old Compaq nx9005 - RIP

I was working on my nx9005 last night, taking some study notes... when there was the sound of a small tick and then a smell of burning electronics. I unplugged it from the life support system (power supply) and removed the battery.

The fan had been overworking for many a year.  I had performed surgery on the laptop several times to unclog the arteries within the fan unit from dust... but this was not enough... the multiple surgeries on the machine led to several further side effects due to aging of joints, such as limb failure (TouchPad) and front panel failure (power/wifi/BT indicator leds).

I pronounced my nx9005 dead at 5:30am 2nd Nov 2011 at the ripe old age of 8 1/2 years.


RIP.

The hard disk, WiFi card, optical reader and power supply were offered for donor parts.  All other parts are scrap.

The nx9005 had received a fair old innings as a development machine, media machine, word processing and spreadsheets, remote desktop support ... but spent its last year or two retired for general lap warming and as a TV guide / general browser duties...


[Edit 14:25 - old habits die hard:


Here's a photo after a few minutes of post-mortem... There's a good HD, Fan Unit, DVD Writer, Floppy, HD Caddy, AMD Processor, RAM PC2100 2x 512MB and a set of screws for the nx9005 (less one that is stuck in the casing)




[Edit 03:33 - I've had a Eureka moment...

A long time ago when I was (probably) cleaning the fan, I remember a small component fell off.. but I could not place it.  The PC worked so I simply ignored it.


As I was taping all the screws into a nice ordered file, ready for salvaging for spare parts... The other grey square component fell off - again I didn't notice where it came from.. But I have just realised I could download a photo of the motherboard from Google, and compare mine with a new one... The circled area is missing a component!  (Now it is missing both - so I could have simply compared it with this picture I took earlier.)  And the smell of burning is strongest around this area... I wonder what these components are for.. Could I attach a couple of new ones and get the old laptop working again?   I would, of course, have to fish the battery, and other bits and pieces out of the bin... nah... I don't think I can be bothered...   


For anyone who want a service manual, I found this:
        http://www.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00246219.pdf
It covers nx9005, nx9000, nx9008, nx9010 and the ze series, and a few Presarios...


There's a handy list of POST Codes and Beep codes too... and diagrams of how to take your nx9005 to pieces... 


Having looked around eBay there are plenty of people selling old parts... even faulty motherboards... I think I might have a go to see how much money I can make from scrap ... than I could selling it as a faulty whole... 

old HP nx9005 - Win7

Finally I have Windows 7... installed on an old nx9005 - perfectly good laptop with a working OS... bit worn around the edges.. but why should I throw it?  The only thing that I've had to do with it in the past is install a new HD.. cos the Fujitsu one in there before developed the strange clicking problem... and I lost everything on it.. or perhaps I didn't .. I'm keeping it just in case, but I reckon it's got about 5 seconds of read time left if it ever does boot up because of my insistence on taken things apart .. :)

Maybe i can just replace the read head with an exact same disk.. ?  I'm sure there's a disk recovery place somewhere in Ireland or Wales that can retrieve data from clicking drives.. I read a review once...

Anyway.. drivers.. Conexant AC97 - wouldn't work in Win7... and HP are rubbish, they won't even develop anything for the nx9005... which is really really stupid... because the solution I found on MSDN Social Forum is merely a change in ONE LINE...  why on earth HP can't simply re-package the driver as Win7, with a single line edit (like I reckon MS used to do with DLLs between major Window's versions) .. Is it just down to Windows Compatibility signing?  My system didn't seem to care...

The solution is on here... by Mr. Raven...
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistahardware/thread/2857c5ef-bc13-49ce-bdd8-99bddb7d6b10/

It simply involves downloading the driver from HP - unpack and don't install:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-31530-1&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=1816346&os=228&lang=en

Then edit the INF file... find the [Conexant] section and add a new line with the PCI bus enum that Win7 has assigned to your sound card... can be found in System Properties -> Device Manager -> open Sound Device -> Details tab -> Hardware Ids from the drop-down.  Mine now looks like this:


[Conexant]
%*WDM_AMCAUD.DeviceDesc%=WDM_AMCAUD,PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4370&SUBSYS_3091103C
%*WDM_AMCAUD.DeviceDesc%=WDM_AMCAUD,PCI\VEN_10B9&DEV_5451&SUBSYS_0024103C
So I wonder could you do that with most drivers?  I guess you could try... Download the WindowsXP driver, find the INF file.. find the manufacturer section [Conexant] ... and add the new line...

Only a few things change drastically between versions of Windows... and then they're re-marketed...

DrWatson was really quite useful in Windows 3.0... Windows 3.1... Windows for Workgroups... and then Windows 95 came along.

As I installed it, I was told that Windows 95 now comes with new! Dr Watson which would handle crashes...  rubbish... Windows Server 2003... comes with DrWatson....

Windows XP: [system32]\dwwin.exe 10.0.5815.0 - Microsoft Application Error Reporting - Original file = DW.exe
and DrWtsn32.exe - which has a user interface... for reading dumps... I couldn't find a dump to read...

Microsoft were originally going to call this Sherlock...  wonder why they didn't... maybe they couldn't get it past their legal team...

Apparently DrWatson has now been replaced by Problem Reports and Solutions...  but you can still type DrWatson into Start->Run (WinKey+R) ... or dwwin ...

Noisy fan on HP Compaq nx9005

I have an old laptop (an HP Compaq nx9005) that sits switched on and its fan has been overworking forever... it gets hot and I worry sometimes that it's going to pack in... it did once... I lost the hard drive to some HD clicking bug - perfectly good hard disk one day... the next it's toast... no reason except age. I have kept it just in case one day I can afford to send it off to someone who can replace the head and read my data off it... (it's a Fujitsu 2.5in MHT2060AT from Dec 2003)

Fan... I am sure I stripped my laptop some time ago.. I cleaned the dust from it... it made no difference... I also checked every service and program running in Windows and it's hardly got any excuse to have a full blast fan all the time.

So I stripped it again... opened it up and took out all the drives, wiped the mouse board, dusted around... removed the CPU fan... then discovered I could undo the fan box... 4 screws...

Inside I discovered a wad of fluff packed against the venting fins... a few mms thick... picked it out... brushed it all clean... and ...

Now the laptop sits there so silently I worry sometimes that it has switched itself off... there was perhaps something comforting about hearing it whirring away... Anyway, that's taken a little bit of pressure off the fan and minutely from the electricity bill...