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Floppy drive problems - won’t access the drive, drive not ready errors. The interface board (the one with all the ports) dies easily on these things. Boards from the 386 can be used on the 486, and VV. Minor modifications are necessary as there is one hole that doesn’t line up correctly. Leave out this screw and it’ll work fine.

Display panels, vid cables, trackballs, all case parts, RAM cards, modems, floppies, hard drives and HDD cable assemblies, batteries, keyboards, AC power supplies, and inverter boards from the 386 also work with the 486, and vice versa. The 386 model can be upgraded to the 486 model by replacing the CPU board and the DC-DC converter board (the small one (1.25" sq.) with the flat cable that plugs into the interface board. Be sure to attach the second, narrow flat cable that connects the two boards. Upgrading to the color option requires a color panel, trackball, video cable, hinges, color case, color inverter board, High Voltage connecting cables and screws.

Be very careful not to plug or unplug the display cable when the unit is on or contains a charged battery, as this will destroy the video controller on the interface board (the one with all the ports). Symptoms that this is damaged are:

- No display or backlight

- Unit still boots, and has correct display at the VGA out port.

- Normal power-on LED on the keyboard when the power button is pressed

Another very common problem with the unit is the DC-DC converter. This is the small 1.25" sq. board with either one (386) or two (486) flat ribbon cables connecting it to the interface board (the one with all the ports). Symptoms that this is damaged are:

- No display

- Unit doesn’t boot

- HDD doesn’t spin / FDD doesn’t do seek

- No lights on the row of LEDs on the keyboard

- Normal green light on the AC power supply - some change to yellow when charging the battery

- Yellow light on the front of the battery after the first 10 seconds

Another problem -

On the color models, the plastic case that surrounds the LCD panel is easily damaged. The extra weight of the color panel causes the threaded metal inserts set into the plastic at the hinge points to be pulled out of the plastic, breaking the top cover. This isn’t due to loose hinge screws, but rather a design flaw in the plastic. If they’re not already loose or damaged, mix some 5 Minute epoxy and fill the honeycomb molded into the plastic surrounding the hinge screw holes. Cover screw holes with tape. Allow to set for 1 hr before reassembling. Ways to minimize this problem:

-Educate the user to close the unit from the bottom of the display, pinching at the left and right hinge points.

- The epoxy thing mentioned above.

- Never disassemble the display assembly while mounted on the base unit. Always remove the battery, power supply, keyboard top cover, T8 screw which holds the video cable to the unit. Disconnect the video cable from the motherboard, remove the 4 screws at the motherboard that holds the display hinges, and remove the display assembly. Then remove the two screws at the top of the display, and remove the display bezel. At this point, be careful as high voltages (>2KV) are present inside the display assembly.