Topic: GPa's new computer project.

[Ken (OP)]

As many of you already know I started working in electronics and computers way back in the late 50's... some of which was mentioned in This Topic where I talked about my experiences with the DOD.
So during all those years I've worked in (yes in) and around all kinds of computers but never had any exposure to laptop PC's at all.

Well that began to change in April of '08 when we had the Hamrick Family Reunion 2008 when I rented one to take to the reunion. In the week that it was used it worked out great, except for the day of the reunion when I could not get pictures downloaded from everyone's camera which was the whole point in having a laptop on hand!

So after that missed opportunity I wanted to get one so that when another big family event came up I could be ready. Back in June of this year GMa Kay got me one of those nice Acer 9" Netbooks and it works great but an actual full sized Notebook would be nice, trouble is, they cost big bucks!

And then along came Brian from Joel's shop! Brian has this 15" Compaq that he's been using, but it had quit working so he buys a new Dell and gives the Compaq over to me!
Now all I have to do is get this clunker to work.  :disted:

So far it was finally able to boot up into the desktop and I was able to save a few of Brian's files off to a DVD, but it's still having issues with restarts and running, plus it won't connect to the internet, so it's going to need something fixed. Currently I'm thinking maybe the hard drive is going out, but I'm trying to load up a fresh copy of Windows Vista to see if that helps.

More detail later.  :up2some:

[Skhilled]

Give me the specs on it. I assume the restarts might be due to overheating. However, make sure you update the BOIS and all hardware drivers. Sometimes that will make it restart.

Do you have a portable net card or is it on-board? You might want to get a usb card and see if that works.

[Ken (OP)]

The specs:
It's a Presario F700
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core TK-55 1.80 GHz
Ram 1 GB
Windows Vista Home Premium

Here's an update:
As mentioned, it finally loaded and I was able to save most of Brian's data, mostly MP3's.

It was still doing poorly when booting up and then when trying to do the copying of files, mostly because of lack of free space I think, because the 103 GB hard drive only had about 13GB free. So, once I had copied off the files to DVD I started to delete or uninstall everything that wasn't absolutely needed to run and it got a little better, but it was still having problems so I'm thinking, "Reload!"

On the first try I reloaded Vista and that didn't work out very well because there was no control panel and other minor stuff was buggered up so I'm thinking it must be XP time!

XP loaded and worked OK, but still no internet because of missing drivers so it's back to Vista.
This time everything seems to work OK and it will connect to the net using the LAN, but still no wireless. Surely this PC has a wireless, but it's not showing up anywhere in the hardware so I've gotta go online to see what the specs are for that.

More detail later.

[Skhilled]

Yeah, the lack of space will cause problems.

When you loaded XP why didn't you just go to the HP site and get them? Also, you might need a wireless card. Not all laptops have them onboard. However, you should be able to look up the specs at HP support.

Also, 1GB ram is not going to work very well with Vista. Even XP should have 2-4GB.

[Ken (OP)]

On the HP site they have a download for 'HPNetAssist' and it scans your hardware to help you set up your wireless connection.

Discovered that my (really old) wireless router is not supported by this laptops network setup... had been thinking for a long time now that a new router was in order, guess now's the time.  :08:
My local Staples has a Netgear model that is on the list of supported routers and it sounds OK for under $40 so looks like a road trip is coming up this morning!

I tried doing the drivers from HP support for XP, but had no joy on that... I'm still thinking that there is some kind of hardware issue, but we'll see. Maybe it's just my lack of experience with laptops, but still, it's just a computer and I am learning.  :disted:

I hear you on the ram... once all the other issues have been resolved and it can be trusted I'll bump it to 2GB.

[Skhilled]

I am considering buying a new one as well. The one I have came with my Verizon service. But if I terminate the service I have to send it back or pay about $200! It's cheap but it works and I've had it for over 3 years now! That's way too much so I'm going to send it back and not have to worry about it later.

[Ken (OP)]

On this one the wireless card seems to be an issue because so far no approach is working. The rest of the PC looks to be working OK, including the wired network so it's usable as is but somewhat inconvenient without the wireless.
Maybe I'll spring for one of those USB thumb drive style network cards a little later... they cost about $40-50.