It's alive! Well, sort of.


Compaq Armada 1130 running memtest, click image for larger version


After trying with various different power sources, finally one power adaptor, 24 V, 1.5 A, managed to get the batterlyless notebook computer to start up. Of course the actual power plug did not fit the connector, so some hacking was in order to make it work.


The power connector that used to be in the computer



The power cord does not go to the back of the case, where it should have been, but goes in through the PCMCIA slot...



And then it goes inside the computer to where the power connector used to be. You can also see the markers we did for where the Hard Disk and such should be. Note that due to the width restrictions in Xfire Blogs, you do not see the whole image. Scroll this area right to see the rest.



Close up shot on the power connection, the wires were soldered to the motherboard in place where the power connector was soldered in.



Naturally, since the big battery is missing and the on-board battery is pretty much dead, none of the system settings - such as date and time - are saved when the computer is powered off. And since there is no hard drive installed, all it can do is run FreeDOS from a floppy now.


PS. It was my friend who did the hacking mostly. After all, it was also his idea to try to fix that up in the first place. More information at his blog.