I'm sorry if I am doing this wrong but I am in need of help.
Every time I attempt to load my recovery disc on to my lap top I get
ERROR #1802 image file is invalid or corrupted.
How can I fix this?

Hi gtbriscoe, welcome to the site.

Please see my previous post in this thread regarding our policy of not having members post their questions in another member's thread. You should start your own thread and post your question there.

Thanks for understanding.

Hello all, Im new here, But I'm Old at the 700 series Presarios. They have multiple issues ranging from motherboards shorting internally to Zener and regulator doides shorting open or across. I put a post in all of the forums I can to try to help people out on these monsters. Were currently getting 4-6 repairs a week involving these units and have built quite a base of followers. If you are a "Do it yourselfer" Kind of person we would be glad to help, as if someone is in need of repairs were available for this as well. Good luck on the laptops! I like seeing people getting together to try and resolve issues on a product that had faults from the word go! Respectfully, a newbie here. Ken http://home.mchsi.com/~ikenfixit/

Our colleagues' very hot compaq 700 suddenly stopped booting
- a wait of about three days - then randomly jabbing the keyboard would help

finally several months later - it would just show the compaq logo and that was it... nothing


assuming it was the harddrive - another 40 gig replacement
after loading the operating system prompted this reply


NTLDR is missing

press CNTRL ALT DELETE to restart

this would just repeat once restarting

alter contacting about 4 experienced MCSEs that we knew - every one was baffled and concluded that the Motherboard was malfunctioning

of course - the machine had to be thrown away - "just get another - they are so cheap now"


Then the precocious child of one of our colleagues took the machine home to "play with it" and fixed it after staying up all night.


Then in a normally uncomunicative way - the response to our pleas to reveal what went wrong...
:confused:

"It just needed a firmware upgrade"

I swear if your transmission was slipping on your car, Compaq would tell you unplug it , take out the battery and turn the key over for thirty seconds..Geeze.. Thats their suggestion for all failures.. figures. Sounds like youve got the ole board shorting out problem to me. I fix a ton of these if you need it done reasonably just yell. This is not a fix I can explain how to "do yourself" Its a job.. I'm Ken, we will help! http://home.mchsi.com/~ikenfixit/

Mine won't boot up either. When it does the screen freaks out and I have alot of different colored line on the screen. Most of the time the computer won't boot up at all. This all happened after I changed the motherboard out. I think it's over-heating.

Any ideas.

Thanks
[email]Rich@t3wireless.com[/email]

That's exactly what mine does. No Fan - No Boot Up - just the green light for a second. I know for a fact that my CPU is working - It usually starts working again after shaking and tapping and turning upside down and inserting the battery and taking it out, etc.. Eventually it starts working again, just like nothing was wrong. Like I said, it might be a few hours or several days before it works again. The last time it wouldn't boot-up, I had been using it and someone brushed the laptop while I was using it and it went down. I really think there might be something loose causing this. What I don't understand is why Windows XP thinks that it was a normal shutdown. This makes me wonder if it's not some kind of suspend mode that's occuring. Everytime I use the laptop I hold my breath and try not to move.. Jeez, you'd think a $1600 laptop would work better than this! It's only 2 1/2 years old!

Barrel connector broke on your board.
I tried to fix mine and fried it. Then bought a new board. Won't boot still.

Rich

I've had the same problem with my 701z Presario. It's been on-going for the last 2 years.

I've been able to get it to start up again by tapping on it with my fingers and turning it upside down a few times. It doesn't always work, but seems to work right before I throw it out the window in frustration! I also open and close the battery slot and try putting the battery in and then taking it back out again. At first I thought it was the battery, but now think it's a loose connection somewhere. I've purchased an additional battery to see if that was causing the problem, but it doesn't matter. I almost always have to take the battery out of the computer before getting it to work after it's been dead. In fact, I usually just run it without the battery. It seems to shutdown after any slight movement of the computer. Not completely sure though. It seems to always happen when I'm using it. At first I thought it might be over-heating and auto shutting down and tripping a switch, but not sure. It seems to happen after any slight movement, possibly movement to the power cord. I'm afraid to experiment with it since I don't want it to shutdown again. Sometimes it takes hours/days to get it to come back up again. Sometimes it takes just minutes to get it to come back up again. When it does *decide to start working again, Windows starts without any error messages. It thinks it shutdown normally. Any ideas?..

Actually What I have just found with mine is ... turn it over... and drop from about 2-3 inches.. wallah.. works just fine.. so obviously just something loose.

I wasn't sure if I read your post right; I've been messing w/ the same problem for about 3 hours...went to Kinko's to get a recovery disk, only to have it download to 99% before it told me that there was not enough room on the disk. So while retrying (thinking that would help), I found this site. Only thing is, it took about 2-3 feet for it to work! I tried the 2-3 inches a few times, but nothing happened. So in desperation, I tried the 2-3 feet, and the first attempt to boot up, it made a strange noise, and I thought, 'man, that does not sound good, but at least it is doing more than just a green light.' Then the 2nd boot, I got on.

But my question is, I have had boot up problems for about a month now, so much, that I don't turn off my laptop. I know this is not good, but I don't know what else to do. Any suggestions? I mean, the dropping is just a short term fix, right?

Hi briandavidleeg,

First of all- welcome to TechTalk!

We ask that members not tag their questions on to a thread previously started by another member (regardless of how similar your problem might seem). Not only does it divert the focus of the thread away from the original poster's problem, but it also makes it less likely that you yourself will get the individual attention that you need.

Please start your own thread and post your question there. When you do, please try to give us as much specific info as possible regarding the problem (exact error messages, system specs, etc.).

For a full description of our posting guidelines and general rules of conduct, please see this page:

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforu...b_faq#faq_rules


Thanks for understanding.

My friend has a presario 700 as well.. if the problem is the battery, i could just borrow hers.

I was wondering, if it IS a dead battery, don't you think that the computer would start up with the AC adapter plugged in? Or is it necessary to have some kind of minimum charge in the battery for the thing to start up?

I don't think it is the battery. And no, you don't need some minimum charge in the battery, in order to boot up off the ac adapter.

I yet to figure out the problem. In the process of buying a new laptop, just becasue I am tire of all the problems I've had w/ this one, and when I do, I will buy a one time service contract w/ Compaq and have them try to fix it. For those of you who don't know, Compaq does offer "extended" type warranties after the original warranty has expired.

Did you send in the AC/DC cable converter for plugging into the wall WITH the Presario when you sent it back to compaq? If not, I'd say that the cable is your culprit...they wouldn't have been able to duplicate the problem...and perhaps they didn't even use your cable when you sent it. I'd get a digital multimeter and continuity check your power cable.

I don't think it has to do w/ the power source. Mine has been failing to boot up a lot lately, and to make matters worse, I have a short in the ac adapter (so have a new one on the way in the mail), so like this morning after it crashing last night, it booted up off the batter.

What I have been doing, and I really don't suggest this, is I have been dropping it from 2-3 feet onto the ground and it starts back up...after I buy a new one, I am sending this one to the shop, and I will let you all know what they say.

:mrgreen: MAN DONT!! DROP!! IT!!!(lol) I fix a ton of these. The problem you are having is common.. Its most likely getting ready to have a board short issue. (does your adapter LED blink)? If so call us be4 dropping again.. Your going to turn your hard drive into a paperweight.. (and maybe the rest of it).. If your Adapter is shorting out.. Blinking.. Trust me buying a new one will aggrivate matters and make it happen sooner. These have a bad hot-spot in the primary input circuit that will eventually render it inop. If you want help getting it fixed before this happens, and you HAVE to replace the motherboard. Give me a buzz, email, or phone call. I do 5-10 of these a month and I know these things inside and out. I have 40 trashed board's on the shelf where people let them go too far, Some have a hole in them the size of a dime.. Literally. This problem can be fixed! Trust me.. (Were the cheapest around, And people always give us referral's) look at our web@ http://home.mchsi.com/~ikenfixit/ We can "fixit" for you or help you do it.. I-Ken-fixit

Posting a link to your own or any other repair service isn't really a helpful thing to do. Members here come from places all around the globe, not just in your own area. This is a self-help forum, so only those answers which tell people how to fix the problems themselves are really useful. If anyone wants to include a plug for their own repair service in their answer, it would be more helpful to use it in the form:

"If you live near ......... you might like to drop in and see me at........"


That all said, I'd have to agree with ikenfixit that changing a laptop motherboard is not a job for the fainthearted or inexperienced. Unless you are a person with a particular affinity for dasmantling (and successfully reassembling) electronic components, then don't take the job on yourself!

Apologies for the Ad looking post.. Actually the 700 series is one of the easier to dismantle, I was trying to state that if you are a "Do it yourself" type of person we will also help in that aspect.. Gotta love these compaqs, If it wasnt for their high failure rate? I'd be working at McDonalds.?. (NOT).. Anyway I'll refrain from posting ads that look like a sales pitch! Thanx again All, And good luck on the 700's! Ken

I got just got this laptop and it's working fine as I know. But the only problem is, when I run the laptop off a ac adapter, the fan is always running. But when I unplugged the ac adapter running from battery, the fan stopped. So is this the battery problem or the laptop is messed up? Your opinion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Thank you all for your help. I, too, had a presario 700 that stopped working. When I tried to turn it on, I would hear a single "click" and see a green light. Other than that, it was totally unresponsive. No display or anything. After taking it to numerous repair stores all over town to have it worked on, nobody could figure out the problem or fix it. So here is what I did. I removed the strip of buttons & keyboard. This revealed the silver piece of sheet metal with the heat sink on the underside. I removed it & disconnected the fan cable. There was some corrosion on the processor chip & heat sink which I carefully scrapped off with a tiny flat head screwdriver. There was also a thin square "foil like" heat transfer material that I removed and trashed. I cleaned both the heat sink & the processor chip with alcohol. Then I applied Arctic Silver 5 according to the instructions (see www.arcticsilver.com ). Re-assembled everything and. . . BAM! It works better than ever! I am not at all a "techie" kind of person. I have no experience with computer repairs. But this was EASY. Thanks again to all of you for your help.

Got it figured out. Call me at 323-788-4095.

Rich

Rich. The rails shorting out are one of Many problems that plague the 700's. Is yours still running fine? Hopefully so. Let people know if weve helped you please! (Repaired his 700 a couple months ago) If you need to learn more just buzz us I'll help you anytime. Ken

My Presario 700Z would not start at all. No power to the switch, although I had the AC adapter light and the Battery charge light the stupid thing would not turn on.
After the painful IM with tech support I was searching to see I any one had the same issue.
I did just what Comcrap has stated...
I removed the CMOS battery put the thing together and issue resolved.

Thanks for all the help....

Hi, My Presario 700 was working last night just fine running all the windows updates and everything. I had never ha a problem with it before. I went to go boot it up today and got nothing, no fan, just a green light and the battery light blinked. The battery had been crap since 2002 anyway and was just there for it's good looks, but today , I couldn't get any kind of a response from this computer whatsover. It has been one of my most reliable pieces of equipment and right now I am not financial able to buy a new laptop. I have built multiple desktops and those are huge lean mean running machines but the laptop thing is all new to me. One thing I noticed was a smell of something "burned" inside the machine. It smelled like burned dust. Anyway I got it apart. I am so thankful to who ever posted the instruction with pictures! That made all the difference in the world.
I have decided if any part of this thing is cooked, I am going to replace it with stuff on ebay. But how do I know what is wrong with it? One of the hardest things to diagnose could be the memory, but often times it's the easiest thing to fix. But how do I know for certain? I am on a very limited income and without this machine being in operation my work as a DJ is going to go right down the drain. I have here a tube of silicone based heat sink compound of which I use on all my AMD chips in my desktops. When I cracked this laptop open I found that it might need a little dab of this stuff right smack in the middle of it. I bought this at Radio Shack. I figure a squirt of this stuff can't hurt, but how would I know what pice is malfunctioning? Is it the memory, the processor, the hard drive? I yanked the hard drive out and it got me wondering why my 20 GB hard drives in my desktops were not that small?
Anyway, I know that I can fix this poor laptop, I have the talent and capability to do it, but what I don't have is the knowledge of being able to diagnose this.
From reading this thread, it seems I am just joining the club, so to speak. OK, Design flaw, I accept that but this has been an incredibly reliable machine since I bought it in 2001. Please help keep me advised on the status, if anyone knows anything I might have a question about, please let me know. I'm like the Borg from Star Trek, I'll adapt. I can fix these things.
So what do you think? Is it common for the fan to just quit? Or the motherboard to go bad? What are the probabilities of each of these things individually crapping on me? My chip seemed to be securely mounted into the board, should I pop it out put a dab of the compound on it's top and stick it back in there? The compound helps disperse heat and the less an AMD chip has the better. The chip is a AMD Duron 1.3 ghz. I have never had any problems whatsoever with this machine until this morning.
Anyone? Anyone?