I did not mean again... 😀 Sometimes my english isn't the best and I add words...
But had some luck, windows 95 is installing. It seems unplugging the cmos battery and plugging it in again did the trick. I hope anyway.
I have ordered a new one just in case, cr2032 3v .

I was gonna say it might have been spurious bits in the unused bits of CMOS RAM doing weird stuff, which I have come across on a number of systems. But I worry it comes across like a conspiracy theory, as there's no way to check, but clearing CMOS fixes it.

Since installing Windows 95 using the compaq setup disc from archive.org and later upgrading to Windows 98 everything is still working even if I power it off. I have not physically moved and have had the power cable connected to it. I think/hope the problem is solved now.

Well my Armada 1750 arrived today and had a nice surprise, it was an actual Compaq Company Asset, even has the gold asset tag still on it, even better the battery still holds a full charge. The whole machine in general is in excellent condition and Ive already loaded it up with Dos 6.22 and Win 3.11/Win95 along with a beavy of games. Had to partition the drive into 3 2Gb drives and one tiny 44Mb partition which I threw the BIOS config utility onto along with a full backup of DOS and Windows.

Not sure if the previous owner upgraded it but its got the full amount of ram the 1750 supports but the drive is only a 6gb model .. might look into upgrading it but since its never going to be running more than Win95 its not a terrible drive size. Its a 366 PII with the 13 inch screen, ATI Rage GPU, ESS sound card and PCMCIA Ethernet, all round its going to be a great little DOS rig !

Edit - Just noticed it has an Industry Canada asset tag on it too, makes me curious about the history of this little laptop.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-07-17, 10:21:

Well my Armada 1750 arrived today and had a nice surprise, it was an actual Compaq Company Asset, even has the gold asset tag still on it, even better the battery still holds a full charge. The whole machine in general is in excellent condition and Ive already loaded it up with Dos 6.22 and Win 3.11/Win95 along with a beavy of games. Had to partition the drive into 3 2Gb drives and one tiny 44Mb partition which I threw the BIOS config utility onto along with a full backup of DOS and Windows.

Not sure if the previous owner upgraded it but its got the full amount of ram the 1750 supports but the drive is only a 6gb model .. might look into upgrading it but since its never going to be running more than Win95 its not a terrible drive size. Its a 366 PII with the 13 inch screen, ATI Rage GPU, ESS sound card and PCMCIA Ethernet, all round its going to be a great little DOS rig !

Edit - Just noticed it has an Industry Canada asset tag on it too, makes me curious about the history of this little laptop.

Cool, sounds like you have a maxed out version. The only thing I think this laptop lacks is the 640x480 native screen resolution. And in my case it has this wierd sound problem I never got around to fixing. I actually bought one of the lower spec 15XX systems for pennies in hope of swapping the sound board but it was not a match. I also ordered some kind of noise reducer from amazon a few months ago but it never arrived now that I think about it..

Joakim wrote on 2023-07-23, 18:41:

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-07-17, 10:21:

Well my Armada 1750 arrived today and had a nice surprise, it was an actual Compaq Company Asset, even has the gold asset tag still on it, even better the battery still holds a full charge. The whole machine in general is in excellent condition and Ive already loaded it up with Dos 6.22 and Win 3.11/Win95 along with a beavy of games. Had to partition the drive into 3 2Gb drives and one tiny 44Mb partition which I threw the BIOS config utility onto along with a full backup of DOS and Windows.

Not sure if the previous owner upgraded it but its got the full amount of ram the 1750 supports but the drive is only a 6gb model .. might look into upgrading it but since its never going to be running more than Win95 its not a terrible drive size. Its a 366 PII with the 13 inch screen, ATI Rage GPU, ESS sound card and PCMCIA Ethernet, all round its going to be a great little DOS rig !

Edit - Just noticed it has an Industry Canada asset tag on it too, makes me curious about the history of this little laptop.

Cool, sounds like you have a maxed out version. The only thing I think this laptop lacks is the 640x480 native screen resolution. And in my case it has this wierd sound problem I never got around to fixing. I actually bought one of the lower spec 15XX systems for pennies in hope of swapping the sound board but it was not a match. I also ordered some kind of noise reducer from amazon a few months ago but it never arrived now that I think about it..

There is a PII 400 model with 14.1 XGA panel IIRC but I have never seen the XGA version.

There is also a LS 120 drive and DVD Rom for it too, I just bought the LS 120 for mine and am searching for the dvd for it too.

Eventually I will get a 400 CPU and dock for it.

Hey ho guys. I joined this form just so that I can make a post about my Armada 1750. I took out the 8GB IDE drive that it came with and have bought a PATA to SD card adapter (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07QNB6QLC?psc … ob_b_asin_title) wanting to put a 64GB card in. And I can't get Win 98 and XP on the same hard drive on different partitions.

The adapter installs and fits perfectly. I can't pop the SD card out without having to unplug it, which I don't really like. But I think I'll replace it with a micro card in the future. I can get Win 98 SE2 to install no problem. It even sees the large partition without doing anything to it, which is surprising to me. The problem is when I try to install Win XP SP3. The installation process only sees a 8GB size partition, and formating it formats it all and I loose my Win 98 install. If I go with XP first, it still only sees 8GB and it installs. It also won't proceed without the install formatting it. I've tried fdisk, sdisk, and xfdisk but no matter what I do the install insists on formatting it to move forward. And once I get it installed the machine chugs so slowly. Like it shouldn't be going this slow. And when I try to create a large size partition, Win XP crashes with a blue screen. If I make two 4GB partitions, it sees those two. So if I install XP on drive D: I can't expand C: because the unpartition space is to the right of D: And C: is where I want all of my space to be for everything Win 98/DOS based.

I have done a lot of digging, and have found the BIOS software. Archive.org has a Windows 95 and BIOS Rescue CD. So I'm using Macrium Reflect to image my partitions (which by the way, if anyone knows of a better software to use, I'm all ears. I really hate the proprietary MRIMG image filetype they use, but anywho), so I have the BIOS software partition, and I can put it infront of any image on a hard drive so that the machine sees it and boots it. But I'm not seeing where I can turn off AHCI setting anywhere. I have also tried downloading and burning Win XP ISOs with SATA drivers already slipstreamed off of Archive.org (once again, great resource) and that doesn't seem to make any difference either.

It sucks because I only need Win XP for one floppy image burning software. Cause everything else is my retro DOS laptop. Does anyone here have any experience with this and might have an idea? Cause I'm just about at the end of my rope, as I'm running out of ideas. Thanks for reading guys.

XP release version is a fat ungainly pig as far as this hardware is concerned, only smoothing out with about 500mhz CPU and 256MB RAM, XP3 gets fatter and ungainlier and really wants 1Ghz and 512MB to be anywhere near comfortable to use. So yah, however you get it on there, it's going to be a thrashy pain in the ass. If you were stuck with the 8GB, I'd say use XP initial release version and give it a bare minimum 2GB.

However, there should be a BIOS around somewhere in a softpaq that takes HDD support up to 27GB or so from the earlier 8GB limit because later models offered a 12GB HDD..

For lack of frustration going forward though, I'd recommend either using a floppy imager that runs on 98SE or picking a Pentium 4 system up off a curb or cheap at a thrift store for running XP stuff on.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-12-24, 15:04:

So yah, however you get it on there, it's going to be a thrashy pain in the ass. If you were stuck with the 8GB, I'd say use XP initial release version and give it a bare minimum 2GB.

However, there should be a BIOS around somewhere in a softpaq that takes HDD support up to 27GB or so from the earlier 8GB limit because later models offered a 12GB HDD..

For lack of frustration going forward though, I'd recommend either using a floppy imager that runs on 98SE or picking a Pentium 4 system up off a curb or cheap at a thrift store for running XP stuff on.

So I should use the first XP release. But doesn't that have problems with SATA drivers too? Unless I could find Compaq SATA drivers anywhere to put in the root of a floppy to press F6 or even slipstream them, I can't seem to find them anywhere. Any help in that department would be greatly appreciated.

I guess I don't have the most up to date Softpaq BIOS. The one I alluded to above was the Compaq Quickrestore System Recovery (found at https://archive.org/details/compaq_quickresto … 100_40212100295). Would you happen to have a link for a more up to date version? If I can do that, maybe I could open up to install on a small 2GB D: drive, with a larger C: drive.

It sucks that my floppy burning software works in Win 98, but the drivers for the software only works in XP 😕

I used to own a 1530DM. It was weaksauce with neomagic video chip, but I recall that it could run NT4 like a boss (with caveats about the pcmcia slots), and could somewhat ok with win2k.

Ok, so I have found a piece of software that does the same thing that works for Windows 98, so I don't need XP anymore *wipes his brow* man, cause that was a huge headache. But now I can use the IDE SD card adapter with DOS and Win98 at it's full 64GB compasidy 😁 I also don't need to mess with the BIOS anymore. But for anyone coming in later to read this, does anyone here know the latest BIOS version and where it might be found? I also need to be careful because the plastic on my laptop is cracking. The two hinges on my monitors have already caved 😭 Looks like I'll be making a Lego back frame to keep it up. Thanks guys.

Personally, I'd have just used ezbios with the low mem relocation utility.

2gb is the fat16 limit, with 8gbbeing the usual lchs limit that needs broken. 48bit lba is needed for disks larger than 128gb, and for that you need at least win2k with 48bit atapi.sys. (system drive cannot be that size though!)

EZBios should get you the large disk support you need, and play nice with win9x.

wierd_w wrote on 2023-12-27, 04:11:

2gb is the fat16 limit, with 8gbbeing the usual lchs limit that needs broken. 48bit lba is needed for disks larger than 128gb, and for that you need at least win2k with 48bit atapi.sys. (system drive cannot be that size though!)

EZBios should get you the large disk support you need, and play nice with win9x.

EZBios huh? I just did some digging and wasn't able to find it. Would you happen to have a link for it?

I think this laptop is too slow for XP tbh. Not really sure why you'd need it.

I was poking around with a T42P this holliday and I had a lot fo trouble installing xp. Seems the NT loader inserts itself on top of the xp partition and sucks its life out of it.

Anyway, I realized installing xp from inside of windows 98 was a somewhat painless activity. Just click in the option to select your harddive during the install process. Pretty much plug and p(r/l)ay.

Joakim wrote on 2023-12-27, 18:40:

I think this laptop is too slow for XP tbh. Not really sure why you'd need it.

Yeah, I did notice that when I did have it installed, it chugged as slow as the Dallas traffuc circle. I'm good with not using it, I only needed it for one floppy burning program.

Joakim wrote on 2023-12-27, 18:40:

Anyway, I realized installing xp from inside of windows 98 was a somewhat painless activity. Just click in the option to select your harddive during the install process. Pretty much plug and p(r/l)ay.

Yeah, I did some experiments with Virtual PC 4 to try to install WinXP. However the install needed 64GBs of EAM, and that's the max that my laptop has. So it would either pause itself or just plain freeze. I think I'm fine with what I have, but I would like to have the latest BIOS released for it, if anyone knows the version.

Sowden wrote on 2023-12-27, 18:19:

wierd_w wrote on 2023-12-27, 04:11:

2gb is the fat16 limit, with 8gbbeing the usual lchs limit that needs broken. 48bit lba is needed for disks larger than 128gb, and for that you need at least win2k with 48bit atapi.sys. (system drive cannot be that size though!)

EZBios should get you the large disk support you need, and play nice with win9x.

EZBios huh? I just did some digging and wasn't able to find it. Would you happen to have a link for it?

EZ-bios is the overlay for EZ-drive. The version on phil's is limited to FAT16 for booting, sadly.

This version in vogons driver lib, does though.
the 'relocation' program found in older versions DOES work with newer ones. I've tested it. The relocation driver is called ezmem.sys, and is found on 9.03w's diskette.

http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 900&menustate=0

Ontrack DiskManager does the same thing and has fat32 booting support, but eats more conventional memory.

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ontrack-disk-manager.html

Note Win95 only supports fat16 partitions.
win98(se) supports fat32. 'large disk support' is win98's way of saying 'fat32'.

wierd_w wrote on 2023-12-28, 23:06:

EZ-bios is the overlay for EZ-drive. The version on phil's is limited to FAT16 for booting, sadly. […]
Show full quote

EZ-bios is the overlay for EZ-drive. The version on phil's is limited to FAT16 for booting, sadly.

This version in vogons driver lib, does though.
the 'relocation' program found in older versions DOES work with newer ones. I've tested it. The relocation driver is called ezmem.sys, and is found on 9.03w's diskette.

http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 900&menustate=0

Ontrack DiskManager does the same thing and has fat32 booting support, but eats more conventional memory.

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ontrack-disk-manager.html

Note Win95 only supports fat16 partitions.
win98(se) supports fat32. 'large disk support' is win98's way of saying 'fat32'.

Thanks for pointing those out. I tried giving the first one a try. It deleted my booting system, which I've been using Plpbt, and I ran into a wall once it asked me for the Windows 95 Install floppies. Which... I don't have enough blanks to write all of those out to, 🤣. Its fine though, I am happy with Windows 98, and I don't need any more.

I am afraid that I have ran into another problem though. I had a old Belkin Wireless G Notebook Card laying around, and I wanted to te\ry to connect wirelessly to the internet. But when I plugged it in and installed drivers, I found that it wouldn't find the device properly. The machine found a PCI Device Card, but it wouldn't work properly. Then I noticed that the LED lights on the card weren't on at all, and it was fully plugged in. Does this mean that the power has been disabled to the PCI card slot ? Is this something thats regulated through the BIOS? I've looked around and I couldn't find anything. Anyone might have an idea on this one? I am going to try different card, but it will be some time before that happens. Thanks guys.

Under 98, I think the only "G" wifi card we've heard of working is early revisions of the Linksys Airplus G, many "B" cards seem to work though but only basic level security works.

Not exactly, there's an interesting thread out there on the interwebs about this topic.

There are indeed some versions of the broadcomm chipset driver/software that support WPA2 on win9x, but it is very hit and miss which devices are actually supported.

(This thread is mirrored kinda poorly (page 1 not captured!), but covers the topic pretty extensively.)

https://web.archive.org/web/20210105182120/ht … dows-9x/page/2/

The short version:
There are several "universal" wifi connection apps that support WPA2 for win9x, one of which is Funk Software's Odyssey client. It is buyware, and needs a license key. --Good luck. I can confirm from the TRIAL VERSION that it does in fact work.
You will need a driver that supports that mode. Quite a few do in fact do so, and are documented in that thread.

Got another 1750 for my collection, this one appears to have the 1024x768 panel judging from the quality of the screen shots. I have two other 1750s both in working condition but neither of them has the 1024 panel but one does have the LS 120 super drive. I plan to move the super drive to this new one if it has the bigger panel and perhaps drop a bigger HDD in it, the other two machines will then essentially become spares machines for this one as its in excellent condition. The battery in this one is also holding a charge which is rather unusual and has been well cared for by the previous owner.

The Bundle also includes a bunch of bigbox games that will find a place on the display shelf.

Nice bit of kit and Im happy to add it to my other working machines.