Hi,

Compaq's usually use a "cable select" cable on their IDE drives as
opposed to regular "clone" ide cable.  Cable select drives are usually
marked master and slave or they have a hole notched out of the cable
that you can see on inspection.

If you use a regular cable, you probably have to check the hard drive's
jumpers and change from cable select position to master or slave,
depending which is which.

By the center pin broken off the keyboard plug, I take it to mean the
black plastic and not the metal pin?  The black plastic is for lining up
proper connections.  If it's a metal pin then you have a more serious
problem.  It really sounds like the board is gone.  What happens if you
try to boot up with no fdd or hdd device connected?

Thanks and have a Great Day!

Joe Lore
---------
I just recently received this Compaq system from a friend. He had it for
a long while, reported no problems until the CD ROM stopped working. He
replaced it with a 56x Afreey brand CD, and claims it worked well until
it just stopped one day. When I first looked inside the machine, the
ribbon cable connected to the CD ROM was damaged (pulled free from the
connector on he mother board) and so I replaced it with a spare that I
had from another (non Compaq) machine. Upon boot up, it gives three
error codes: 1155 system board comm port address assignment conflict 601
diskette controller error 611 primary floppy port address assignment
conflict Then I get a flashing cursor and nothing else. Also, the center
pin on the keyboard ps2 connector seems to be broken off.. I assume
inside the machine. This isn't high priority, but any suggestions would
be welcome. Thanks, Jamie

         PCBUILD maintains hundreds of useful files for download
                     visit our download web page at:
                  http://freepctech.com/downloads.shtml