knudsen@cbnewsd.att.com (michael.j.knudsen) (06/12/91)
Thought you might like to know how much WRONG info is floating around out there, easily accessed by phone. I bought a used Compaq Portable II 286 box, from a rental outfit that had no manuals at all for it at the time. So I called some Compaq distributor (Entre') and talked to them and their service outfit, and got some info that turned out to be wrong: (1) "You can't change the speed of the machine" ie, get it out of 8 MHz turbo mode to play games. Well, I found that Ctrl-Alt-Backslash toggles it between 8 and 6 MHz. Still not slow enuf, but it works. (2) "You can't add memory beyond 640K". Turns out Compaq sold two memory upgrade boards, one of which uses a special socket underneath the motherboard so it doesn't waste a card slot. Question: Can you still buy these boards? At what price? From what I hear, 3rd party would be a lot cheaper than Compaq's. It does appear that you can't add any RAM between addresses 640 and 1024, since the official upgrade boards start at 1024. Will this empty space hamper use of the extra memory? (3) A really weird procedure for opening the case, sort of like the Heimlich Maneuver. Turns out a Torx screwdriver works a *lot* better. I got my right answers by silver-lining luck. Floppy drive acted up in my machine, so I took it back and exchanged it for another one. Bugged the people into giving me the main manual AND the official Compaq diagnostic and setup disk, both of which have been a BIG help. Moral: Don't buy a non-generic clone without its manual. And don't belive half of what you hear... mike k I'd appreciate any info anyone might have about this machine. Thanks. -- "What America needs is A Thousand Points When Lit..." knudsen@ihlpl.att.com