Vista Home Basic is not good
Posted on August 29th, 2008 in Technology
I’m using a new budget laptop at the moment. It’s a Compaq c700 (actually a c763TU) that will eventually go to my kids, so I thought I’d checkout what Vista Home Basic is like.
On a laptop it makes no sense! Laptops move from location to location, but the networking features are brain dead. I’ve managed to get it working each time, but I don’t think my mum would manage at all well. Actually her laptop is Vista Home Basic, but she only connects to the internet when she’s at home or my place. So she doesn’t have to deal with network configuration issues.
In the two weeks I’ve had it the network configuration has given problems at least 5 times.
Compaq HP Presario Keyboard woes
Posted on June 11th, 2006 in Technology
My Compaq Presario 2100 (actually 2104US) had a keyboard problem. Luckily I did some more searching before buying a replacement keyboard. Having said that, HP’s replacement keyboard is sub $35 AUD so I spent more time on this than it the part was worth.
The solution showed itself by accident, I accidently stated iTunes and noticed that I wasn’t getting any sound. On checking the volume control app on Windows I noticed my volume was set low. I inspected the volume controls on the side of the case and discovered the Volume Down button was jammed between the case frame. I couldn’t get it repositioned manually from outside the case.
It turns out that KeyTweak was right, key 131 is Volume Down. Had I realised that sooner it would have saved me a couple of hours.
Tags: compaq, hardware, HP, keyboard, laptop, notebook, pavilion, presario, repair, Technology
HP and Compaq service manual
Posted on May 31st, 2006 in Technology
My Compaq Presario 2104US laptop is playing up. It’s seems as if a non-printing key like ctrl is stuck down (except I don’t think it is that key).
Symptoms:
- Alt-Tab in windows doesn’t work as if ctrl key is held down. Ctrl-tab works
- pressing and holding the down arrow key produces a ‘c’ character every second
- Using PuTTY on a unix box ctrl-key combinations that require confirmation fail.
- Using KeyTweak it reports the scancode 57392 constantly repeating. When I map that code to any other key it reports the code as key 131 (but I don’t think that is right). Update 3 June: It turns out this was right!
Tags: compaq, hardware, HP, laptop, notebook, pavilion, presario, repair, Technology
