I have before me an antique of sorts. It’s a Compaq Armada 4160T. ( My unit also has the locked bottom half that can detach with the CD ROM Drive in it, not shown in this image)
It was dead when I got it. I’ve replaced the BIOS battery and done a fresh install of Win 98SE. ( The install running was so corrupted that the machine failed incessantly ).
It now seems to run fairly smoothly. There are two main issues that make me seek the original install disks.
The image is now roughly 70% of the available LCD size. I need the specific drivers for THAT machine in order to restore full size video. When I first turned it on, the image did indeed fill the LCD screen.
There is- miraculously- a yellow RCA Video out jack on the back of this machine. Since I obtained this for free in the hopes of providing my friend the artist with a laptop capable of outputting video to a projector so he can do large-scale murals, this RCA jack is a dream. I suspect that I will not get video out of it right now, because in doing a fresh install of standard Win 98SE disks, I may well have removed the drivers for that jack. I’ll know later on today. Regardless of the jack issue, I need the right video drivers for the LCD screen.
I have poked around. Compaq is now H.P. Go figure. :rolleyes: I did find the page with downloadable drivers. The “graphics” drivers do not apply. I have not been able to find a place that allows me to download the appropriate drivers. Anyone have an idea on where I can either find an original set of install disks for this machine, or download all of the proper video drivers?
Many thanks in advance. My friend will live- but it’ll be rough- with a much smaller image, but if we cannot output video, the machine is useless to him. Help?
When you say, “The “graphics” drivers do not apply”, what do you mean? Did the installation not complete?
It looks like that page has everything you need, if all the equipment is original. Try running BelArc Advisor and compare your configuration to the Compaq specs for that machine.
Hello, I’m back ! Yes it was, Fear Itself. The installation did nothing as far as I could tell. I DL the file to my desktop’s floppy driver. Took the floppy, placed it into the appropriate recieving slot in the laptop, and went at it.
It tried to load under DOS, but was not successful. Here is why: It is written to operate under Win 3.1 and Win 95. This machine runs Win 98SE. My WAG is that it is not installing properly because the release cannot be read by anything newer than Win 95.
Blast it all. I want this thing to work !! The Video Out jack does not send video out right now. The search for original install disks continues. I got sidetracked for a few days making homemade jam, but am now back on the job. I know that Compaq is now owned by HP. Perhaps some nice Compaq person will be able to generate new install disks for me. One can but hope. This morning I’ll try plugging in a regular computer monitor to the back, as it does have a standard monitor output. Might get lucky. If that works, my job is done. He can use that as an output source to a video projector. Still want to use the full LCD screen size though…
I could be saying what you already know, but you could try going to the Device Manager, selecting your display adapter, going to the Drivers tab, and using the “Update Driver” button. Select the floppy as the driver location, and Win98 could pull the driver off without using any setup utility.
Also, if you’re connected to the interweb now, you could try having it search for better drivers, which should use the Windows Update site. That may be worth a go.
The laptop has no USB, no Ethernet and currently no PCMCIA Card for same. I don’t own a modem any more. I was unclear ( not uncommon, I write like I talk and I’m an atrociously non-linear fellow ) in my post, the download occurred using my regular desktop machine. I DL’d it into a floppy, and tried using that.
However, the first paragraph’s suggestion is brilliant and I wish I’d thought of it. I will try that right now, thank you.
The unit is displaying 640x480 instead of the native 800x600 of the screen. This usually happens if the drivers are incorrect for the hardware or the screen is incorrectly defined.
How is the “monitor” being defined in Win 98 on that machine? If it’s “generic VGA” you need to change it to (IIRC) 800x600 genric LCD/Laptop screen definition and WIN98 does have a series of defintions for various laptop screens. resolutions. .
Good thing to check, astro, thank you. It is at 640x480- but I cannot slide the slider up to increase the image size. Darn it. It does name the specific LCD- it says this is a " COMPAQ Internal VGA Panel on Cirrus Logic 7548 PCI " VGA not LCD.
Use “drivers” and “all” for the login and password respectively.
Choose “simple” seach and search on “GD7548” and the drivers for the Armada 1520D will pop up. “CirrusLogicGD7548VideoDriver.zip” It uses the same chipset. DL this and try it.
They are all drivers for the same Cirrus Logic board. The only difference would be if one was newer than the other. Are there any dates listed for any of them? You would want the most recent.
On the downside, I see no reason why these would work any better than the ones you downloaded from the Compaq site. The are all the same size (1.40MB), so I am betting they are identical.
Well, the one I downloaded from the Compaq site had no effect at all on the laptop. It wouldn’t install the drivers properly.
It does occcur to me that it’s difficult to strip out the drivers in device manager, restart the computer and allow the Device Locator to find a new device, and ask for proper drivers for it- when it is the monitor itself you are trying to load fresh drivers for. I have to basically install a second set of drivers for a second monitor that does not exist, then strip out the other set of drivers- otherwise, there are two sets conflicting on the single physical monitor.
Remove the old display drivers, then restart in safe mode. Windows 98se use a special VGA driver in safe mode, so you don’t need any display driver installed. Once there, install the new display driver and restart windows in normal mode, and the new driver should work.
