Author Topic: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]  (Read 14753 times)

83.0b.et

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Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« on: October 26, 2014, 11:45:03 pm »
Hello. I wanted to install eCom 2.1 or OS/2 Warp 4.51 on my Compaq Armada 1750. Installation went fine for both systems, the only problem I have is that the touchpad doesn't work well. Sometimes it acts normal, and sometimes it doesn't. For example it clicks things itselfs, or the cursor moves itself in a direction I didn't indicate... Etc.
 
In Windows 98 happened the same thing, until I installed the official drivers for the touchpad. The problem is that there isn't official touchpad drivers for either eCom or OS/2 Warp... So I wanted to know if there is any kind of unofficial universal touchpad driver that I could use, or something like that.

Thanks.

Pete

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Re: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« Reply #1 on: October 27, 2014, 06:25:43 pm »
Hi

I have a Dell Latitude E5500 laptop where the touchpad is not recognized at all. The "work around" is to use a USB attached mouse.

I suspect you will have to use the same "work around" on your Compaq - you may need to Disable the touchpad in the laptop BIOS.

Regards

Pete

83.0b.et

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Re: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2014, 04:47:19 am »
Hi Pete. The truth is that I'd hate to use a USB attached mouse, because if I have a laptop then I want to use it like a laptop, and that includes being able to work with just the touchpad... So I think I'll stick to Win98SE until someone writes a driver for touchpads.

Thank you very much for your reply.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2014, 06:11:10 am »
The problem that I have, on my Lenovo ThinkPad L530, is that there is no setting in the BIOS to turn off the touchpad (Windows 7 does have a setting, but that does me no good in eCS). It, and the stickmouse, work fine (I use AMouse), but I hate touchpads because I always manage to get my hands on it while trying to type, and that causes some very strange mouse behavior. My older Lenovo ThinkPad T510 has a BIOS setting to kill that annoying piece of hardware. Given the choice of a working touchpad, or a USB mouse, the USB mouse wins, hands down. I have taped a heavy piece of cardboard over the L530 touchpad, to keep my paws off of it. If I need to use a mouse, for short periods of time, I will use the stickmouse, otherwise, it takes only a second to turn on the USB mouse.

Whoever invented touchpads should be compelled to use Windows Vista, for the rest of eternity.   ::)

Andi B.

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Re: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« Reply #4 on: October 28, 2014, 11:21:21 am »
Quote
Whoever invented touchpads should be compelled to use Windows Vista, for the rest of eternity.
Sounds to me like an adequate punishment :-)

I only wonder why it is not able to disable the touchpad in OS/2. No possibility to disable PS/2? Or is it attached via USB and are there no options for usbhid? I do not suffer from this problem as my T4x have the option to disable in BIOS so can not test myself.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« Reply #5 on: October 28, 2014, 05:33:05 pm »
Quote
I only wonder why it is not able to disable the touchpad in OS/2. No possibility to disable PS/2? Or is it attached via USB and are there no options for usbhid?

Windows says it is a USB device, but USBDock, in eCS, doesn't seem to know about it (it may actually be working with the BIOS support). Apparently, it is an Elantech device, which is a little different from the earlier touchpads, although it looks the same. Even Linux had trouble with them (couldn't make them work), but that problem was resolved, long ago. If there is a way to disable it, in eCS, I never found it. Windows has an option in the mouse properties to disable/enable it. You can also disable/enable the trackpoint from the same place, but that doesn't stick in eCS.

FWIW, my Lenovo T510 has, what seems to be the same thing, but it has a setting in the BIOS to disable it. USBDock doesn't show it there either. It does work in eCS, when it is enabled.

If it is actually the BIOS that is making that stuff work, that may explain why 83.0b.et is having trouble. A BIOS update may help (but I doubt it).

Andi B.

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Re: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« Reply #6 on: October 29, 2014, 09:09:14 am »
Doug, so next best option I see would be disconnecting that thing. Unfortunately this needs disassembling the hardware. Usually it is (was) quite easy with older Thinkpads but sorry no clue who easy it is with your new model.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« Reply #7 on: October 29, 2014, 04:01:06 pm »
Doug, so next best option I see would be disconnecting that thing. Unfortunately this needs disassembling the hardware. Usually it is (was) quite easy with older Thinkpads but sorry no clue who easy it is with your new model.

I tried that. It seems to be hard wired into the keyboard. The option would be to cut the wires. The cardboard solution works, even if it does look a bit strange.

Fahrvenugen

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Re: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« Reply #8 on: October 29, 2014, 11:26:58 pm »
Hi,

I've actually got an old compaq Armada - it isn't the same model, but from the same time frame.

Mine only had the trackpoint / pointer option (no touch pad), but I found the trackpoint was flaky under the OS/2 mouse driver.  I found that the amouse driver worked well though.

Not sure where amouse lives these days, it used to be on Hobbes but I'm not finding it there right now.  Maybe if you google for it you'll find it.


Olafur Gunnlaugsson

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Re: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« Reply #9 on: October 30, 2014, 03:16:31 am »
I have a few 1750 Armadas that I used to use for compatibility testing and debugging of software since virtual machines sometimes hiccuped on software that ran fine under real hardware. There was an incompatibility with eCS 2.0 Beta (mouse driver? CD ROM driver?, cannot remember) that we or Mensys never solved, but I do not think I ever tried 2.0 release or 2.1, I just vent back to 1.2, Amouse was OK under 1.2 and the system in general ran very well especially if you maxed out the memory.

BTW the best video driver for them is the old pre-gradd driver, it has a minor bug in that the video display file does not have/create the correct size/frequency setting for the screen but that can be fixed by editing the file in text mode. Overall the original driver is much faster and less problematic than SNAP or Panorama.

There are more than one version of the 1750, the mouse and audio boards have different but closely related hardware, but very different layout. Audio is slightly flaky under any OS (Shitty chip), but works using the original drivers, did not test genaud.

The USB chip is a very early custom Compaq unit and has a known hardware bug in that it reset itself every now and then, but apart from that works fine in eCS, Win NT, Win9x, Win2K and WinXP, just as long as you realise that it is the hardware that is glitching on an occasion and not the drivers.

Although the reason I bought them at the time was simply that I could pick them up for 20 pounds apiece, they were actually quite usable, I ended up using one as may main OS/2 system and an alternative WinXP system for a few years. eCS ran fine but XP needed to be stripped to the bone to run in the rather meagre memory on offer, but the system could take larger disks than advertised and I managed to have a shared fat32 data partition so I could keep just one browser and email profile for both Windows and eCS.

Fahrvenugen

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Re: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« Reply #10 on: October 30, 2014, 07:29:30 am »
I just pulled out my Armada.  I've got the 7400 model, maxed out with memory (256 MB)  and a P2  - 366, 14" screen and DVD rom, looks like I found a 20 GB hard disk for it too.

I recall initially I ran it with Warp 3 for years, but I see that I now have Warp 4 on it and (yes) amouse.

Sound card is one of the onboard ESS-chipset cards which worked with the Uniaud driver.  This unit has no Ethernet card - but I managed to get the PCMCIA slot working with a PCMCIA Linksys ethernet card.  It also has one of those onboard Lucent-chipset based winmodems, I never did get that working under OS/2 (although it does show up working on my Win98 partition that I have on this thing... Dialup anyone?)

For Video, I've got SNAP running on this, but I seem to recall that Compaq actually provided an OS/2 video driver for this which I ran under Warp 3. 


83.0b.et

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Re: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« Reply #11 on: October 30, 2014, 11:50:47 pm »
I have a few 1750 Armadas that I used to use for compatibility testing and debugging of software since virtual machines sometimes hiccuped on software that ran fine under real hardware. There was an incompatibility with eCS 2.0 Beta (mouse driver? CD ROM driver?, cannot remember) that we or Mensys never solved, but I do not think I ever tried 2.0 release or 2.1, I just vent back to 1.2, Amouse was OK under 1.2 and the system in general ran very well especially if you maxed out the memory.
Hi. Are you saying Amouse driver worked well with the touchpad, or with a ps/2 mouse? Because if you say it worked well with the touchpad I can try to install that version...
 Mine is a Compaq Armada 1750 Notebook PC 6366/T/6400/D/M/1.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2014, 11:55:07 pm by 83.0b.et »

Olafur Gunnlaugsson

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Re: Compaq Armada 1750 [Laptop]
« Reply #12 on: October 31, 2014, 05:09:48 am »
I have a few 1750 Armadas that I used to use for compatibility testing and debugging of software since virtual machines sometimes hiccuped on software that ran fine under real hardware. There was an incompatibility with eCS 2.0 Beta (mouse driver? CD ROM driver?, cannot remember) that we or Mensys never solved, but I do not think I ever tried 2.0 release or 2.1, I just vent back to 1.2, Amouse was OK under 1.2 and the system in general ran very well especially if you maxed out the memory.
Hi. Are you saying Amouse driver worked well with the touchpad, or with a ps/2 mouse? Because if you say it worked well with the touchpad I can try to install that version...
 Mine is a Compaq Armada 1750 Notebook PC 6366/T/6400/D/M/1.

With the internal trackpad & pointer

BTW the Armada 7800, 7400 and 1750 are basically the same model with different processors and some other very minor diffs, the 73xx has similar hardware to the 1750 but is lighter and thinner and slightly older thus not offering USB, you can share a base and batteries with all these models.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2014, 05:18:11 am by Olafur Gunnlaugsson »