VOGONS


First post, by Rob Turbo

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This is a repair project that I REALLY owe my dad! In the early/mid 90's my dad got his first laptop, as the title would suggest, a Compaq LTE Lite 4/33C, complete with docking station. Whilst fighting with my younger brother we broke said laptop, breaking the hinges and tearing the ribbon cable to the screen. When I started on my latest retro trip my dad brought it up and still had it, I brought it home and set about repairing it.

So far I've repaired the ribbon cable and have plans for the hinges, but I'll get to those when it's going back together. Both the hard drive and floppy drive no longer work, I'll be replacing the hard drive with a CF card and adapter, the floppy drive on the other hand I'm a bit stuck with, the belt is no good, it was stuck to the pulleys, I freed it off but it's now too slack, I tried replacing it with an elastic band but it's still not right, I'm not sure if that's the only problem or if it needs more work, but first on the list is a replacement belt, is such a thing available anywhere?

As for the BIOS, it only has a list of hard drive "types", nowhere to manually specify the geometry, the largest drive on the list is a shade over 500mb, is there an updated BIOS that has the ability to change the drive geometry manually (or auto detect), or am I stuck at that limit? I have numerous chip programmers and a UV eraser if required.

How do I go about upgrading the docking station? It has two 5.25" drive bays and a cable for two 5.25" floppy drives, is there any way to add a 3.5" floppy or IDE hard drive?

Lastly, are there any specific drivers required? The trackball will need a driver, will a standard mouse driver work or does it need something specific?

Reply 1 of 18, by Rob Turbo

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A bit of progress on this, I bought another LTE Lite 4/33C as spares/repair from eBay and got quite a bit more than I was expecting, instead of one I was sent two (intentionally! if you're on here, thanks again!!), complete with cases, both have 8mb expansion cards (the one I already had only had a 4mb card), both have working hard drives with Windows 95 installed, I'll be making backups of both in case I need any drivers/software from them.

Both floppy drives seem to have suffered the same fate as the one I already have, I've only opened one of the laptops so far and it appears to have the same stuck and sagging belt. Before I got the new laptops I already tried shortening the original belt but no matter how much shorter I make it, it never gets enough grip on the driven pulley, it will spin fine with no disk but as soon as any load is applied the belt stops and the motor keeps going! I've still had no luck finding a supplier of replacement belts, plenty for Amstrad and Spectrum but they are too wide and I don't know if the length is anywhere near the same, I think I'm going to order a couple anyway and try cutting them down to size.

In one of the cases that came with the new laptops there was a couple of pages from the manual, one just explains how to swap the battery, the other says you can put a sound card in the docking station to connect speakers, microphone, joystick and CD ROM drive, I have a few ISA sound cards so I'll put one in and see if I can get a CD drive to work. As for fitting a 3.5" floppy drive into the docking station, I've read about an adapter for 5.25" ribbon cables to fit a 3.5" floppy drive, although I can't seem to find where to get one, the only mention I've seen is that they used to come with 5.25" to 3.5" bay adapters, I've also seen ribbon cables with both types of connector but they all seem to have a 3.5" type connector on the motherboard end, I think my next plan here is to crimp a 3.5" connector onto the 5.25" ribbon cable in the dock and see how far that gets me!

On to the BIOS and different hard drives, I read about Maxtor Maxblast, from what I can gather it installs EZ BIOS to the hard drive to bypass the BIOS limitations, I'm not sure how this works, it was mentioned in regards to upgrading the hard drive in an LTE Lite so I assume it's exactly what I'm looking for, although now I have two working hard drives it's slipped closer to the bottom of the list.

Both new laptops have broken hinges, one worse than the other but neither as bad as the one I started with, it's a really bad design for laptop hinges, two captive nuts either side, pressed into the plastic lid right at the hinge, with all that leverage on thin plastic it's no wonder they break so easily. I plan to make some supports that run along the sides of the lid that the hinges screw to, much like modern laptop hinges, my plans involve using the milling machine but that's currently set up for something else I'm working on so I'm probably going to end up with the laptops staying in pieces for quite a while, although they're not in any way designed to be easy to work on so staying in pieces is probably best at least until I have a definitive solution to the floppy drives not working.

Seeing as I now have more laptops than I know what to do with I'm thinking about cutting the bottom out of the hard drive bay on one to allow easy assess to a CF card or maybe remove the floppy drive and have a CF card accessible from the floppy disk slot. I'd like to use a floppy emulator but with the original drives not using the standard connector I wouldn't know where to start, if anyone does know where to start I can take photos or could even send a physical drive for someone to poke at, I'm in UK but they're small and light so I don't mind international postage if required.

Reply 2 of 18, by exs1s

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I have two of these Compaq LTE Lite laptops. One is a 4/25 that works flawlessly but has a broken screen, and a 4/33 which has a faulty fixed disk controller. Unfortunately, there are too many minor differences between them to change out the processor board and put it in with the working one. But the screen can be swapped so I have a working unit.

From what I've found there are two common faults. The most common is the floppy drive belt becomes brittle and snaps and is almost impossible to find a replacement. However, the drive itself is made by Citizen and there's an almost identical model that has an identical 2mm belt that fits nicely. I found one on eBay from a seller in Germany. The other fault I've found is the LCD hinges crack the back of the bottom casing. In this instance prevention is better than cure. To prevent this, make 100% sure the screws in the back are tight, but not over tight, and the keyboard screws are secure, again not over tight, as these also hold the main unit down.

I also have a full size LTE Lite docking unit which I've managed to get a 3.5" floppy drive for (which was very hard to find) and I've even managed to get a CD ROM working on in the secondary IDE connection. There's a little trick with this docking unit. Get a floppy drive. Only genuine compaq models work as you don't want to modify the cables in the docking station if you can avoid it. There's a switch on the back with A/B. This swaps the primary floppy drive to the docking station, making the one in the docking unit become A: drive, and you can then boot from that drive. It took me ages to work that out. Also, whilst you can install two IDE devices on the secondary IDE socket, the bios will not recognise anything that's not one of Compaq's predefined HDD types. But you can mask a drive using EZ-BIOS to trick the bios into thinking smaller drive. The bios is never going to recognise the CD drive, and you've got absolutely no chance of booting from the CD ROM. But there's a cool tool for getting the CD ROM working in DOS/Windows 3.1/Windows 95 called "CDROM GOD" which allows you to go through all the possible drivers - it takes an age, so give yourself a couple of hours, but it gets the drive going.

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Compaq LTE Lite
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I've noticed there's next to nothing online about the LTE series of laptops. Even Google appears to have forgotten about the LTE Lite series. There's a little about the earlier LTE386, and the later LTE Elite and LTE 5000 series, all of which have completely different parts to the LTE Lite. To add insult to injury, the non 4 LTE Lite models have a different black on white screen and no integrated trackball.

Despite that, I have managed to dig out quite a lot of information and drivers for the originally shipped Windows 3.1, but also Windows 95 which does run nicely on my 4/25 model with it's 120MB hard drive.

If anyone's interested, I have a PDF document that contains all the part codes, as well as a dropbox folder with drivers and utilities, which I'd be happy to share.

There's also a Facebook group dedicated to the Compaq LTE series: https://www.facebook.com/groups/260545191229736/

Last edited by exs1s on 2019-01-01, 16:26. Edited 1 time in total.

file.php?id=57163

Current Models:
LTE Lite 4/25
LTE Lite 4/33
LTE Elite 4/75
Deskpro 386s
Prolinea

Please also join my Facebook Group

Reply 3 of 18, by exs1s

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I've just re-read your two posts here and some other things sprung to mind.

Rob Turbo wrote:

As for the BIOS, it only has a list of hard drive "types", nowhere to manually specify the geometry, the largest drive on the list is a shade over 500mb, is there an updated BIOS that has the ability to change the drive geometry manually (or auto detect), or am I stuck at that limit? I have numerous chip programmers and a UV eraser if required.

I've tried absolutely everything. I've even got a BIOS update from 1996 that makes no difference, except it recognises a 3.5" drive correctly instead of always thinking it's a 5.25" drive. That's the only thing that it changed. I've even tried

Rob Turbo wrote:

How do I go about upgrading the docking station? It has two 5.25" drive bays and a cable for two 5.25" floppy drives, is there any way to add a 3.5" floppy or IDE hard drive?

Rob Turbo wrote:

In one of the cases that came with the new laptops there was a couple of pages from the manual, one just explains how to swap the battery, the other says you can put a sound card in the docking station to connect speakers, microphone, joystick and CD ROM drive, I have a few ISA sound cards so I'll put one in and see if I can get a CD drive to work. As for fitting a 3.5" floppy drive into the docking station, I've read about an adapter for 5.25" ribbon cables to fit a 3.5" floppy drive, although I can't seem to find where to get one, the only mention I've seen is that they used to come with 5.25" to 3.5" bay adapters, I've also seen ribbon cables with both types of connector but they all seem to have a 3.5" type connector on the motherboard end, I think my next plan here is to crimp a 3.5" connector onto the 5.25" ribbon cable in the dock and see how far that gets me!

Compaq offered a 3.5" drive and a 5.25" drive option for the docking station. They're the same drives as in the Compaq Deskpro 386. However, you can get a non-Compaq drive working but it will alway register as a 5.25" drive in the BIOS. But that's ok because MS-DOS sees it as a 1.44MB drive. To make this work, you can either add an 3.5" connector onto the ribbon cable or, as you said, you can get a 5.25" to 3.5" floppy drive adapter. You'll also need a 5.25" - 3.5" power adapter which are a few quid off eBay or Amazon.

I have a sound blaster card in mine. Works flawlessly.

Also, I have a EtherLink III card which gives me a 10 ethernet connection to the internet - only works on Windows 95 though 🙁

Rob Turbo wrote:

On to the BIOS and different hard drives, I read about Maxtor Maxblast, from what I can gather it installs EZ BIOS to the hard drive to bypass the BIOS limitations, I'm not sure how this works, it was mentioned in regards to upgrading the hard drive in an LTE Lite so I assume it's exactly what I'm looking for, although now I have two working hard drives it's slipped closer to the bottom of the list.

Yes, EZ-BIOS should work in theory. But I've not had time to do this as yet. Only works on Maxtor drives though. Try OnTrack Disk Manager for other drives. Word of warning: Be very careful about changing the internal hard drive as the controller is very sensitive and can easily fail. I'd only replace the internal hard drive if you have one of the ones listed in the BIOS. The Lite 4/* units do not support any modern CF adapters etc. And if they do, I've nver been able to make one work.

Rob Turbo wrote:

Seeing as I now have more laptops than I know what to do with I'm thinking about cutting the bottom out of the hard drive bay on one to allow easy assess to a CF card or maybe remove the floppy drive and have a CF card accessible from the floppy disk slot. I'd like to use a floppy emulator but with the original drives not using the standard connector I wouldn't know where to start, if anyone does know where to start I can take photos or could even send a physical drive for someone to poke at, I'm in UK but they're small and light so I don't mind international postage if required.

I would be very very interested if you get a CF card solution working, and what hardware you used.

EDIT: Here's some links I found that people may find useful:

This guy dismantled and reassembled one in 2 parts: part 1 and part 2
From the archive: Cybtonic's Page - Some Info & Driver Links
From the archive: How to dismantle the Compaq LTE Lite & more information
From the archive: How to run Linux on the LTE Lite

Last edited by exs1s on 2019-01-19, 12:02. Edited 2 times in total.

file.php?id=57163

Current Models:
LTE Lite 4/25
LTE Lite 4/33
LTE Elite 4/75
Deskpro 386s
Prolinea

Please also join my Facebook Group

Reply 4 of 18, by exs1s

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Here's how to get Compaq LTE Lite drivers.

compaq-logo-vogons.png
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compaq-logo-vogons.png
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Tip: This trick works for almost all older Compaq products.

1) The original Compaq driver/utility download page is in the archive. It's tricky to use, but this is what worked for me. Click here for the Compaq.com version and here for the HP.com version.

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1) Select your model and click Locate Software. I've chosen 4/33 as that's most relevant to me. It will take you to this page, which is also in the archive.

https://web.archive.org/web/19991104095546/ht … es/us/1_25.html

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2) Now click on the link in the Current Version column. That will take you to another page like this:

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Screen Shot 2019-01-01 at 18.52.43.png
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Fair use/fair dealing exception

3) Look in the box on the top right - you'll see English (US) and to the right of that a link that looks like this: SP1080.

4) Right click on the blue link and click Copy Link Location or Copy Link Address. Open notepad and pate the link into there. It will look something like this:

https://web.archive.org/web/19991109235125/ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/SP1001-1500/SP1080.exe

5) The part of this URL you're looking for is this bit. So extract ftp:// onwards from your link in notepad.

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/SP1001-1500/SP1080.exe

6) Change compaq to hp and make the whole lot lowercase because HP's server is now Linux, so case sensitive. You should end up with something like this. Obviously, the SP numbers will be different depending on which software / driver your downloading.

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp1001-1500/sp1080.exe

Paste the link into a browser and your driver will start to download.

(There's an alternative mirror here: ftp://ftp-boi.external.hp.com/pub/softpaq/ if that one disappears for any reason)

Remember, these are self-creating floppy images. And so you'll need to open them in MS-DOS and have some floppy disks handy.

P.S. Here's a quick link to the setup & diagnostics disk - 720K 3.5" Version* - 5¼ Inch Diskette Version * You'll have to pre-format a 3.5" disk to 720K to make this work. The original page which specifies these is here.

Have fun.

Last edited by exs1s on 2019-01-12, 16:48. Edited 3 times in total.

file.php?id=57163

Current Models:
LTE Lite 4/25
LTE Lite 4/33
LTE Elite 4/75
Deskpro 386s
Prolinea

Please also join my Facebook Group

Reply 5 of 18, by CkRtech

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Hey exs1s,

I don't know if the OP will return, but I just wanted to say thanks for your posts. I just acquired a Compaq LTE Lite 4/33C and am looking to get some information on it. It looks like the screen has lost a bit of its brightness. The backlight still works, but the screen itself seems to be a bit brighter at a slight angle rather then by looking directly at it. I suppose there could be some bad caps in the display, but I haven't done a teardown.

It looks like there is only one member in the Facebook group?

Displaced Gamers (YouTube) - DOS Gaming Aspect Ratio - 320x200 || The History of 240p || Dithering on the Sega Genesis with Composite Video

Reply 6 of 18, by exs1s

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It sounds like the backlight to me. Either that, or the logic board at the back of the left side of the screen. I would just replace the whole screen. The screen on a 4/25 and 4/33 (practically the same machine) is the SHARP LQ9D01C. There's a few on eBay including one brand new here and a few used here.

A word of warning. Be very very very careful when as much as even moving the LCD flex ribbon cable. Almost every one I've ever seen has been brittle. They barely flex and even when being careful, it's easy to break the copper inside. I've had to completely replace one with a custom made loom and it took 2 days. So be very careful.

file.php?id=57163

Current Models:
LTE Lite 4/25
LTE Lite 4/33
LTE Elite 4/75
Deskpro 386s
Prolinea

Please also join my Facebook Group

Reply 8 of 18, by exs1s

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Another, and arguably the bigest, problem with the Compaq LTE Lite 4/25 and 4/33c is the floppy drive.

The drive that comes with this machine is the Citizen V1DA-15B.

I have been informed that the Citizen V1D has the exact same size band which are readily available on eBay (here). So I've ordered 2 to see if they fit.

P.S. Anyone reading this that has an LTE 286/386, LTE Elite or LTE 5000 series, these models do not have a V1DA-15A drive.

I'll update this thread when I get them and have attempted to fit them.

file.php?id=57163

Current Models:
LTE Lite 4/25
LTE Lite 4/33
LTE Elite 4/75
Deskpro 386s
Prolinea

Please also join my Facebook Group

Reply 10 of 18, by Thermalwrong

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Make that the belt spinner turns freely - turn the drive upside down, put some a drop of lubricant on the bronze bearing and leave it for 2 minutes then clean it off. If the drive has a screw on the bottom for the drive spinner, you can use that to carefully turn it. Or if you have the drive open, try turning it gently to see that its moving without much effort. Also if you do have the drive open, a tiny bit of oil on the pinch roller's axle (then clean off) will help.

Getting the drive running freely should help, I certainly have more luck with getting drives functioning when all the moving parts turn without much friction. It could cause the belt to come off, but so could a belt that's too loose.

I've been making some 3d printed belts for various drives recently, maybe I should get hold of one of these V1D drives and share a working belt design for that. I really need to upload all the belt designs.
Over the last few days, I've printed belts for a Mitsumi D353F2 and for an EME279TC Toshiba drive that are both working well after much trial and error.

Reply 13 of 18, by exs1s

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wulp wrote on 2021-10-11, 19:50:

It's working!
Now searching to install a cf-card (hdd is dead..)

Do not even try and use a CF card IDE adapter. It will fry your HDD controller chip. Trust me on this. As I said in a post above, only ever use a HDD listed in the BIOS with a LTE Lite.

CF to IDE cards do work, however, with the Elite and 5000 series which both have a different HDD controller.

file.php?id=57163

Current Models:
LTE Lite 4/25
LTE Lite 4/33
LTE Elite 4/75
Deskpro 386s
Prolinea

Please also join my Facebook Group

Reply 14 of 18, by exs1s

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wulp wrote on 2021-10-02, 14:24:
Hi, I see your post is more than 2 years old. .. Did the belt for the V1D work for you? It keeps coming off for me. […]
Show full quote

Hi,
I see your post is more than 2 years old. ..
Did the belt for the V1D work for you?
It keeps coming off for me.

Same. It kept slipping off.

file.php?id=57163

Current Models:
LTE Lite 4/25
LTE Lite 4/33
LTE Elite 4/75
Deskpro 386s
Prolinea

Please also join my Facebook Group

Reply 16 of 18, by sanzocon

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First of all thanks a bunch to everyone in this thread for providing such a comprehensive bunch of information regarding Compaq LTE -line products ! 😀

Question though, regarding the CF to IDE adapters. Has anyone tried a certain adapter and could point towards a good option? I did order one CF to IDE adapter already, but will take a month or two till it arrives. Also decided to give a try to one SD to IDE adapter, but also waiting for it to arrive 😀

Will write my experiences using both here if anyone is interested.

Oh, and my system is LTE Elite 4/75CX(L)

"Patience is a virtue when ignorance is bliss" -Wise man

Reply 17 of 18, by exs1s

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Elite & 5000 series are safe to use a DF card with.

Do not try it with a "Lite" - it will be junk afterwards.

file.php?id=57163

Current Models:
LTE Lite 4/25
LTE Lite 4/33
LTE Elite 4/75
Deskpro 386s
Prolinea

Please also join my Facebook Group

Reply 18 of 18, by kleung21

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exs1s wrote on 2019-01-01, 19:02:
Here's how to get Compaq LTE Lite drivers. […]
Show full quote

Here's how to get Compaq LTE Lite drivers.

compaq-logo-vogons.png

Tip: This trick works for almost all older Compaq products.

1) The original Compaq driver/utility download page is in the archive. It's tricky to use, but this is what worked for me. Click here for the Compaq.com version and here for the HP.com version.

compaq-drivers-page.png

1) Select your model and click Locate Software. I've chosen 4/33 as that's most relevant to me. It will take you to this page, which is also in the archive.

https://web.archive.org/web/19991104095546/ht … es/us/1_25.html

Screen Shot 2019-01-01 at 18.46.22.png

2) Now click on the link in the Current Version column. That will take you to another page like this:

Screen Shot 2019-01-01 at 18.52.43.png

3) Look in the box on the top right - you'll see English (US) and to the right of that a link that looks like this: SP1080.

4) Right click on the blue link and click Copy Link Location or Copy Link Address. Open notepad and pate the link into there. It will look something like this:

https://web.archive.org/web/19991109235125/ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/SP1001-1500/SP1080.exe

5) The part of this URL you're looking for is this bit. So extract ftp:// onwards from your link in notepad.

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/SP1001-1500/SP1080.exe

6) Change compaq to hp and make the whole lot lowercase because HP's server is now Linux, so case sensitive. You should end up with something like this. Obviously, the SP numbers will be different depending on which software / driver your downloading.

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp1001-1500/sp1080.exe

Paste the link into a browser and your driver will start to download.

(There's an alternative mirror here: ftp://ftp-boi.external.hp.com/pub/softpaq/ if that one disappears for any reason)

Remember, these are self-creating floppy images. And so you'll need to open them in MS-DOS and have some floppy disks handy.

P.S. Here's a quick link to the setup & diagnostics disk - 720K 3.5" Version* - 5¼ Inch Diskette Version * You'll have to pre-format a 3.5" disk to 720K to make this work. The original page which specifies these is here.

Have fun.

Many thanks, this was infinitely helpful for me with the Compaq LTE ELite