Nice little laptop. Can you just reflow the solder joints or do you think the socket needs to be replaced?

Close inspection of the socket reveals it to be structurally sound, so it just seems like the solder gave out. Seeing it from the top, there's not much in the through holes. I haven't tackled it yet, I'm still trying to figure out where my 40W iron is, because a lot of power is needed because of ground and power planes. First thought was to squirt glue under the socket for additional strength, but should the mechanics of the socket give out, then it would become a bugger to change and might damage board... so I think I will glue a block alongside it.

Some waffle about plans, crossing fingers this resurrects it... This is gonna be a fast-ish late DOS machine I think. I believe I can get the S3 working in windows 3.11... ESS Solo, mayyyybe. Things I like are it has good keyboard feel, two SODIMM sockets, seems to have 64MB in, will give it a twin for 128, which should be plenty. It has two PCMCIA/Cardbus, one either side, so they don't get in the way of each other! .... one gets in the way of the floppy.... one gets in the way of the optical.... nah it should be somewhat fine as they tend to bloat upwards not downwards. One of them is going to need to take a NIC of some sort. Hoping the 6GB HDD works, I am already short of PATA 2.5" annnnd have been having horrible luck getting any, like twice I thought I could buy several at once in recent weeks, but they fell through on various counts. That's talking in cheapskate mode though, could probably have as many as I like at $50 a pop.

If it's just cracked solder then reflowing the connections should be all you need. If you can get the proper hardware drivers for win 3.11 then I'd say it would make a fine mobile gaming system.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-24, 20:20:

In mine I found a 433 Mendocino Celeron, S3 86C280, and ESS Solo ES1946S ...

Hopefully this bump isn't grave digging. I just found a 400MHz DeskNote Lite 5100CS myself, and wanted to put all my questions and details in this thread so everybody else can find them, too. Mine is not branded "Eurocom", but it dosen't matter. It's the exact same unit as you have and made in Taiwan.

BitWrangler, did you just use basic video, sound and chip-set drivers you found off the net? I've found the index for the 5100CS on archive.org (https://web.archive.org/web/20060323182709fw_ … 00c_drivers.htm), but sadly the archive hasn't archived any of the files! Bummer.

Stuff done so far:
The OG hard drive was puny, so I found another 15GB Toshiba IDE drive to throw in. It's supported by the BIOS as an LBA disk. I cleaned and reinstalled the CPU with new thermal paste, and the fan kicks in in DOS every once in a while, venting out some decently toasty air out the side. The keyboard on the top right gets warm to the touch but I think that's fairly normal.

Problem with my optical drive:
my DVD-rom unit dosen't work. I believe it's because the plastic interface cable between the motherboard and the DVD drive has started to disintegrate. The drive gets power but is not recognized in the BIOS, during POST, or after booting up to DOS or Windows. I'll try an attach a picture of the cable, but it's very hard to see a break. It looks as though some of the traces - perhaps data lines? - have now disintegrated next to the drive-side compact ATA connector. I'll get some sewing needles and a continuity tester out soon to confirm. If I'm right, I wonder how the heck I'll be able to fix this? I doubt this connector is common enough that I can just get a new or generic one off AliExpress and friends, but we'll see...

Awesome, seems they might have worn several brand names apart from Eurocom.

Mine has figuratively been on ice at the bottom of the deep freeze. A relative died soon after I "got into it" and there was the months of interruption with family business to sort out, and then every time I swung back to it for quite a while it would just make me sad reminding me of that time. By the time that faded, like in the past year, other stuff just keeps stealing my retro time, so it's pencilled into the schedule to get back to.

I know I collected up another HDD and some more RAM to go into it, but not sure I did much past this post, emergencies have the annoying habit of wiping everything I was thinking about for the week or so beforehand out of my brain. So unfortunately, no further info available at this end yet. So just can wish you good luck with yours and hope you manage to find the right drivers etc.

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-10-03, 21:56:

Awesome, seems they might have worn several brand names apart from Eurocom.

was yours branded 'Eurocom' on the case or on the bottom on the product label? Mine just has an oval embossed sticker on the top that says "Notebook". 🤣.

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-10-03, 21:56:

A relative died soon after I "got into it"

My condolences. That's rough. Wishing you well.