欧州自転車レース追っかけ日記

Cinderella or just a workhorse?
Who is Cinderella? She is nobody as she is a fictitious figure who appears in a kind of fairy tale. I mean, I want to use this name as a metaphor for someone or something that comes as an underdog but steals the show in the end.

In my case, Compaq 610 was a Cinderella. I got this piece of hardware because I just wanted an Intel version of Compaq Presario CQ56 but found this set (610 and CQ56) and decided to get them. I did not need 610 but it so happened that this 610 had 4 GB of RAM in it. I thought that this 4 GB would go into its eBay auction partner (CQ56).

This Compaq 610 turned out to be a real workhorse. I liked it because of its sturdy keyboard (alas it is not a US-layout keyboard). It is a 2009 model and its keyboard is old. Oldie but goodie! This keyboard has a deeper key stroke and stronger springs. I can type as quickly as I wish because its deeper key stroke and strong springs won't budge under pressure.

Now I like this beast and I would like to make it even better. I have to get a CPU cooling fan as the current one rattles sometimes. I want to buy a brand-new US layout keyboard (the only keyboard that makes sense at all) and would like to repair the seemingly broken TouchPad (and its button). I even fancy upgrading its CPU to Core2 Duo T7800 (2.6 GHz).

The current Core2 Duo T5870 (2.0 GHz / 65 nm process) is fast enough to play back H265 encoded videos and runs much cooler than AMD Athlon II (N370 45 nm process) found in Compaq Presario CQ56.

Theoretically, only on the paper but the speed bump should be as much as 30 % (2.6 / 2.0 = 1.3, that is 30 % more juice)!

Today (Sunday, August 13 2023) I disassembled this beast to check something. I wanted to know why;
1. its TouchPad is not responding and
2. its keyboard is not really fixed.

I checked the ZIP connector (TouchPad unit to the mainboard) and found it seemed to be OK. Upon assembly I made sure the two screws fixing the keyboard were properly tightened.

I could remedied the floating keyboard but concluded that the TouchPad did not revive. Maybe I should get a TouchPad unit off a used lower case.

Should I spend some dough to make this beast better?

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Cinderella or just a workhorse?]の続きを読む

テーマ:ノートPC - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2023/08/13(日) 16:01:50|
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4 GB of RAM and it is kicking
Compaq 610 is kicking and does not want to rest (quite literally).

I don't find the phantom 2 pieces of 1 GB DDR2 SODIMM modules that would fit in this notebook computer so I grabbed the very 4 GB modules that originally came with this from the ebay seller in the United Kingdom. I wanted to test it if its performance improves.

It did. Before this operation opening the FireFox and using it was a pain as this software program is a RAM memory hog.

With 4 GB of RAM installed (at least temporalily) it kicks. It feels as if this old machine is as lively as its younger brother, my CQ56.

I also found out that this Compaq 610 does not have a BIOS setting feature that Compaq Presario CQ56 does. The CQ56 lets you choose if the owner wants to use the "F (function)" key-assigned functions with the use of extra key (small "fn" key next to "ctrl" or "Windows" key) or without. I want to use it without pressing the extra key.

Anyway, I have to use this "fn" key to use the "F" key-assigned functions such as darkening the screen, changing the speaker volume settings, taking the screenshots or calling the default web browser.

For example "f3" key has a pictogram "www" in a rectable on it. I figured that this would be the key to invoke the default web browser. It worked as I guessed it would!

Now I am reading the section where BIOS settings in the PDF maintenance manual.

"Computer Setup" is the term Compaq (HP) chose to describe it and at the begnning of the section it says that "Computer Setup is a preinstalled, ROM-based utility that can be used even when the operating system is not working or will not load".

This Computer Setup is very intricately made compared to that of CQ56. For example one can change the used language from English to these. Descriptions in (parentheses) are provided by me.

0. English (default?)
1. Deutsch (German)
2. Español (Spanish)
3. Italiano (Italian)
4. Français (French)
5. 日本語 (Japanese)
6. Português (Portuguese)
7. Dansk (Danish)
8. Suomi (Finnish)
9. Nederlands (Dutch)
10. Norsk (Norwegian)
11. Svenska (Swedish)

I was a bit surprised to see there was no Chinese option. Was this model not made and assembled there? Was it before the era when everything was made in China?

It also has built-in disk eraser called "Disk Sanitizer" to completely wipe out the data on the HDD in case the computer gets released from the duty and sold or recycled to prevent a possible data leak.

The PDF manual says like this but this was not enough.
To choose a menu or a menu item, use the arrow keys
To select an item, press enter
To close open dialog boxes and return to the main Computer Setup screen, press esc
To view navigation information, press f1
To change the language, press f2

Pressing "f1" when the Computer Setup is running, it gives additional but very crucial information about navigating through this program. This was the missing link that I could not figure out. The use of TAB key. To switch between "/" like between MM/DD/YYYY, I have to use the TAB key (Shift-TAB backward).

It is fan noise not fun noise!
Its CPU cooling fan makes a subtle noise from time to time. Its cracking sound suggests the bearing (or some sort) is showing the sign of ageing. Should I get a replacement fan now before it gets extinct?

The keyboard was OK
The keyboard on it was OK. It works. It was just a glitch that it did not work at one time. The TouchPad is not talking to me yet.

Shutdown is not an option
I can not shut it down from Lubuntu. Its screen shuts down black alright but the LED lights (one Power, the other WiFi) above the keyboard are on and the CPU fan is still on afterwards. I have to press-hold the Power key (where Power LED is located) to completely shut it down.


In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Compaq 610 Resurrection Part II]の続きを読む

テーマ:ノートPC - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2023/08/02(水) 12:59:25|
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Turn it on, Baby! Compaq 610 Resurrection Part I
The power adapter has arrived or I went to the ALIMA supermarket where the package was sent to upon my request.

The power adapter that I bought from Amazon Germany is a simple one. It comes with a whopping amazing 15 plugs that fit a wide variety of notebook PCs from various manufacturers including the Compaq 610.

I seem to have chosen the one that automatically changes the output voltage when plugged into the subject (notebook PC). I thought I had chosen the one with a manual voltage selector but I was mistaken.

The moment of truth has come! Is it OK? Does it work? Have I not mistakenly destroyed it while cleaning it inside out?

The moment I plugged it, the notebook started. I don't know why it did but it was like a premature ejaculation, right? Hahaha!

The BIOS password lock?
Upon turning it on, I had several options of operation. ESP key or other F (function) keys to choose from.

The ESP key stops the booting process and the screen shows the F key options.

F9: Boot device control (manually specify which device to boot from)
F10: BIOS settings

Verdict: The BIOS password lock seemed to have been lifted if the ebay seller's description had been correct.

Haiku OS Beta 4
The boot DVD-ROM successfully booted this Compaq 610 and I could use it. Both wired and wireless LAN devices were recognized by Haiku OS. I had only 1 GB of RAM inside. I had fun with it.

Lubuntu 23.04
It is the best OS to run on it. I don't have Windows 7 or other versions of Windows nor am I interested in them.

I can test the status of the machine hoping that Linux's wide hardware support can help me see if the devices (WiFI card, Bluetooth card if equipped, SD card reader or ExpressCard slot) are working. I can run CPU-X to see the CPU temperature under a light load or heavy load.

The boot DVD-ROM failed. I don't know if it had anything to do with the scratchy DVD-ROM or ??

I then pull the HDD from one of the CQ56 notebook PCs and put it into 610. It successfully booted. Now I am in.

The performance
The Core2 Duo T5870 (2 GHz) will be fast enough to decode H265 videos without any problems. After all, it has two cores, right?

Verdict: Up to my expectations. It is still OK with a flavor of lightweight Linux in 2023 (unless maybe you want to edit videos on it?).

The CPU temperatures
When I saw and dismantled it to clean its cooling system, I realized that it had a outward ventilation slits where CPU cooling radiator fins blow out the hot air but it had not much opening on the bottom. It had three ventilation slit areas but they are not much open much. One is located over the RAM module compartment. The second one, tiniest, is located just below the first one above-described. The third one, largest, is located on the edge of the lower bottom where the ExpressCard module is soldered on the other side of the mainboard.

These second and the third ones are a kind of surrounding the CPU heatsink. So I guess they are supposed to be sucking fresh air. Aren't they too small?

They made me want to drill holes on the bottom over the heatsink area.

Here are the screenshots to show the results.


(image 1: Core2 Duo T5870 under a light load cruising at around 43 degrees Celsius)




(image 2 and 3: Core2 Duo T5870 under a moderate load playing back an H264 video at around 51 to as high as 74 degrees Celsius)


(image 4: Core2 Duo T5870 under a heavy load decoding H265 video at around 69 to 72 degrees Celsius)



(image 5 and 6: Battery being charged and charged)


The video performance
Intel UMA graphics (Intel Mobile GMA X3100)

H264 encoded video playback: H264 MP4 video decoding has been implemented in the video chips for some time now. I expect this X3100 chip should do well.

The CPU load was relatively high compared to other CQ56s.

Verdict: The graphics chip borrows the part of system RAM and maybe that is why CPU is busy as it has less memory and has to use the swap space on the HDD. I don't know. I have to test it with more RAM installed on it.

Battery (18650 cell package)
Does it still hold the juice after all these years (made probably in 2009)?

Verdict: It was not dead to my surprise. It seemed to hold some charges. At least the LXQt power management saw the battery OK.

WiFi card Intel PRO/wireless 3945 w/o Bluetooth

I have seen a tiny device that looked a bit similar to the Bluetooth module described in the PDF manual. As the size and the installed spot were different from the PDF manual picture, I can not ascertain the nature of this tiny board. It could be a Bluetooth card. If so, the WiFi card must be the one without Bluetooth function.

The PDF manual states that there's full-size and reduced form factor Bluetooth modules in existence. Maybe the one I had in my 610 is a reduced form factor one and the one in the picture (PDF manual) is a full-sized one.

Verdict: WiFi card worked so I could see my home network. I could see my own Pixel 7 with the Bluetooth scan. I did not connect it but it seems that Bluetooth works.

SD card reader
I don't have any full-seized SD card right now so I can not tell if it works.

ExpressCard
I don't have any cards right now to see if it works.

The LCD screen
Verdict: It has no obvious blemish and it is bright. It functions well.

The speaker not the speakers
The only one monaural speaker works. The volume intensity is Ok.

TouchPad
Does it support some functions?
1. Two-finger scrolling?
2. Double tap actins recognized?

I know that the left botton is dead (the electrical conductive rubber is gone). I don't intend to repair it unless really necessary.

The TouchPad touch area has vertical line to indicate (or it seems to me) the designated place where to simulate the wheel on the mouse. Does it work with Linux?

The verdict: For some reason (possibly loose connection or improper ZIF closure), the TouchPad did was in incommunicado. The keyboard worked first (I could fiddle with the BIOS settings but later the keyboard became unresponsive. I used a USB external mouse and a USB external keyboard to do all the tests above.

Overall verdict:
The CPU Core2 Duo T5870 seemed to be a bit hot when given some work to do. It was a bit disheartening but it was not as hot as AMD CPUs on my CQ56.


I have to see the guts to see if I had improperly connected the cables around the TouchPad and make sure that all the ZIF are tightly closed. Otherwise, it works miraculously well.

Notes: Under Haiku OS both WiFi and WLAN devices were recognized. GL Teapot (Open GL 3D benchmark?) ran at around 60 FPS. It was slow.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Compaq 610 is kicking (sort of)!]の続きを読む

テーマ:ノートPC - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2023/08/01(火) 19:50:05|
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What is the size of Tyler Hamilton's Cervelo Soloist 2003?
MR. Tyler Hamilton is an former professional American cyclist who won Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2003 among other races during his professional career.

Why am I writing this? Well, 2003 is a bit special year for me. In early 2003 after working for a company several years (I don't remember but), I decided to quit. It was about to happen. The work was not for me. I did not find that job interesting. I just worked for money. As the job became more demanding, I totally lost interest. I always wanted to live outside Japan and this job had nothing to do with it. I was just waiting something to happen.

Anyway, I was between jobs that Spring, 2003. I remember exactly when but around the time I quit this job, I bought a bicycle (Riese & Müller Birdy to be exact) because I wanted to burn some calories while exercising along.

I hadn't owned a bicycle since oblivion. I think (am not sure but) I commuted to my high school on a bike. It was the bicycle that belonged to my elder sister who also went to the same high school. Or was I on foot? The high school was so close to my place so it did not really matter I was on foot or not.

Anyway, a bicycle was such a gone artifact to me by the time I finished my junior high school. This thinking was so common among boys of my era in Japan. After all, we (Japanese boys) had so many car manufacturing companies and motorcycle manufacturing companies in Japan. As soon as you reach the legal age of having a driver's license, you have to get on some "motored" vehicle. I thought this way.

I had never thought that the time would come for me to consider being on a bike was such a cool thing.

In fact I had never heard of "Tour de France" until 2003. I had never heard of "Liège-Bastogne-Liège" nor "Fleche Wallonne" till then.

Anyway, the bike on which Tyler Hamilton won the race "Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2003" was the Cervélo Soloist with red and white coloring with Team CSC written all over it.

I started working in Germany at the end of September 2003. In 2004 I bought a road bike. Guess what I bought! None other than Cervélo Soloist. What else? In 2004 they (Cervélo) changed the coloring of the bike. It was painted in black and red. Later they started selling black and white Soloists.

To my greatest regret, when I bought the bike on my own, my first ever road bike, I did not have enough knowledge to make the right choice of the size. The bike I bought was a tad big for me. I still have it but I woule like to get the right size.

If I could, I would like to the old one, white and red just like Tyler Hamilton rode to the victory of LBL 2003. A black and white one would be also cool. Oh, I am talking about the original Aluminium (or Aluminum) Soloists.

I have been almost always on the look for it.

Back to the topic. I think the frame that Tyler Hamilton was using was of size 51 from the look. The short head tube made the top tube and down tube merge. I don't think it is of size 48. I am almost as tall as Tyler Hamilton. Sometimes pro riders use a bit smaller size than a typical hobby rider so I can not be 100% sure.

T4500 is in use already! And it's hot!
This morning I went to the local post office to get some uncollected things. I also had some small packages from the Post (this is the name of Luxembourg postal service).

1. From Germany, Intel Pentium T4500, a dual-core CPU rated at 2.3 GHz (inside it's just Core2 Duo Penryn)

2. From China, a iPod Classic 6th gen. internal cable assembly connecting the audio output plug and wheel control kill switch to the main circuitry board.

3. From China, an internal "so-claimed" 3,000 mAh battery for my iPod Classic. This is not the same battery that normally sits in my iPod Classic 6th gen. 160 GB model. This one "can" sit inside mine if I replace the thick HDD with a thinner SD card adapter (such as the ones from iflash.xyz or other ones). iflash.xyz rightly points out that this 3,000 mAh is not correct but this one only holds around 2,000 mAh. The original one in mine is rated at 850 mAh. iflash.xyz points out that the those Chinese sellers can claim anything but the weight of those batteries can not lie.

4. From Spain, a set of WiFi antennae for my CQ56.

After coming home from work, I checked the performance of my Intel Celeron 900 CQ56 briefly and began the operation. Shortly the machine was reborn with a faster CPU. Some screenshots were made to illustrate the "before" and "after".

When I play back an H265 encoded video with VLC media player on it, the Intel Cereron 900 (single-core) drops the frames so much. It simply can not handle it. The CPU load is 100 %.


This one shows the CPU state of Celeron 900 under a heavy load (H265 video decoding).
(image 01: )


This one shows the CPU state of Pentium T4500 (dual-core) under a heavy load (ditto).
(image 02: )


This one shows the CPU state of the "other" Pentium T4500 on another CQ56 under almost no load (idling away). Note the temperature. This is way cooler than the other.
(image 03: )


This one shows the CPU state of the newly acquired Pentium T4500 on the CQ56 that formerly had Celeron 900. Note the temperature. This is similar to that of Celeron 900 under almost no load.
(image 04: )

I can not tell whether the temperature difference between the two T4500 under light load is accurate. It could be caused by the temperature censor error. Anyway, the temperatures are lower than those of my AMD CQ56 so I won't be worried at all.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Intel Pentium T4500 v.s. Celeron 900 v.s. another T4500]の続きを読む

テーマ:ノートパソコン - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2023/07/28(金) 19:35:29|
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Compaq 610 is clean now
I did it. It was a bit complicated than with CQ56. While the motherboard was isolated, I took the CMOS battery out for about 15 minutes and then put it back.

So if the motherboard's BIOS password lock had been in effect and the removing the CMOS battery was one of the ways to reset the password lock, it would be gone by now. I will know when I turn it on sometime in the future.

The left button on the touchpad was clunky and I found the cause of it. The clickiness is provided by a tiny rubber part. It serves as a conductive rubber spring but the left one was broken. I can repair it if I can source the part. Probably I won't because it is not worth the trouble and the cost of it.

Even if I use this notebook PC for fun, I will use it with an external USB mouse for the ease of control.

I did not find much fluffy dust on the cooling fan or radiator fins. There was some but not much. The fan was housed in a case that was welded (plastic) rather than screwed. So I did not really clean the fins. I cleaned it as much as possible with a tooth brush.

Overall, this Compaq 610 seemed to be in good shape except for the left key on the touchpad. I want to know if it really works. The ebay seller showed a photo that captured this Compaq 610's initial splash screen (blue background and compaq logo and something else). I believe it boots at least to that point. I think it boots if I supply the HDD or from DVD (like Lubuntu boot image or Haiku OS boot image).

I am now anxious to get the power adapter. Without it I can not do anything further.
続きをどうぞ [Compaq 610 cleaned and aux Champs-Elysées]の続きを読む

テーマ:ノートパソコン - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2023/07/25(火) 20:14:41|
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