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Mystery Laptop - Dauphin 900N (or is it a Dauphin 930?)

3lectr1c

3lectr1c

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Got this laptop for free from the swap meet - it doesn’t POST and the screen is dead dead. Pixel rot, minor vinegar syndrome, probably also bad caps.
What’s unique about it:
- Absolutely no info about it online that I could find. Not one reference to it existing. This is very strange as in the past, similar uncommon laptops have at least turned up out of stock replacement battery listings or at least some reference to them being real.
- No contrast or brightness control for the screen anywhere. It’s clearly a passive matrix panel so it would normally need one, but it’s absent. No key controls for it either.
- It’s got a trackball but no left or right click buttons. (Edit: you know what, I’ll bet that’s what the M1 and M2 keys are for. I assumed “modifier” before but mouse makes more sense… still very odd.)

40ED4F39-8126-4A45-BDE6-DD6A0E82D4F6.jpeg
024EC453-7DAE-4EEA-9EFB-DF3020161294.jpeg
(Top says 900N)
Anyone know what on earth this is? I got it with a bunch of documentation that I’ve yet to go through - perhaps that will yield some info. For now though I thought I’d put this thread out.
Either way it’s in REAL rough shape. Aforementioned screen damage, evidence of green corrosion all over the case, paint chipping off the bottom. And yes, it’s a painted plastic case.
Despite the signs of corrosion, the exposed ports look shiny. The main battery has leaked, but not catastrophically. I’ve yet to crack it open yet but I definitely will be doing that. Perhaps I can save the poor thing if I source a new screen and get it booting.
 
First off I realized one of the buttons is actually labeled contrast, I’m an idiot.

Anyways, I opened it up and it in completely toasted inside. Very obviously was in a flood, possibly for an extended period of time. Horribly damaged by corrosion, nothing that can be done. I’ll update this thread once I get a video uploaded on it, recorded myself opening it for my channel.
 
Shame it was ruined in a flood. Maybe if you wash the board really good, there will be some salvageable components.
 
Don’t think so Most of the traces and flat areas on the board look ok, but anywhere around where water could collect and sit is shot. Connectors, ribbon cables, bottom of the floppy drive is rusted out, around screws, etc. That combined with the busted screen tells me it’s more trouble than it’s worth unfortunately. It’s really bad in there. I think even the hard drive is gone, controller board doesn’t look good at all.
The only thing that survived is the inverter board for the LCD haha.
Hey, but at least the CMOS battery didn’t leak…
For anyone else that’s got one of these, it’s a Tadiran lithium battery. They can leak, so get it out, but not as frequently as NiCad or NiMH vartas do.
 
3lectr1c said:
Got this laptop for free from the swap meet - it doesn’t POST and the screen is dead dead. Pixel rot, minor vinegar syndrome, probably also bad caps.
What’s unique about it:
- Absolutely no info about it online that I could find. Not one reference to it existing. This is very strange as in the past, similar uncommon laptops have at least turned up out of stock replacement battery listings or at least some reference to them being real.
- No contrast or brightness control for the screen anywhere. It’s clearly a passive matrix panel so it would normally need one, but it’s absent. No key controls for it either.
- It’s got a trackball but no left or right click buttons. (Edit: you know what, I’ll bet that’s what the M1 and M2 keys are for. I assumed “modifier” before but mouse makes more sense… still very odd.)

View attachment 1258842
View attachment 1258843
(Top says 900N)
Anyone know what on earth this is? I got it with a bunch of documentation that I’ve yet to go through - perhaps that will yield some info. For now though I thought I’d put this thread out.
Either way it’s in REAL rough shape. Aforementioned screen damage, evidence of green corrosion all over the case, paint chipping off the bottom. And yes, it’s a painted plastic case.
Despite the signs of corrosion, the exposed ports look shiny. The main battery has leaked, but not catastrophically. I’ve yet to crack it open yet but I definitely will be doing that. Perhaps I can save the poor thing if I source a new screen and get it booting.
Click to expand...
Note that the brand/model is a sticker, not painted on. It looks very much like one of the clone/whitebox laptops we used to buy. I can't remember the vendor (maybe Infotel Distributors), but they are long gone anyway. You might likely find that laptop sold under dozens of different brand names? Is there a readable label on the bottom/back of the unit?
 
I was more talking ICs on the pcb(s), usually those survive floods.

I've had boards that were submerged in floods and they surprisingly survived after they were thoroughly cleaned and deoxidized.
 
Here’s a quick and dirty photo of the insides. It’s baaaad.
95EBC6C1-01B0-4086-9DD4-C390945FB951.jpeg
And yeah I’ll bet it’s some rebadged Taiwanese laptop like so many were.
 
That honestly isn't that bad. The way you were talking sounded like everything was one giant crust of corrosion.

I've worked on far worse and had success getting those devices working.
 
I suppose so. I may have another look at it, just thinking if trying to get it working would be worth the time. And either way I would HAVE to source a new LCD. And while you can usually find Chinese suppliers for these old screens, they’re expensive.
 
LCD appears to be about 9" or so in size. Post the LCD screen P/N and brand (perhaps include a close up of the LCD connector(s) and someone on the forum might have one that will work. I've got a few small old LCD's myself that I've not been able to test (or use).
 
Well that’s if I can get it to POST which I have very low hopes for. It does look a bit worse in person than it does in that photo. The main issue wasn’t the corrosion around chips and such, it was that any connectors on the board were super rotted out, and I think the LCD ribbon cables are also internally corroded.
 
I can see that you will have your work cut out for you. lots of green puss to clean up. I hope none of the proprietary IC's are toast. I've got a lot of laptop parts mobo's that might supply generic surface mount parts if push comes to shove.
 
Well it's in bad enough shape that I don't think that I'm going to bother with it too much. If the display ribbon cable is bad as well that's not a part I'm going to just be able to find.
 
Here’s some better internal photos. I was wrong, it was the keyboard ribbon cable that’s rotted out I suspect. The display doesn’t use a ribbon style cable. You can really see the damage on the floppy drive cable in this photo. These are all machine specific parts I’d need to track down.
7F9833BB-6FCE-492C-9046-74B207BCE313.jpeg
6DFBE921-1459-48C0-A1B1-7D440DBF257E.jpeg
 
The motherboard could be salvagable, possibly. I've cleaned parts of it with IPA and there is some improvement looks wise. I can't find any rotted traces or vias, just green corrosion around chip legs and connectors. It's still very very dead though. Upon receiving power from it's non liquid damaged PSU (I cracked it open to make sure), the power light right next to the DC jack comes on and that's all. A known good hard drive won't spin up, and I don't get any beeps. I do get a very faint high pitched noise that goes away when the soft power button (likely for suspend?) is held down. Releasing the button causes the noise to return, but it's very faint.
 
As a first step I would try removing as much green corrosion with vinegar, followed by a wash down with water. Then let dry real well. Corrosion can short components and some touch up of solder joints may be necessary too. If lucky you might then see some signs of life. I doubt if it would be working, but at least you'd have a starting point. The plastic case itself looks like it is in need of a good vinegar wash down too.
 
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