring the Highscreen AT with original parts, so the FIC VA-502 came in with only a few bent jumper pins.

Within days, the mighty (read: slow) Quantum Bigfoot will whir and rattle once again...

PD2JK wrote on 2021-12-17, 07:54:

Restoring the Highscreen AT with original parts, so the FIC VA-502 came in with only a few bent jumper pins. https://tweakers.ne […]
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Restoring the Highscreen AT with original parts, so the FIC VA-502 came in with only a few bent jumper pins.

Within days, the mighty (read: slow) Quantum Bigfoot will whir and rattle once again...

IIRC them quantum drives were notorious for failure, good to see this one still whirring.

PD2J wrote:

Within days, the mighty (read: slow) Quantum Bigfoot will whir and rattle once again...

When I learned about swap files in Windows when I was a kid and that I could enhance the overall system performance by moving it to its own dedicated drive I decided to use an old Quantum Bigfoot for this exact purpose.

I'm certain that doing this actually degraded performance as (I didn't know at the time) Bigfoot drives are known for their poor performance as a result of the massive platter size. I'm sure it felt faster anyways as a result of placebo. 😀