Replacing parts in a HP Pavilion 8693c

[The Seabat]

Howdy: I have a neighbor lady who is on a fixed income and her Dell
computer has a bad motherboard/video. It's Dell Pavilion 8693c with a
533MHz Celeron chip and 128MB RAM, PC100. I tried putting a video card
in the PCI slot, but no-go. This 'puter is only used for email and
light web surfing and an occasional letter or two. She only has $130
to spend to get this puppy up and running again. I told her I would do
the labor for free if she paid for the parts.

This is what I am thinking about throwing into this machine. Am I
going to have any compatibility trouble with the HP proprietary parts
or any other probs?? I can't match any motherboard with her current
prosessor or RAM, so will have to replace all three. Think the
processor might be bad any who.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820141425

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819112207

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813135171

Any ideas or help would be greatly appriciated. Remember, I only have
$130USD, including shipping, to put towards parts. Thank you.

 

[Paul]

Howdy: I have a neighbor lady who is on a fixed income and her Dell
computer has a bad motherboard/video. It's Dell Pavilion 8693c with a
533MHz Celeron chip and 128MB RAM, PC100. I tried putting a video card
in the PCI slot, but no-go. This 'puter is only used for email and
light web surfing and an occasional letter or two. She only has $130
to spend to get this puppy up and running again. I told her I would do
the labor for free if she paid for the parts.

This is what I am thinking about throwing into this machine. Am I
going to have any compatibility trouble with the HP proprietary parts
or any other probs?? I can't match any motherboard with her current
prosessor or RAM, so will have to replace all three. Think the
processor might be bad any who.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820141425

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819112207

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813135171

Any ideas or help would be greatly appriciated. Remember, I only have
$130USD, including shipping, to put towards parts. Thank you.

The cheapest way to repair it, would be to repair the motherboard
itself. Have you collected any symptoms as to what is wrong ?
Does the motherboard beep during POST ? Is there any evidence
that just the video is busted - in other words, was there good
reason to suspect that all it needed was a PCI video card ?

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...&docname=bph05750&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/mature/index.htm (810 info)

Some old motherboards have issues with picking up a substitute
for the built-in video. At least a buddy of mine could not
convince his pre-built computer to accept a separate video card.
Maybe there is a jumper on the motherboard, to disable the
built-in ? Or perhaps there is a (now inaccessible) setting
in the BIOS that would have allowed the PCI video to be picked
up first.

One problem with your replacement strategy, is what happens
with the OS ? Can you do a repair install ? Do the HP
software disks that came with the machine, support changing
the motherboard ? Maybe the most expensive part of your
efforts to help a neighbour, will be reloading the OS somehow.
Would the neighbour be pissed, if you put a pirated OS on
there ? The problem might not be as simple as just whipping
any old motherboard in there.

Second issue is power. What kind of power supply does the
machine have ? Does it have a label on the side of the
supply, listing the power limits ? Are the connectors on the
supply standard ATX ? Perhaps someone else knows whether a
machine with an 810 would be of a vintage where something
non-standard would have been used. Since the 810 based board
probably did not use more than 150W of real power, there
could be a wimpy power supply in there.

This is your proposed replacement hardware list:

Kingston ValueRAM 256MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) $30
Intel Celeron D 326 Prescott 2.53GHz 256KB L2 Cache LGA 775 $47
ECS 661FX-M7 (1.1) Socket T (LGA 775) SiS 661FX Micro ATX $45

Checking the SIS website, it looks like you can find a graphics
driver for Win98/Win98SE for the SIS chipset. But OS support
is something you might want to check out before purchase.
Some motherboard companies make this pretty hard to figure out,
as to whether support for a given OS is complete or not.

http://www.sis.com/download/

The risk with the "friendly neighbout repair", is the cost
of the repair getting out of control. And unless you are
super-well-equipped with surplus hardware and software,
that is easy to do (the "getting out of control" part).

Paul

 

[pheasant]

Howdy: I have a neighbor lady who is on a fixed income and her Dell
computer has a bad motherboard/video. It's Dell Pavilion 8693c with a
533MHz Celeron chip and 128MB RAM, PC100. I tried putting a video card
in the PCI slot, but no-go. This 'puter is only used for email and
light web surfing and an occasional letter or two. She only has $130
to spend to get this puppy up and running again. I told her I would do
the labor for free if she paid for the parts.

This is what I am thinking about throwing into this machine. Am I
going to have any compatibility trouble with the HP proprietary parts
or any other probs?? I can't match any motherboard with her current
prosessor or RAM, so will have to replace all three. Think the
processor might be bad any who.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820141425

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819112207

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813135171

Any ideas or help would be greatly appriciated. Remember, I only have
$130USD, including shipping, to put towards parts. Thank you.

For these purposes; any used box would work. Go to a thrift store and pick
up a used one. Transfer her software and junk the old box. Maybe 20 bucks
invested, and she can keep her money for more important things than outdated
computer repairs.

 

[The Seabat]

She said her monitor just went blank and it was saying that it was not
connected. I connected two known good monitors here and neither one
worked.
There is no post beeps, no nothing. The power supply starts up the
minute I plug it in to a power cord. On/Off button does not work.
Nothing on the screen.
It has onboard video. That is why I tried a video card in the first
place. It will not boot to DOS, it will not boot to anything.
Nothing to indicate that at the HP support site. Nothing in the
service manual about video jumpers, either.

Yes, I have a copy of Win98se laying around and her Product code is
stuck on the side of the unit.

The power supply says it is 250W and has a 20-pin connector, so I'm
assuming it is ATX compatable.
Wouldn't those drivers be on the disc that comes with the new
motherboard??

Hmmm, good point!

I've checked out her other hardware, basically just one floppy and a
CD-RW drive. Oh, and a dial-up modem (US Robotics). I have the drivers
for the modem and the hard drive I've already taken out and scanned in
another 'puter to check it out and to recover all her photos and docs.
It seems fine. And she has all the discs for her installed programs (a
little unbelievable, huh?). She has a NIC card, but the new
motherboard has LAN onboard.

 

[Paul]

She said her monitor just went blank and it was saying that it was not
connected. I connected two known good monitors here and neither one
worked.

There is no post beeps, no nothing. The power supply starts up the
minute I plug it in to a power cord. On/Off button does not work.
Nothing on the screen.

It has onboard video. That is why I tried a video card in the first
place. It will not boot to DOS, it will not boot to anything.

Nothing to indicate that at the HP support site. Nothing in the
service manual about video jumpers, either.


Yes, I have a copy of Win98se laying around and her Product code is
stuck on the side of the unit.


The power supply says it is 250W and has a 20-pin connector, so I'm
assuming it is ATX compatable.

Wouldn't those drivers be on the disc that comes with the new
motherboard??


Hmmm, good point!


I've checked out her other hardware, basically just one floppy and a
CD-RW drive. Oh, and a dial-up modem (US Robotics). I have the drivers
for the modem and the hard drive I've already taken out and scanned in
another 'puter to check it out and to recover all her photos and docs.
It seems fine. And she has all the discs for her installed programs (a
little unbelievable, huh?). She has a NIC card, but the new
motherboard has LAN onboard.

The power coming on immediately when the plug is installed,
could mean the Southbridge is under stress. If some signals
to the disk drive are shorted, or if any hardware hanging off
the Southbridge is causing grief, that can cause the Southbridge
logic that handles the power switch, to switch the machine on.
The problem could be motherboard related, or could be due to
the behavior of a peripheral. I'd try disconnecting hard
drive and CDROM and see if the motherboard stops powering up
on its own. Just in case a storage device interface has failed
and is affecting the Southbridge.

A lack of beeps could be the processor being unable to read any
firmware. The flash BIOS hangs off a Southbridge-hosted interface,
and beeping requires some code execution. A lack of beep codes
means the processor may not be able to execute any code. Smells
a lot like a bad motherboard, unless additional testing shows
otherwise.

I suggested checking OS support, because some chipsets have advanced
past Win98/Win98SE. For Nvidia, on the AMD side, the Nforce3
is the last chipset with Win9x support. What I do, is check the
motherboard manufacturer's web site, and look at what drivers
are provided. They may have a list of supported OSes for each
driver available for download. If you download the new motherboard
manual before you buy, and analyse the hardware on the board (like
any RAID peripherals or special devices), then check the download
list, that will go a long way to avoiding any surprises when you
get the board.

And, yes, there are people who are so organized that they still have
all the original software, the receipts, the user manuals, the
cellophane from the original wrapping... Where would we be without
people like that ))

Paul

 

[Unknown]

,;On Mon, 02 Oct 2006 01:23:05 GMT, (e-mail address removed) (Paul) wrote:
,;
,;>>In article <[email protected]>, The Seabat
,;>>
,;>>> Howdy: I have a neighbor lady who is on a fixed income and her Dell
,;>>> computer has a bad motherboard/video. It's Dell Pavilion 8693c with a
,;>>> 533MHz Celeron chip and 128MB RAM, PC100. I tried putting a video card
,;>>> in the PCI slot, but no-go. This 'puter is only used for email and
,;>>> light web surfing and an occasional letter or two. She only has $130
,;>>> to spend to get this puppy up and running again. I told her I would do
,;>>> the labor for free if she paid for the parts.
,;>>>
,;>>> This is what I am thinking about throwing into this machine. Am I
,;>>> going to have any compatibility trouble with the HP proprietary parts
,;>>> or any other probs?? I can't match any motherboard with her current
,;>>> prosessor or RAM, so will have to replace all three. Think the
,;>>> processor might be bad any who.

I have a (your choice) 4430 or a 4473 (Pavilions both in working
condition) which I will swap for the one you are trying to fix. You
pay shipping both ways. I pick up discarded computers, repair them and
then give them to people like your client at cost of parts. These two
were freebees hence the bargain price.

I would try a different PS. If the MB or CPU are trash it probably
isn't worth fixing. I buy memory for these old timers on ebay and
usually pay about $5 for 168 pin Sdram. If I can't fix them with cheap
memory or stuff I have salvaged then I pull the parts for inventory. I
would try a different PS. There is no way I would buy a MB or CPU. If
you guess wrong you are stuck. I don't bother keeping old CPUs or MBs
that I pull from non-working computers.

Check your local garbage facility. I get a lot of good computers
there. Recently picked up a working computer 1 GHz CPU. Came from a
local government facility...figures, your tax dollar at work.

My email address is not valid. If yours is valid and you are
interested let's take this to email.


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