HP F1252A PCMCIA VGA-out card for Jornada 720

Hi everybody!
I need a bit of help from your side regarding a HP F1252A PCMCIA VGA-out card that I bought from e-Bay for my Jornada 720 and it doesn't work.
This pc card is not recognized by J720 at all. When inserting it I get a window opened asking for the name of the driver. I tried several alternatives but none is working. Hence my first question: What do I need to type in that window for the name of the driver?
Did anybody else meet this situation? If positive, what is the cure for it, please?

I thought that F1252A is automatically recognized bt J720, I read that the drivers are burnt in the rom. So another question would be: What are the names of the native driver files to find in WinCE on my J720?
I've found several files starting with "hpvga", I imagine the important ones are hpvgaout.dll and pcvgaout.dll, but I expect that there should be also an .exe file, isn't it?

On my card on the front big blue label along the long side there is an yellow background frame where it is written:"This product works with Microsoft Windows CE2.0 - based HP Palmtop PC only". So I also tried to install the drivers for J680 based on wince2 (hpvgadrv.exe), but I got the message that the drivers are not appropriate for the OS on my J720. Therefore I am inclined to believe that indeed this pc card is meant for HP Palmtop PC wince 2.0 only. If so, unfortunatelly this is not reflected by the model no of the product, which is labelled simply F1252A. On the back of my card on the white label besides the model no F1252A it is also written Made in Taiwan and 0031 under the barcode, which might reveal the manufcaturing week 31 in the year of 2000.
Can somebody confirm please if there are several versions of the F1252A lauched HP on the market under the same main model no. marking?

I'm inviting other owners of the F1252A pc card to confirm or deny the presence of the message on the yellow background "This product works with Microsoft Windows CE2.0 - based HP Palmtop PC only"as described above, please.

Some years ago I had a J728 with such a F1252A card which worked fine and I think I remember, but not sure, that the card was also working in my laptop generating vga out signal. But this is not the case now with this new-purchased pc card.
Therefore it would be helpfull if other owners of such a pc card could confirm this.

Due to the length of this post with explanations I highlighted the questions for an easy follow-up, no offense ment.

Thank you so much!


Edited by arlex 2010-08-14 9:23 AM

As outlined in the HCL, this works on HP 2.0, 2.11 and HPC2000 devices - only. The ARM driver comes in the 700 series ROM and isn't standalone so the driver installer will not work against a 720.

Try hpvgaout.dll or pcvgaout.dll as the driver name, it's one of them; I believe it's hpvgaout.dll as this bootstraps the pcvgaout.dll.

Thank you for answering so fast C:Amie! I was aware of the facts that you stated, nevertheless I did just a try just to be sure that I explored all the options.

Unfortunatelly neither hpvgaout.dll nor pcvgaout.dll does the job. I tried also several buzzwords but nothing, the window opens and keeps asking for the driver everytime I reinsert the card or start Jornada.
So I wonder if the pc card is in good working condition, but it does not match my Jornada or is it damaged. That is why I raised that question about compatibility with an xp laptop.
Afterall how can I test it if it is in good working condition just using with my J720 and my xp laptop? I know that the easy way would be to find a CE 2.0, 2.11 device like J680 or HP 540 series Jornada, but it is not my case.

Do you have such a pc card at hand for checking the yellow background message?

Thank you!

I don't I'm afraid

I remember the card well, had one for several years, just as you described...blue with yellow stripe, rainbow stipes at the bottom and image on the front of it showing a palmtop connected to a projector showing an image on the screen.

The reason I remember it is that I used it with my 680 and later with my 690. I remember being bummed that the drivers that came with it were only for SH3 and not for ARM, so when I got my 720 the first thing I did was buy the Voyager VGA out card.

It wasn't until after I ordered the card that I realized the drivers for the F1252A were already there, embedded in the rom of the 720. All I had to do was plug it in and it worked. But as it was, I ended up keeping the Voyager card anyways because I liked the dongle...it made it easier to hook up to projectors rather than having the VGA connector right on the card...at least for me. Althogh a VGA extension cable would have done the same thing.

Check to make sure that all the pins in your pcmcia slot are there and not bent...and if that is the case, then you probably have a bad card. Of course the easiest thing to do would be to test it with another HPC...or send it to someone you trust to test it.

BTW, I checked my old driver files for it and those are the only two dlls in the cab for the card.

Thank you Rich Hawley!
Yes, the description is perfect.

There is no bent or broken pcmcia pin as far as I can see.

Do you mean that there is no such thing as a good F1252A pc card to work on CE2.0 HP palmtop but not on HPC2000 Jornada 7xx? That was my expectation too until I got this card.

Anyway, I hope that such a card owner will come up to tell what's written on a working F1252A vga-out card for Jornada 720.

Thank you!

Rich, has anyone tried dumping the arm drivers from a 720 and running the card on a MP (or the like) before?

Now there is an idea C:Amie....

Arlex, that is what I'm saying...they are all the same card...no difference.

Thank you Rich, I thought so too, but here is something odd that I've found on a site that is listing all the Jornada 720 parts at http://www.ambry.com/page/modelnu/F1816A/F1279A.html

F1252-60901 VGA-Out PC card - Allows palmtop to connect to VGA monitor - 512K RAM, support for 256 colors, up to 1024x768 resolution, built in female 15-pin VGA connector
F1252A VGA-Out PC card - Allows palmtop to connect to VGA monitor - 512K RAM, support for 256 colors, up to 1024X768 resolution, built in female 15-pin VGA connector

Although I don't see any difference between the 2 listed text-lines, there must be some since HP gave a different part number. Odd, isn't it?

I'm also attaching a picture of the card showing the yellow background where it is written "This product works with nough Microsoft Windows CE2.0 - based HP Palmtop PC only".
I hope to be lucky enough to get a confirmation from one of the users that all the F1252A VGA out cards have that message in the yellow frame and yet work OK on Jornada 720.

The other confirmation I'm looking for is if such a pc card is working all right in a win xp notebook.






Attachments
----------------
img5.jpg (15KB - 3 downloads)

The registry of my 720 has 4 possible vga driver entries.

Mixed case
VgaOut

These 3 are all uppercase names, and they refer to the dll's mentioned at the top of this thread.
1. HPVGA
2. PCARDVGA
3. SED1356

Here's the HP Jornada web site VGA Card details (via wayback machine)

http://web.archive.org/web/20001202031300/www.hp.com/jornada/produc...

Hope that helps.




Edited by technogeist2k9 2010-08-15 10:01 AM

Arlex, that is the card I used to use with my 680, 690, and 720.

Technogeist, the SED1356 driver is the VGA output driver used by applications to output the data to the monitor, not the driver that makes the card run. If it seems like I'm splitting hairs I guess what I am saying is the SED1356 driver is not even invoked to run until an application calls for it, like some type of data presentation software.

The SED1356 is the Espons 1356 vga chip used in the 700 series. As I said above the hp VGA boot straps the pcvga one.

Well I didn't differentiate the drivers.
I just gave the whole lot, and let him see which works or not. I only posted the message because specifying the (even if correct) dll isn't always guaranteed to work.

Isn't the J720 supposed to provide a list of known drivers to choose from? It does for my wireless network.


Edited by technogeist2k9 2010-08-15 5:04 PM

Thank you technogeist2k9. I will check according to your recommendations. I was out for a few days due to the failure of my main computer and I am still limited in options :-(

Hi everybody!

After a good while I discovered by chance the cause of the malfunctioning of the HP F1252A VGA out pc card: the driver was simply modified or replaced by the driver of the Margi Presenter-To-Go, which I installed previously on the J720. After a hard reset due to empty battery I found out that all of a sudden the HP F1252A VGA out pc card was automatically recognized and working. So no mistery any more. To be ansolutely sure I reinstalled Margi Presenter-To-Go and indeed the HP F1252A VGA out pc card stopped working and is not recognized any more.
Should have thought on that, but I completely forgot about Margi Presenter-To-Go being installed.

I thought that it is good to highlight the cause here on the forum.