Compaq Armada M700

A rather typical notebook from early 2000s, before touchpads became standard. M700 was sold as a business notebook, good for text editing, spreadsheets, but also presentation graphics and even simple design works. The Pentium III 700MHz processor was fast enough for most of needs in 2001. This business application resulted in removing hardware volume keys (which were quite standard in early 2000s) and making brightness setting only by driver, dependent on operating system.
Contrary to Toshiba Tecra 8100, this one has network interface built-in, with a standard Ethernet (RJ45) connector. Although in 2001 most company networks used these connectors, there was still significant share of other networks, which then would require a network adapter.
A competitive IBM model is ThinkPad i Series 1300.

Manufacturer Compaq

Origin USA
Year of unit 2001
Year of introduction 2001
Type Laptop, PC
CPU Intel Pentium III 700MHz
RAM 128MB
Floppy Disk None
(possible to get in external bay)
Hard Disk 12GB
Other media CD/DVD drive in a bay
Graphics and display: 1024x768x24-bit LCD TFT, 14.1" 4:3 screen,
Sound: Stereo, built-in speakers
Keyboard and pointing device: Small PC keyboard without numeric part.
Trackpoint
Theoretically possible to install touchpad with a whole palmrest.
OS: Windows 98 or 2000

 

Power supply:

1 - Ground
2 - +18.5V DC, 3.5A
I/O:  - 2x PCMCIA
 - Modem
 - TV-Out
 - USB
 - PS/2
 - IRDA
 - VGA (15-pin)
 - Dock connector
 - Serial port
 - Parallel port
 - Ethernet (RJ45)
 
 
 
 
 
 
Possible upgrades: Memory, modem module may be replaced.
Additional peripherals:  Power supply unit.

I got my unit in a very bad condition - the inverter has blown fuse, the fluorescent tube in LCD was damaged too. After repairs it started, but it also required to make hinges a little more tight by using alcohol solution.

 

Drivers:

Drivers are located in packages called SoftPaqs, Compaq distributed them with their support. Now the support is gone, so it is needed to find and download SoftPaqs manually. You download them from HP FTP Server. Here are packages I found:
 - BIOS update: 20945 or 20946
 - Display: 13308 (Win2000) or 133210 (Win9x) or 18896 (XP)
 - Firmware for driver, update only when needed: 11788, 18449.
 - Input (Trackpoint): 13494
 - LAN: 22999 (may work without, also well)
 - Modem: 23002 (Win9x)
 - Power: 13441 (Win2000), 12559 (Win9x), 12668 (Win9x)
 - Sound: 12947
 - Utilities: 12583

Links:

 - https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,12808,00.asp - Review from 2001
 - https://archive.org/details/compaq-service-manual-compaq-armada-m700 - Service manual