Help me fix my laptops. . .cuz' i am stinking broke . . . i owe my roommate 600 bux, and my mastercard another 600

[uhlee81]

Yeah so my title states . . .I be po' right now.
(curse you, online shopping!)

Anyway, i am a college student and i need to do research while away from school.

1)
I have a compaq presario 1700. Everyitng works except the screen (i know this because i hooked up the s-video out to my tv and i can use everyhing fine from there). The screen just shows a bunch of random vertical lines (not really of anything just single color lines and dark spaces), i thought maybe its a bad connection to the monitor, so if someone could tell me how to open the thing up and get to there i would appreciate it (i took off like every friggin screw and i still couldn't make it to it!)

2.)
I have another generic computer. Basically, i could use this except the floppy, cdrom, and modem don't work. I need to install java on it for programming purposes, but i have no way of doing it. I have a network card but it can't be installed (using windows 98). Bascially, i figured out a way to transfer the required driver for the ethernet card via the infrared, but then i sorta hit a dead end, cuz the installation of the driver required windows 98 cdrom! Any suggestions onto how i can get this installed would be appreciated! (i tried a usb floppy to install the driver first, but that didn't work, so i am not sure if i a usb cd rom drive would work)

Thanks for all your help, i suppose if you wanted to sell me a laptop really, really stinking cheap i could buy it from you, but this isn't really the right forum for that!

 

[DaiShan]

for your second problem: you probably have the win98 cabs installed on that machine no? when it asks for the win98 cd navigate to your cabs directory (it is normally pretty obviously named, and should reside out in the open on your primary hdd. for your first problem I know on my laptop at least there is a plastic peice covering the hinge between the laptop and the screen, gently pry this off this will give you access to the screws that hold the lcd in place, hopefully that is just a bad connection, but it sounds to me like it may be a bad lcd (big bucks)

 

[uhlee81]

Thanx for the advice, when i get home today, i will give it a try (as far as the lcd goes).
For the second one, I have some of the required files, but i don't seem to have everything i need (this is also windows 98, not 98 se!). But, I will poke around my harddrive and see what i can find!

 

[ojai00]

Maybe you can set up a USB (if you have one) or parallel network (from the old days) and transfer the files over that way?

 

[hans007]

the inverter on the lcd could be broken. the display itself probably isnt bad.

 

[uhlee81]

. . .how would i fix an inverter on the lcd?

 

[DaiShan]

yes hans is the laptop king! BTW Hans, could you post that link to the site you made about changing the laptop cpu, I think the visual may help him get that hinge cover off (helped me at least)

 

[hans007]

you dont fix an inverter, you buy a new one. its possible the wire going up to it is just bad or something. you might have other problems who knows. i had a 1700 for a few days, i didnt really like it though. to open it, there are 2 screws at the bottom, and then the plastic thing above the keyboard pops off. under the keyboard is a heat spreader, that can be removed, CPU can be replaced. it should be easier to get at the inside stuff with the keyboard removed btw. there are a lot of things that can make your screen do that. But the only time i had something like that was when i tried to put a tft screen on a laptop with a dual scan display and didntchange out the circuit board that the lcd connected to. i'm not actually sure if thats the inverter but its some sort of lcd control board. yeah thats right, the inverter usually just provides power to the backlight and is inside the lcd bezel while this board would be outside. i wouldnt know 100% though. on the HPs that board is removeable, dont know about compaq. you might want to get a laptop repair place to help you. jschuk here works at one, and he's a compaq certified service person i think .. so maybe email him, i dont know

 

[uhlee81]

Thanks let me give it a try . . . after my midterm tomorrow