HP Omnibook 5500CS - small screen on Windows 95 \ VOGONS

HP Omnibook 5500CS - small screen on Windows 95

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First post, by retropc999

Posted on 2024-10-07, 12:21

retropc999 Offline

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I bought this vintage laptop in outstanding condition, along with its original Samsonite case, printer, CD-ROM, and floppy disk (they are interchangeable).

In Windows 95, the window is smaller than the screen, and it shows some kind of error.

I tried to find the GPU drivers on the internet but couldn’t.

Where should I look?

Also, I’m curious why I can’t find other similar laptops for sale.

Thanks!

Reply 1 of 8, by dominusprog

Posted on 2024-10-07, 12:38

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There is no mention of the chip itself in the manual. What does the device manager say?

https://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/edwin/laptops/ … e/OB5500_fg.pdf

A-Trend ATC-1020 V1.1 ❇ Cyrix 6x86 150+ @ 120MHz ❇ 32MiB EDO RAM (8MiBx4) ❇ A-Trend S3 Trio64V2 2MiB
Aztech Pro16 II-3D PnP ❇ 8.4GiB Quantum Fireball ❇ Win95 OSR2 Plus!

Reply 2 of 8, by kixs

Posted on 2024-10-07, 12:57

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It's probably Chips and Technologies 65545 1MB VGA controller.

Visit my AmiBay items for sale (updated: 2025-10-29). I also take requests 😉
https://www.amibay.com/members/kixs.977/#sales-threads

Reply 3 of 8, by MAZter

Posted on 2024-10-07, 12:57

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I wouldn't buy one like that regardless of the condition, with passive matrix

try one from Toshiba, Chips&Tech 65548:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220531000546/ht … ds/ct48pw95.exe

Doom is what you want (c) MAZter

Reply 4 of 8, by retropc999

Posted on 2024-10-07, 16:27

retropc999 Offline

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User error or not, the laptop is now using its full display. I just changed the display resolution to 800 x 600, I think.

Before this resolution, I tried 1024, and it looked awful—worse than 640 x 480—so that's why I thought the GPU drivers were bad.

So everything is good now.

I like the laptop very much, even with its passive matrix display.

What I don't get is why there are none for sale. 🤔

Reply 5 of 8, by MAZter

Posted on 2024-10-07, 16:45

MAZter Offline

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retropc999 wrote on 2024-10-07, 16:27:

What I don't get is why there are none for sale. 🤔

No one?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256434853989

Doom is what you want (c) MAZter

Reply 6 of 8, by retropc999

Posted on 2024-10-07, 16:47

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Ok, just one that is broken. 😀

Reply 7 of 8, by konc

Posted on 2024-10-07, 16:55

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I don't know if that's the case with this specific laptop, but there are mobile graphics chips and screens of that era that don't scale, not a windows/drivers issue. Try a DOS game for example with a resolution of less than 800x600 to see if it fills the whole screen.

I say "mobile" because they don't make sense unless you know the paired screen, but some of them like the Virge MX/MX+ (86C260/86C280) found their way into desktop cards

Reply 8 of 8, by kixs

Posted on 2024-10-08, 06:29

kixs Offline

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Also check in BIOS for video scaling. Some laptops even have a dedicated Fn key to stretch to full screen - it usually doesn't look good 🤣

But you can always connect it to external monitor (CRT preferably). In the 90s even active matrix LCDs were pretty bad.

Visit my AmiBay items for sale (updated: 2025-10-29). I also take requests 😉
https://www.amibay.com/members/kixs.977/#sales-threads

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