compaq armada 3500

oceangroup · July 09, 2003, 17:10 hrs

hello well i am looking for some information on this laptop and how i might get into the bios on this machine, it is really giving me a problem and i was wondering if anyone has ever put windows xp on one of these machines. i had windows 98 se on there and i went out an got a iomega 52x24x52x cdrw usb 2.0 external cd drive and that was a pain in the a@* trying to get that working but i got that workign and started to install win xp on the machine and when i am loading it it goes all well but when i get to the point where i need a mouse and key board to set the date and time and product key the keyboard and mouse does not work and the system is not locking down it almost seems like there is jsut no drivers for the keyboard and mouse or something like that please get back to me here of e mail me oceansidegroup@msn.com

Jerry
Oceanside Computer Group

query · July 09, 2003, 17:25 hrs

Compaq BIOS entry is usually F10 when you see the flashing underscore cursor at the top right corner of the screen.

Honest opinion: you are not going to be pleased with the performance of XP on a system like this - 366 MHz max and 192 MBytes RAM max will not cut it with Windows XP. You really need at least 500 MHz and 256 MBytes to run XP with any kind of performance acceptability.

If you are bound to proceed anyway, do the keyboard and mouse work under 98? If not, it could be a hardware problem. If they do, you might try using an external keyboard and mouse to get the installation done - there may be drivers that aren't supported under XP or that must be added later.

Unless you install a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card, you're going to be very limited in write speeds with an external drive - you cannot go over 4X on a USB 1.x connection, which is all the notebook's internal USB ports will support.

oceangroup · July 09, 2003, 17:46 hrs

well the keyboard and mouse work fine on 98, i tried the ext. keyboard and muse and still not working i have. the problem that i am having now besides the keyboard and mouse i cant get into bios. it just keeps trying to go to the xp install where i am having the problem with what i think might be a drive issue. and if that is the issue how might i restore the machine to win 98 i have the 98 se disk but cant get in to biso to set it to read the cd drive instead of the hd thanks for such a quick relpy
Jerry
Oceanside computer group

query · July 09, 2003, 17:53 hrs

If the F10 doesn't work, it's possible the Compaq partition is missing from the hard drive (Armadas store part of the BIOS on a partition on the drive). You should be able to restore that from the Compaq utility disc (SmartStart) that came with the system - or that you can download from Compaq.

oceangroup · July 09, 2003, 18:02 hrs

well i ahve that disk but it is on the external disk drive that i have and wne i put that in it still does not register the cd it only registers the previous xp installation even know the xp cd is not there well i am not sure what else to do. lol if you know how i can get the thing to stop the xp loading so i can get it to register the compaq disk. thanks for your time
Jerry
oceanside computer group

query · July 09, 2003, 18:31 hrs

You won't be able to boot the external CD-ROM drive -- if you don't have an internal CD-ROM that works, you will need to make the SmartStart floppies (in another system with both a CD and floppy drive).

oceangroup · July 09, 2003, 19:13 hrs

smart floppies, well i have the boot disk and all and have win 98 how do i go about the making of smart floppies
i got into the bios of the other laptop i had i have two of these machines and they were both given to me the other day and i am just trying to get them to work thanks
jerry

query · July 09, 2003, 19:27 hrs

When you boot the SmartStart CD, it should have an option to make floppies of the system software - it takes quite a few of them and some time, but it will work.

oceangroup · July 09, 2003, 19:32 hrs

well how many is quite a few i have 20 do u think that will be enough
and the smart disks are from the 98 boot disk or the comp restore disk thanks
jerry

query · July 09, 2003, 20:00 hrs

Instead of the full set, just download the System Setup disc for portables - I think there are two of them - from www.compaq.com (support/search for the software for the Armada; the link I could post is too long for here).

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compaq armada 3500