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Revitalizing an Aging Notebook On the Cheap

Posted by timothy on from the but-I-want-a-wind-instead dept.

jcatcw writes "Brian Nadel's ThinkPad R50 just hit its fifth birthday, and the years haven't been kind to it. When it was new, the notebook was reliable and fast. Now it's slow and prone to annoying shutdowns. Is it a good investment to revamp a notebook that's worth about $350? It sure is, because this old notebook will get a new lease on life for about $125 — a bargain, considering what it could cost to replace." On the other hand, upgrading RAM, keyboard and hard drive don't get you a smaller (netbook-style) computer, a new battery, or the transflective screen on the Toshiba linked above.

5 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Huh? by White+Shade · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've noticed that it's next to impossible, via normal channels, to get even old laptops for less than $300.. they may be worth about $1.50, but that doesn't stop people from charging the big bucks for an outdated piece of shit.

    It's like craigslist syndrome; no one wants to admit that their ancient worthless crap is actually worthless.

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  2. Re:Huh? by Gulthek · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://dellauction.com/ is your friend.

  3. Re:Or battery life! by Bandman · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've seen quite a few instructables about how to replace laptop batteries yourself.

    I'd say the screen quality would be the limiting factor. Dead pixels eventually add up.

    If there were a way to get new screens, then this would be the next big way to save money.

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  4. Flash drive? by stickyc · · Score: 4, Informative
    An old laptop like that isn't going to be good for much else than browsing/email anyhow, so why not replace the drive with a CF card and laptop IDE-CF adapter. Adapters can be had on ebay for ~$5. CF cards are pretty cheap - You can run XP on a 4GB card pretty well and Win2k or linux variants on 2GB easily. Write times aren't all that great (avoid super-low memory environments where there'll be a lot of swapping), but read times are great and battery life will be much improved (which is a big deal on slower older laptops), plus they're lighter and run cooler.

    The write cycle failure time on most CF cards is so long, you should get at least a few more years of use out of it (and CF cards will be that much cheaper by then). Even then, from what I understand, write cycle failures are just that - a failure to write. You can get a new drive, copy the contents to the new drive and be good to go.

  5. Nope by FranTaylor · · Score: 4, Informative

    I "know" that a new battery cost me $50, and it's even better than the original was.

    The used laptop that I paid $300 for, over a year and a half ago, is going for $200 now, and it blows the doors off an eee.