HP Omnibook 500

**houseisland** · February 2nd, 2008, 11:44 AM

I have been given an HP Omnibook 500 (F2974KT) -- PIII 700, 128 Mb PC133 RAM, (dying/dead 20 Gb hard drive), no docking station.

OK, it is small and cute, and it's built like a tank, and weighs about as much (in size/weight ratio).

I had to wipe it -- took forever -- appropriate tank-track like noises coming from the dying drive all the while.

Now the question is what do I do with it.

Hard drive - no problem - spare laptop drives a plenty.

Docking station - big problem -- no docking station means no optical drive and no floppy drive.

Floppy drive -- it will recognize an HP-branded USB floppy drive that I have and will boot to it but XP and 2K setup floppies don't like the USB drive and fail (never mind that we didn't get far enough here to see if the set up process would find the USB optical drive).

Optical drive -- it will recognize a USB optical drive but won't boot to it. This is not uncommon. Betcha if it were an HP-branded drive, it would be OK. The optical drive I am using works fine in other USB bootable systems.

RAM -- 128 Mb is wimpy for 2K and is way to wimpy for XP -- I have two 256 Mb strips (Samsung M64S3254CT2-L7A) but there must be some sort of single-sided double-sided issue here -- if one of these is installed (alone), the system sees only 128 Mb -- if two of these are installed, the system sees only 128 Mb -- if one of these is installed with the orignal 128 Mb strip, the systems sees only 256 Mb.

The NIC is PXE capable, so I suppose I could try setting up a RIS server but this seems like way too much work for an old PIII 700 laptop.

Any ideas/suggestions?

And yes it does make a handsome door stop.

____________________________________________

It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

**CCT** · February 2nd, 2008, 12:35 PM

Manuals still available and upgrade advice also:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport...SeriesId=31763

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport...p+omnibook+500

**houseisland** · February 2nd, 2008, 02:01 PM

Originally Posted by CCT

Manuals still available and upgrade advice also:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport...SeriesId=31763

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport...p+omnibook+500

Thanks.

I also found RAM upgrade instructions. Interesting that the instructions say to use only PC100 RAM and yet the stock RAM hidden away beneath the keyboard is PC133.

____________________________________________

It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

**NooNoo** · February 2nd, 2008, 03:57 PM

Mixing RAM speeds on the older laptops can have some odd results. You should check for bios updates first of all.

**houseisland** · February 2nd, 2008, 06:15 PM

Originally Posted by NooNoo

Mixing RAM speeds on the older laptops can have some odd results. You should check for bios updates first of all.

The BIOS update was the first thing I tried. The BIOS in the laptop was quite out of date. But alas, no change.

No RAM speeds are being mixed. The stock RAM is PC133. The Samsung 256 Mb SODIMMs are PC133. I supect that the Samsung strips are double sided and that the laptop doesn't like it -- Samsung and its compatibile RAM is relatively inexpensive -- The laptop probably wants single-sided SODIMMs -- the HP RAM and HP compatible is much much more expensive.

____________________________________________

It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

**CCT** · February 2nd, 2008, 07:17 PM

What does the manual say?

**houseisland** · February 2nd, 2008, 08:12 PM

Originally Posted by CCT

What does the manual say?

But of course the documentation says to use HP RAM only. Would it ever say anything else? It will always say use HP RAM only. It also says to use PC100 RAM only, but the stock, HP-labeled SODIM in the notebook is PC133, and the parts list for the 500 series lists PC133 SODIMs in addition to the PC100 ones.

When you buy HP RAM by the spare parts numbers, it is almost always rebranded Kingston, Elpida, Samsung, etc. anyway. (My Samsung SODIMs are Toshiba parts.)

The documentation mentions notihing about single-sided or double-sided RAM, but of course it wouldn't because if you use HP part numbers, you don't need to know. I am just making a guess that the single/double-sided thing is the problem here, since 256 Mb double-sided SDRAM strips displayed similar symptoms in motherboards that would only accept single-sided strips.

____________________________________________

It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

**CCT** · February 3rd, 2008, 07:26 AM

Crucial agrees: http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartsp...4B6567A5CA7304

The only real difference in design in those old sticks appears to be the size and number of actual ram chips, ie, 16 x 8, 8 x 16, etc.

May make a difference.

http://www.memex.com.au/144psod.asp

**houseisland** · February 23rd, 2008, 12:04 PM

Sweet. Got a docking station for free.

The laptop wouldn't work with it at first. No drives. No video on the laptop's LCD panel. I had to roll back the laptop's BIOS which got me to a point where the floppy and LCD panel worked, and then I was able to flash the laptop and docking station bioses together to matching versions.

And life is good.

Working on RAM now. It runs W2K quite well with only 128 Mb until you add AV and a firewall.

____________________________________________

It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!