FYI, aside from scsi2sd you have rascsi, bluescsi, zuluscsi, and you can reflash the firmware on a acard aec-7722 to a 7726 and hook up a harddrive to it or a sata to ide converter to the aec.

Just some more options for you to consider as harddrive replacement.

Very nice of you deciding to restore the machine, I had a similar one back in the day. It was a Compaq Deskpro, but can't tell which exact model. Mine had Pentium MMX 166, 64Mb Ram and Integrated S3 Graphics. I've got very good memories of it and also bad ones, the PC was stable and could handle any program I used with ease, but gaming performance was terrible. Honestly I wish I still had it, or at least knew what exact model and specs were, it was given away by my parents when it became obsolete in the mid 2000.
Only thing that was left of it is this WD 1GB IDE HDD, which it was taken out for an upgrade. So, good luck trying to get it working again, I'm looking forward to it.

If I can say my opinion, ditch the SCSI HDD and put an IDE HDD or something, it won't be as fast but surely will be quieter and more easy to configure. Cheers!

weedeewee wrote on 2023-04-10, 20:28:

FYI, aside from scsi2sd you have rascsi, bluescsi, zuluscsi, and you can reflash the firmware on a acard aec-7722 to a 7726 and hook up a harddrive to it or a sata to ide converter to the aec.

Just some more options for you to consider as harddrive replacement.

In the end, I decided to go with a CF to 40-pin IDE converter, because not having DMA/UDMA might hurt in the long run. As for the SATA2IDE converter, the main problem is, the BIOS won't even see drives larger than 4Gb, and finding a 4Gb SATA drive might be even harder than a 4Gb IDE drive. I even thought of an industrial disk on module, but those are known to conflict with primary/secondary configurations.

aaronkatrini wrote on 2023-04-10, 21:29:

Very nice of you deciding to restore the machine, I had a similar one back in the day. It was a Compaq Deskpro, but can't tell which exact model. Mine had Pentium MMX 166, 64Mb Ram and Integrated S3 Graphics. I've got very good memories of it and also bad ones, the PC was stable and could handle any program I used with ease, but gaming performance was terrible. Honestly I wish I still had it, or at least knew what exact model and specs were, it was given away by my parents when it became obsolete in the mid 2000.
Only thing that was left of it is this WD 1GB IDE HDD, which it was taken out for an upgrade. So, good luck trying to get it working again, I'm looking forward to it.

If I can say my opinion, ditch the SCSI HDD and put an IDE HDD or something, it won't be as fast but surely will be quieter and more easy to configure. Cheers!

Thanks, friend - that's exactly what I will do, if I can find a compatible IDE HDD (<4Gb), or go for an IDE CF adapter.

So here are the gut shots I promised. The internals were caked in dust, but nothing an old toothbrush and some isopropyl alcohol couldn't fix. Thankfully, all the electrolytic capacitors look healthy.

There's the Adaptec OEM SCSI adapter and a PCI modem installed on the backplane. I'm keeping both because I don't have anything to plug the holes on the case with at the moment.

Here's a closeup of the SCSI card:

VID UPGRADE CONN connectors on the motherboard. I think they take video memory upgrade daughterboards, but I haven't had luck in tracking one down. I mean, one with one M, one F connector, staggered.

The dumbest setup for a coin cell CMOS battery: microwelding it to connectors. Guess I'll have to take it out and solder a normal socket. Compaq, why?

Here's a link to the whole gallery

https://imgur.com/gallery/pkVbref

BR2335 is rechargeable lithium battery, give it some time, maybe it will hold some charge.

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2023-04-11, 11:51:

BR2335 is rechargeable lithium battery, give it some time, maybe it will hold some charge.

I'm not optimistic about that, because the computer hasn't been powered on since, I think, at least 1999.

But while consulting the manual, I found out there's an external battery header, so I might not need to modify the board after all. Here's the link:

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/30266/Compa … 0.html?page=121

The manual says the onboard battery gets disconnected when an external battery is connected to the board, and that makes me feel a lot better going forward, because I'm quite conservative about making non-reversible changes to old gear.

This looks compatible enough to me:
https://www.amazon.com/Rome-Tech-Battery-AM1H … 283&sr=8-3&th=1
(not an affiliate link)

But thanks for the advice.

I think I'll also replace the PSU fan with a Noctua and install one on front, add a dust filter as well as replace the old thermal paste of the CPU with a 0.5mm indium foil thermal pad for a permanent thermal solution.

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2023-04-11, 11:51:

BR2335 is rechargeable lithium battery, give it some time, maybe it will hold some charge.

I mean I've powered it on multiple times and even left it running for like 30 minutes (it POSTs fine, but doesn't boot without an HDD and I don't have the floppy disks yet). Each time I get the CMOS and clock errors, have to press F1 to save the settings, restart, and sometimes it holds the settings until I shut it down, and sometimes it just tells me the CMOS checksum is wrong and auto-adjusts itself.

I have almost the same Compaq DeskPro 2000 and mine battery still holds charge.
Try to search the external battery by Copmaq PN, I think it is 4.5V and you can use 3x1.5V AA/AAA batteries.

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2023-04-11, 13:57:

I have almost the same Compaq DeskPro 2000 and mine battery still holds charge.
Try to search the external battery by Copmaq PN, I think it is 4.5V and you can use 3x1.5V AA/AAA batteries.

I decided to follow your advice and leave the PC on for some more.

Lo and behold, you were right, friend! I restarted, and the CMOS error was gone! The date and time error is still there, but that's to be expected - I'd need to install a HDD and set up the diagnostic partition.

Thanks a lot! The battery is now fully operational.

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2023-04-11, 13:57:

I have almost the same Compaq DeskPro 2000 and mine battery still holds charge.
Try to search the external battery by Copmaq PN, I think it is 4.5V and you can use 3x1.5V AA/AAA batteries.
batt.jpg

Well, I guess I jumped to conclusions too early. Sometimes it works, sometime it doesn't, but it's still something. I'll keep it running overnight, see how it goes.

If anyone needs to restore a Deskpro 2000 with a dead hard drive, the latest BIOS/System setup Softpaq is this one:

SP16085.EXE "Compaq Personal Computer Diagnostics", 10.40 Rev A, English (US), December 07, 2000

I'm doing a full cataloging of Compaq SoftPaqs here:
A definitive guide to Compaq/HP SoftPaqs

It's an ongoing project, but you can give me a shout if you need something for a specific model.

The video chip is a Matrox MGA Mystique 220, with 2Mb SGRAM. There's an add-on board with 2Mb more. The part number is 007213-001, it is available on EBay, but quite expensive, tbh. Do not confuse with the other board available for Pentium I machines - the right board has staggered M/F connectors, not two M connectors.

The SoftPaq with the driver is either SP9568 or SP9569. Will confirm when I get the CF2IDE adapter and can actually boot the damn thing.

I discovered something quite curious.

My situation with the Compaq was: the CMOS battery was dead and the HDD wasn't registering with the SCSI controller.

So most of you should know that the setup and diagnostic utilities on many Compaq computers, including my Deskpro 2000, reside on a partition of the hard drive.

The SCSI controller requires correct PCI settings to function properly.

The CMOS battery dying has erased all of my BIOS settings. So the SCSI controller has stopped working properly. Which is the likely cause for the HDD not registering properly. Which prevents me from entering the BIOS setup and diagnostic utilities.

Seems like a terrible design decision by COMPAQ not to include at least a very basic setup utility on the BIOS ROM chip itself. But the SCSI HDD might be alive after all, although the plastic stoppers in old HDDs tend to turn to goo with age.

But, overall, this means the CMOS battery dying might force you to factory reset your computer with the recovery disks. Not exactly very user-friendly, is it.

Nice system, nice quest for recovery!

Here the photo of video-ram upgrade module from Compaq.
I have one 😀

Babasha wrote on 2023-04-29, 20:30:

Nice system, nice quest for recovery!

Here the photo of video-ram upgrade module from Compaq.
I have one 😀

Nice!

I found a couple online, but they were around $60, which raises the question, is additional 2Mb worth it, or not.

I'm planning to add a Voodoo 2 at some point because I really want to use the Matrox and I like the passthrough cable with a 3D-only card.

songoffall wrote on 2023-04-30, 08:23:

Nice! […]
Show full quote

Babasha wrote on 2023-04-29, 20:30:

Nice system, nice quest for recovery!

Here the photo of video-ram upgrade module from Compaq.
I have one 😀

Nice!

I found a couple online, but they were around $60, which raises the question, is additional 2Mb worth it, or not.

I'm planning to add a Voodoo 2 at some point because I really want to use the Matrox and I like the passthrough cable with a 3D-only card.

A year ago im recover Fujitsu D990 motherboard with integrated Matrox Mystique and add additional video-ram module. Onboard 2mb is not enough for my 17-inch monitor (and i like old matrox-supported games). One note if you install latest matrox drivers and get light glitches on you desktop - just turn OFF “device bitmap cache” in drivers properties. Microsoft drivers works OK.
I think we can find cheaper module 😉

Babasha wrote on 2023-04-30, 09:52:

songoffall wrote on 2023-04-30, 08:23:

Nice! […]
Show full quote

Babasha wrote on 2023-04-29, 20:30:

Nice system, nice quest for recovery!

Here the photo of video-ram upgrade module from Compaq.
I have one 😀

Nice!

I found a couple online, but they were around $60, which raises the question, is additional 2Mb worth it, or not.

I'm planning to add a Voodoo 2 at some point because I really want to use the Matrox and I like the passthrough cable with a 3D-only card.

A year ago im recover Fujitsu D990 motherboard with integrated Matrox Mystique and add additional video-ram module. Onboard 2mb is not enough for my 17-inch monitor (and i like old matrox-supported games). One note if you install latest matrox drivers and get light glitches on you desktop - just turn OFF “device bitmap cache” in drivers properties. Microsoft drivers works OK.
I think we can find cheaper module 😉

That would be quite awesome, because I can't imagine 2 megs doing more than 256 colors on a 17-inch 😀)

Yeh Compaq's whole BIOS on the HDD is what makes them kinda special, I don't like it much either but it is what it is and as long as you know about it then typically it doesn't cause toooooo many problems

2Mb is fine for dos and Windows GUI More may be nice for some windows games at higher resolutions but suspect the CPU may struggle at this point as well.