That uses a Western Digital WD90C24A2, yes?

Try SoftPaq SP0289 or SP0674. https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/archive/ftp.hp.com/ … aq/sp0501-1000/

If that doesn't work, maybe the generic Promise VGA driver works?

douglar wrote on 2025-11-09, 21:48:

That uses a Western Digital WD90C24A2, yes?

I don't think so.

Hmmm. It's probably built into the chip labeled "128959-003 ©1992 COMPAQ "

Can you boot off a floppy and run HWinfo16?

douglar wrote on 2025-11-09, 23:07:

Can you boot off a floppy and run HWinfo16?

Here you are

Whoa! OK, so it's in the AVGA / Qvision family

Good news is that it might have some 2d acceleration. Bad news is that finding drivers is hard.

You can find the softpaq for Qvision OS/2 drivers here: https://www.os2site.com/sw/drivers/video/misc/index.html

These are the latest QVision / AVGA family drivers for OS/2 2.X & 3.0 I have listed (v2.39)...they should support up to 1280x1024 at 256 colors / 64K color modes, depending on which chip is used

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2025-11-10, 06:28:

These are the latest QVision / AVGA family drivers for OS/2 2.X & 3.0 I have listed (v2.39)...they should support up to 1280x1024 at 256 colors / 64K color modes, depending on which chip is used

I installed these and they broke my OS/2 installation... luckily I made a CF card image

luRaichu wrote on 2025-11-10, 16:21:

I installed these and they broke my OS/2 installation... luckily I made a CF card image

Good luck with your adventure. Takes me back to 1992 when I was trying to make my speedstar 24x work under OS/2 2.0. So many crashes that required booting from floppy to fix.

I remember booting from a floppy to edit the config.sys to roll back changes, but that was a long time ago.

SP2747 will decompress itself onto three floppies.
When the INSTALL program is run from the first floppy, it will try and fail to perform a hardware check on this machine:

Then it will proceed to only install one file which will break OS/2.
EDIT: This isn't true. it'll install multiple things, but only from the first floppy, and it still breaks OS/2.

I did try installing SP0406 / qvision.zip from the os2site misc. video drivers page, but it also breaks OS/2. I don't think it's Warp compatible anyways.

If OS/2 can't show me 256 colors on this machine I'll have to downgrade to Windows 3.1

luRaichu wrote on 2025-11-11, 01:10:

SP2747 will decompress itself onto three floppies. When the INSTALL program is run from the first floppy, it will try and fail t […]
Show full quote

SP2747 will decompress itself onto three floppies.
When the INSTALL program is run from the first floppy, it will try and fail to perform a hardware check on this machine:

The attachment PA190133.JPG is no longer available

Then it will proceed to only install one file which will break OS/2.

I did try installing SP0406 / qvision.zip from the os2site misc. video drivers page, but it also breaks OS/2. I don't think it's Warp compatible anyways.

The attachment PA180132.JPG is no longer available

If OS/2 can't show me 256 colors on this machine I'll have to downgrade to Windows 3.1

Strange one, as the model is shown on the driver support list...

Suppose it might be worth trying some of the previous driver versions...

sp2747 (v2.39)

sp1395 (v2.30 Rev. A) - https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/archive/ftp.hp.com/ … 1500/sp1395.exe

sp1078 (v2.21) - https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/archive/ftp.hp.com/ … 1500/sp1078.zip

sp0964 (v2.20) - https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/archive/ftp.hp.com/ … 1000/sp0964.zip

Anything earlier than those don't support Warp.

Few other thoughts...

...did you apply the latest Warp FixPak diskset to the base OS install

...there's also an SVGA BIOS extension TSR app available here - https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/archive/ftp.hp.com/ … 2000/sp1728.exe

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2025-11-11, 17:03:

...did you apply the latest Warp FixPak diskset to the base OS install

No.

I tried SP1078 last night but it told me that I don't have a QVision controller.

SP1395 gave the same results as SP2747.

Installed FixPak 26.
SP0964 throws the same error as SP1078
SP2747 and SP1395 still break OS/2

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2025-11-11, 17:03:

...there's also an SVGA BIOS extension TSR app available here - https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/archive/ftp.hp.com/ … 2000/sp1728.exe

This will only work for DOS, not the Presentation Manager

I've ran some tests with several DOS / QBASIC programs, and I really don't think the laptop hardware supports 640 x 480 @ 256 colors.
It appears to adhere to IBM's original VGA standard, which only supports 256 colors in 320 x 200.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Graphics_ … ay#Capabilities

luRaichu wrote on 2025-11-13, 23:32:

I've ran some tests with several DOS / QBASIC programs, and I really don't think the laptop hardware supports 640 x 480 @ 256 colors.
It appears to adhere to IBM's original VGA standard, which only supports 256 colors in 320 x 200.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Graphics_ … ay#Capabilities

Maybe is like Contura Aero 4/25, that have 512kb vram, but only 256kb are accessible because SPC8108

The other 256k, Compaq says, is for the “pop-up thing when coming out of stand-by” and looks like LCD controller cant touch it.

You can see from the board pics that this laptop does have 512k of video memory. HWiNFO reports 512k while SciTech Display Doctor on Windows 3.1 says 256k (and that this video chip is not supported)