My Compaq Presario 700 laptop is giving me a headache! I can't precisely say what the problem is (daaa), but it seems to have something to do with the S3 graphics 'card' in the way that there arent any ressources left for it. OS doesn't report that the graphics is using any interrupt! And when it attempts to find one, it looks like it takes over some of the system INT, and the computer goes extremely SLOW - so slow, that it took 1,5 days to install windows!! I tried downloading new drivers for everything back then when i still had XP on it, but the whoe thing went dead on me after i installed new graphics drivers... it could never boot in normal mode without XP hanging! Now, i've seen my share of PC bugs, conflicts, Win98 PnP-wannabie hardware trouble - but this, this is out of my league! First of all, i could use some drivers for Win98, cause Compaq is only giving those for XP. Second, i could use all the help there is!

Guess what? i wanted to oust WinXP from my daughter's presario 702. Yes i could install it but there are no supported drivers for anything but XP. Compaq claims the hardware is optomized for XP (what a load of crap) They just don't want to write drivers for anything older than XP. They're probably in bed with Microsoft. I ended up reinstalling XP. the installation requires that you use FDisk to remove all partitions, recreate a new non DOS partition using NTFS file structures. you don't have to format the disk since the installation takes care of that. The laptop now runs flawlessly.

Oh and i did try to use drivers associated with the chipset. that didn't work either. They got us by the short hairs.

I have owned two compaq laptops the later being a 1810 presario that I paid so much for.. that I can shoot myself. This is what I have learned, what ever operating system I have on the laptop, I leave it.. Its two much of headach to find drivers that are compatible with some of the internal parts. Guys can you tell me if they still include the restoration cd with the new laptops? Boris, Radio shack is an authorized compaq dealer who do repair's I would take it there. Knowing compaq ((one problem may develop into 4 then into 16)) which is what has developed in your case.