Compaq Armada M700 Notebook

[Clocker]

Subject laptop computer (Compaq Armada M700) is the one I should be getting in the next month or so from a friend. It will be 600 or 700mhz.

I was wondering if any of you guys have had experience working with an Armada M700 and/or had any advice for a firstime laptop user/owner.

I just started reading about it here: http://www.digit-life.com/articles/compaqarmadam700/

Also, I think it will only be coming with 128MB of SDRAM and I'm thinking I might want to upgrade that. Any idea how much that would cost me or if there are any secrets/bargains to upgrading these guys? Of course, any suggestions on maybe a HDD upgrade or a wireless NIC would be appreciated too (I'm thinking 802.11g). Does a wireless NIC use a lot of power (I'm thinking about battery life).

Thanks,
C

 

[Buck]

Sorry Clocker, but I'm not familiar with this model. Nonetheless, you are a pretty technical guy, and I can't see why you shouldn't easily figure out how to open the thing up and replace the drive or add more memory if you need to.

As for the wireless NIC, I would imagine that if you are in a business or home environment that attaches to a network, you'll probably be hooked up to AC power. However, out in the field or at a Starbuck's Coffee house with WiFi, you'll be relying on the battery. The wireless NIC shouldn't shorten the life of the laptop battery very much, as they don't even impact PDAs to a great extent.

 

[Mercutio]

They're better-than-average for Compaqs. More durable casing. They are fairly heavy, have an obnoxious docking station and short-ish battery life under good circumstances. You're getting one that handles speedstep, which is good for the battery and less good if you're planning to use it while it's unplugged (when it'll only be a 500 or 550).

I think I have a 128MB DIMM for one, but that might be for an M500. I'll have to look.

 

[Clocker]

I'm not sure if this Laptop will have a floppy drive with it. Any suggestions on how I would update the BIOS (if necessary) without a FDD?

C

 

[Mercutio]

Beg, borrow or steal one, or a docking station with one. I'm positive that they run Win2000 pretty well on the basic-issue BIOS. Also, I'm pretty sure this machine uses a firmware-based config program, not the communist hidden weirdo evil DOS thing that some Compaqs use.

 

[Clocker]

Thanks Merc. I was looking around the Compaq/HP forums and some suggested making a bootable CDR with the bios on there. Only problem is, I don't see the actual BIOS flashing utility. I see some utility that is for updating the BIOS via a remote network connection but not what I'm used to with Desktops...

These are the downloads I have found...

Oh nevermind...I think I just found it...

http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/armada/us/download/14207.html

THink this can be done via bootable CDR?

C

 

[Pradeep]

If you can get the .exe to write the files into a directory of you hard drive, you should then be able to add those as a bootable CD-R. Otherwise you would need to write the files to a floppy on one of your other machines, and burn a CD-R from there.

.11g will be next to useless for use at public access points etc. I would recommend an Orinoco dual/tri band PC Card, they have one that does .11a, b, and g now.

 

[Clocker]

Thanks Pradeep.

I was thinking about getting one of the backward 802.11g cards once the interoperability testing and certification is complete...but knowing that card is available is nice just incase I can't wait to buy....

C

 

[zx]

Ahhh. I have to work with an M700 this summer. Let's say it's slow as hell. The one I have is a P3 700 and it's very slow. I think it's the HDD...

Anyway, it may be an isolated case.... The battery on this laptop has 5 min of juice in it. I think it's a pretty fatigued laptop .

I'm going to re-install windows on it soon (because of many bugs). I don't know if it will solve the problem.

 

[Clocker]

Well, I got the Laptop this past weekend. It is pretty nice! Came preloaded with XP but I think I’m going to take it off and put 2K SP4 on it.

I thought it would be 600-700mhz machine but it is only 500mhz. But, the upside is that it came with 576MB RAM, a CD-ROM & a floppy drive. No touch pad but the little joystick thingy in the keyboard seems to work a lot better than I thought it would. I’m pretty happy with this thing for $300. I’m glad I didn’t get anything smaller than the 14.1” screen or else I think I would have been disappointed.

The battery seems to be fine. Is it a good idea to run it all the way down once in a while? If so, what is the procedure? I think XP told me it was good for about 4 hours.

I have my new 802.11g Netgear WGR614 router and WG511 PCMCIA NIC going. I must say I’m pretty impressed with 802.11g. I can get 23-26Mbps all over my house although when I get to the far end of the house with extra walls in between it drops down to about 18-20mbps. Right now it seems to drop the connection occasionally with 128-bit WEP so I’m sticking with 64-bit for now. I’ve also locked down the router to only accept wireless connections from the wireless NIC’s MAC. One nice thing too is that you can have the router not broadcast it’s SSID (or whatever it is called) to the rest of the world..

Overall I’m very happy with this set-up and now I can spend more time in more comfortable places + closer to my wife!