Xylaquin

I have a Compaq Armada 6500 with Windows 98 installed and I want to get the internet working on it. Now here's the problem:

• There's no floppy drive
• No disc drive
• No USB pen driver
• The ethernet port's driver doesn't seem to be installed.

the only other ports on it that probably communicate to the outside world are what appears to be an IR port, a serial port and a dial-up modem socket.

Any advice on getting the drivers onto the system? My current idea is to borrow a cd drive from someone else's laptop and use it to transfer some files and drivers over to my laptop. Will the borrowed CD drive need it's own drivers?

Any other ideas would be appreciated.

BCCOMP

Is this windows 98 or 98SE?
Go to the device manager and confirm the nic card is not operational. It would be highlited in a yellow or red exclamation point. Please list any drivers that are in error. As far as the CD rom, windows should load a generic driver.

Xylaquin

It's the standard Windows 98, not SE unfortunately.

When I acquired the laptop, the installed NIC was the SMC 8040 TX 10/100 Fixed-Port PC Card, I connected my router, made sure TCP/IP was set up and but the ethernet connection light upon my router didn't even light up: no connected device. I'm not even certain if the SMC 8040 TX is the correct NIC, since it's name suggests that it's a PCMCIA card.

When I go to the device manager, under network adapters the SMC has a yellow exclamation icon. The problem is Code 10:
On updating the driver, the system searched the hard drive and finds SMCNET100.inf. Despite finding an apparently suitable file, it still does not work. No worries however, since if the cd drive works I have downloaded drivers off the laptop's webpage. Hopefully it'll work. IF it doesn't I'll run Everest to see the real model of the laptop parts.

BCCOMP

Is there a service tag or s/n number on this laptop? If there is, it may narrow your search for drivers. I did do a quick search and believe it or not they still post the drivers for this laptop model. Let us know how you make out.
Thanks,
Bill

Xylaquin

I bet you're asking that because you got this kind of list. Yeah it seems there's multiple types of the same model :-/ And upon looking around the laptop the only details are on the underside "Series PP2020".

Besides, all those links lead to a list of drivers, and the drivers are all the same. If I had to make a good guess it'd be the "6366/T/6400/V/M/2", since on this page it gives the specs of each model, and the laptop I have has Windows 98 with a 366MHz cpu. This makes it filter out to the "6366/T/6400/V/M/2".

I'll post back once I've tried the CD drive.

BCCOMP

Ya you are right about the list.
Let us know how you make out withe the CD Rom
Thanks,
Bill

Xylaquin

My dad brought along his laptop, but unlike mine which has a quick-release mechanism, his cd-drive won't come out of it's bay with unscrewing the base and he won't let me do that.

Plan B is to use a USB floppy drive, but I don't know if it'll be recognised or not.

I found some kind of serial, "387240-001", but this serial matches none of the serials on the list in my last post. Google-searching it turns up nothing.

Hmm

BCCOMP

Seeing you are unable to get a cd rom from your dad I ran a search on one you could buy. They run under $50.00. If you have someone who has a USB floppy try it and see if windows detects it. Win 98 will support many USB floppy drives but may not support all. But if I were you and you had a choice of either purchasing a USB Floppy or an actual CD-rom, I would get the CD-Rom.
Thanks,
Bill

Xylaquin

The USB didn't work. My IT teacher said they could get their hands on a freind's armada and bring in it's drive on friday.

BCCOMP

It was worth the shot.
Let me know how you make out Friday.
Thanks,
Bill

Xylaquin

Make that a tedious Monday. I tried using one of the department's Dell laptops but it's CD drive wasn't standard form (the connector was on the opposite side of the rear).

BCCOMP

Hi Xylaquin,
Sorry about all the bad luck, I just went thru the post agian. Seeing you are in Scotland I am unsure of the ISP out there. Just wondering who you use? If you have an IT Teacher he should beable to hook you up Via a serial port connection to transfer the driver you need off a computer that can download the drivers. This depends if your serial port is operational. It should be. Sorry I should have caught this earlier. It is a little complicated to do, but it could be done.
Let me know what happens,
Thanks,
Bill

Xylaquin

As far as I know, the serial port on the laptop works. My ISP is Orange (although it was originally Wanadoo before they got bought over).

BCCOMP

See if the IT Teacher can hook up a serial port to a working online computer and download and transfer to your computer the drivers you need.
Let me know how you make out.
Thanks,
Bill

Xylaquin

He didn't have a serial cable so we never tried it. Infact, I think I'll post an update in this thread when something interesting does happen, since the teacher keeps forgetting

Xylaquin

The teacher brought in the drive today, although it didn't fit because:

1. Laptop has a cd bay like this:
as oppose to the disc drive's:

2. The laptop's connector was different to the drive, here is the laptop's connector, outlined for convenience:

I'm not sure if this is a standard drive connector, could you say if it is?

The teacher did however bring along the drive's adapter. This consisted of the drive being external. A serial cable was plugged into the drive's connector, and the other end of the cable was plugged into the printer port. I queried why it was to be connected to the printer port, but tried it anyway. It didn't work, the bios didn't recognise it and the drive wouldn't power on.



Partially good news is that when I went into the bios, I enabled to Infrared port and it was successfully installed in Windows. Albeit I have no use for it. Someone suggested I buy a PCMCIA ethernet card, they told me it would be plug and play and I wouldn't have to install drivers for it (even on 98 apparently). Can you confirm this? or suggest any other means?

BCCOMP

HI,
A PCMCIA ethernet card is plug and play, but you have to make sure it will be windows98 compatible. Meaning that it will need no drivers to install. There are newer one out there that may not work. You have to be sure that it meets WINDOWS 98 SOFTWARE with no additional Drivers needed.
Thanks,
Bill

Xylaquin

Just out of curiosity, could I buy a disc drive for the laptop and expect it to work? For example this drive?

It wouldn't make sence if you need to install drivers for a disc drive, would it?

BCCOMP

Hi,
Here is a link for a CD-Rom:
http://cgi.ebay.com/358956-001-CD-CO...QQcmdZViewItem
There are many other site out there that have a CD-Rom for a COMPAQ ARMADA 6500 (google it). Prices run around $40.00-$50.00 dollars
I am unsure on the model you posted as it does not list the specs as far as compatibility.
Win 98 will not need to have the drivers installed. It will use the generic driver on the OS itself.
Thanks,
Bill

Xylaquin

You posted a link to a COMPAQ 358956-001 ARMADA 6500, my laptop is a Compaq Armada 6500, it's serial is 387240-001. Searching google turns up nothing.

Whilst looking at the armada series page, I noticed that Compaq name's the drive bay as being a "MultiBay" expansion bay. Perhaps this was the clue I've been looking for. However upon find this ebay item, and looking at the picture below I noticed that the multibay connector shown was different to mine (that and the cd drive shown is a rectangular shape [___], whilst on my laptop it is a [___,-' shape)

I'll disassemble the laptop so I can take a better picture of the connector, and perhaps find out what it is by any text on the motherboard.