PS2it
Well-known member
I've never really been a laptop guy, they're just a pain to work with (thanks to hidden screws and plastic snaps), and they usually have a slew of hard-to-find parts. However, there are some exceptions to that rule! 
The Compaq Contura is one of those!
I picked this little guy up in a lot of Macintosh and PC stuff a few years ago. A few days later, when I was going through everything, I noticed that this one just happened to be one of those rare ones where the power adapter was included! That was reason enough to get it up and running. After buying the odd PCMCIA floppy drive (this one doesn't have any internal drives, other than the HDD), and installing a 6GB hard drive, it was up and running! During the installation, however, I noticed that the screen would temporarily drop in brightness, almost like it was flashing on and off. Accompanying the flashing screen you could hear a faint whine, it sounded like coil whine. I had originally thought it was a backlight bulb, so I just kept using it, I figured when it went out I would go from there.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I was getting ready for the library show and I figured it would be a neat little computer to have set up. I did a quick reinstall of 3.1, this time also installing some of the Compaq Applications and packages. During installation, it seemed like the flashing screen issue was getting worse. After thinking about it, the whining noise sounded more like an inverter issue than a backlight bulb problem. So I bit the bullet and ordered a replacement inverter, surprisingly there were a couple on eBay, not sure why!
Unfortunately, the parts didn't get here in time, so those who stopped by the show on Saturday may have seen it sitting in the corner, off most of the time. But since the parts showed up today, I figured I'd take a couple of pictures along the way.
With the two screws, and about 7 plastic clips removed you've got access to all of the goodies in the top half of the laptop! (The yellow sticker is supposed to also be stuck on the inverter board I just didn’t put it on right when I checked the board for any capacitor leakage.)
Here's a closeup of the boards. The one on the left is the old one, the right one is the new one. I had originally thought I could recap it, but there really isn't anything to recap, and for the cost of the replacement, it really didn't make any sense.
All put back together, and ready to test!
It looks like everything went well! The new inverter seemed to fix the issue, as I had no issues while playing a few games of Tetris!
That is a very happy ending for the little Compaq! Now I just need to get working on some bigger projects! At least I can cross this one off of the ever-growing list!
The Compaq Contura is one of those!I picked this little guy up in a lot of Macintosh and PC stuff a few years ago. A few days later, when I was going through everything, I noticed that this one just happened to be one of those rare ones where the power adapter was included! That was reason enough to get it up and running. After buying the odd PCMCIA floppy drive (this one doesn't have any internal drives, other than the HDD), and installing a 6GB hard drive, it was up and running! During the installation, however, I noticed that the screen would temporarily drop in brightness, almost like it was flashing on and off. Accompanying the flashing screen you could hear a faint whine, it sounded like coil whine. I had originally thought it was a backlight bulb, so I just kept using it, I figured when it went out I would go from there.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I was getting ready for the library show and I figured it would be a neat little computer to have set up. I did a quick reinstall of 3.1, this time also installing some of the Compaq Applications and packages. During installation, it seemed like the flashing screen issue was getting worse. After thinking about it, the whining noise sounded more like an inverter issue than a backlight bulb problem. So I bit the bullet and ordered a replacement inverter, surprisingly there were a couple on eBay, not sure why!
Unfortunately, the parts didn't get here in time, so those who stopped by the show on Saturday may have seen it sitting in the corner, off most of the time. But since the parts showed up today, I figured I'd take a couple of pictures along the way.
With the two screws, and about 7 plastic clips removed you've got access to all of the goodies in the top half of the laptop! (The yellow sticker is supposed to also be stuck on the inverter board I just didn’t put it on right when I checked the board for any capacitor leakage.)
Here's a closeup of the boards. The one on the left is the old one, the right one is the new one. I had originally thought I could recap it, but there really isn't anything to recap, and for the cost of the replacement, it really didn't make any sense.
All put back together, and ready to test!
It looks like everything went well! The new inverter seemed to fix the issue, as I had no issues while playing a few games of Tetris!
That is a very happy ending for the little Compaq! Now I just need to get working on some bigger projects!
At least I can cross this one off of the ever-growing list!
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