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Revitalizing an Aging Notebook On the Cheap
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.
A 5-year-old notebook is worth $350? I don't think so. Hard for me to pay much attention to the rest of any article that begins that far off base...
A-Bomb
With a few exceptions, battery life just sucks with an aging laptop. and replacement batteries are either used up themselves, insanely expensive, or impossible to find.
So he added some memory and doubled his hard drive size (I don't really count replacing the keyboard as an "upgrade"). He made no mention of the battery, which any 5 year old laptop will need a new one of. That in itself will be about 50-75% of his $125 upgrade budget.
This guy's the limit!
No mention of a new battery - I know my battery is useless after less than 4 years, I only get 5 mins now. At over $100, though, it's not worth it to me to replace. I'm always near a power supply. Add the $125 he spent, plus $125 for a battery, & you're only $150 away from a new Dell. Just sayin'...
The best investment you can make is to give that laptop to some enterprising person and tell them to make a blog or site and give you the a percentage of the profits.
You might even be better of simply donating the laptop to charity and deducting the donation from your taxes.
If you really need it for some reason or cannot possibly afford something newer, consider putting Xubuntu, Puppy, or some other lightweight OS on there.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
I've been working on and in PC's for years and have never seen THAT bad a clog. Big dust bunnies are the worst I've seen...
Where the hell did this laptop go? It looks like it sucked up a ferret (look at the page 5 gallery).
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9096720&pageNumber=5
Good.. Bad.. I'm the guy with the gun.
If you're stingy and don't need a lot of power, sure. Personally, I would go mad trying to use one of those things. :-P
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I think the question is interesting, but really, to get an old laptop working again, you must still walk around with something that looks and feels aged, since the casing is torn, the monitor is far from what it used to be (LCD and TFT quality wears out after some time) and the keyboard is probably not what it used to be either.
Why not just spend $500 on a new computer, such as the Asus Eee or MSI Wind? You're definitely getting more performance out of it, plus the benefits of WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.
Full Tilt
Three reasons to upgrade, rather than replacement:
1. It could be cheaper. He was talking about a hard drive and memory here, both of which can offer a slight boost in functionality, which is all that some people need.
2. It may be easier. If you're only talking about upgrading the RAM, then you get to bypass the joys of installing software and reconfiguring your working environment.
3. You may have trouble getting the features you need. Have an old printer that you don't want to replace? Need a serial port on the road, but don't want to carry an adapter?
4. It just may be more environmentally friendly. It takes energy to manufacture goods. It takes time and energy to dispose of hazardous waste.
Upgrading doesn't always makes sense. But sometimes it does make sense. So why criticize people who take that less travelled path?
He's looking to upgrade on the cheap, and your recommendation is "just buy a new mac"? Somehow, I don't think he'll be taking that piece of advice.
You obviously aren't too concerned with processing power, hard drive size, or the latest gee-whiz features if you're interested in upgrading an old machine. An Asus Eee or similar MID might be a little closer to what you're looking for. All the portability and simplicity you're used to, without all the heartache.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
You can get a modern, dual-core laptop that will run XP or Linux like a dream for under $500 these days. It's hardly worth dropping money on an older one.
Set it aside and install Linux on it and use it for a download, firewall, torrent, web, development, java, gcc, proxy, cvs, - whatever - server. A working computer you can hack around on is always worth something.
My 'outdated piece of shit' is doing just great and I use it every day. The new battery lasts even longer than the original and the tickless 2.6 kernel doesn't hurt, either.
Sure, you can drop some money on a hard drive and RAM. That is if the notebook will take them. You may well run into memory compatibility problems or a hard drive size limit in the bios. Finding the right kind of RAM and drive may even mean having to spend big depending on where you live.
Much better to spend the money on a new machine. If you have plenty of spare time clean up the old one and use it for a picture frame. It'll be cheaper and likely have more space. Isn't this the accepted non-geek use for an old laptop? If you have LOTS of spare time, consider using it for a geeky project like controlling a robot. Serial ports use to be standard on laptops but now you have to buy USB->serial adapters. So for some things the old laptop is actually better and cheaper to use. You could even consider donating it to your local club. (I almost donated an old laptop to my r/c flying club. With a serial connected hardware module it could be used to monitor for r/c interference. In the end I decided against it because most of the guys at the club would rather have nothing to do with a computer on a Saturday morning).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
New Asus eee is 900 MHz. Old Compaq Evo N610C is 2.4 GHz. The Compaq has a much bigger screen, same RAM, twice the disk and goes for half the price.
The way I see it, there's no real reason to throw good money after bad. If he needs a better laptop, shell out the dough and get a better laptop. Don't screw around with a money pit or you'll end up shelling out just as much in the long run. (Need a new battery? Oops. More money. LCD backlight getting dim? More money. Need Wifi? Keep bleeding.) Even worse, you'll have all kinds of weird dongles hanging out just to upgrade to support modern features like Wifi and Bluetooth. (Assuming he doesn't already have the optical disc and floppy drive dongling. :-P)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Honestly, the IBM (now Lenovo) Thinkpads are probably one of the few models of laptops that *may* make a little sense to "refurbish", to get more life out of them.
Their utilitarian, black plastic cases tend to take more abuse than most before really looking "worn out" or "old". (No fancy silver paint to flake off, or aluminum shells to get dents or real obvious scratches in them, etc.) I've also noticed that batteries for most of them can be had for less money than many other brands.
At the same time, much of their userbase tends to be people not interested in flashy "extras". They just need a reliable "not too thin/breakable" portable to connect to the Internet with, edit documents, and other such basics.
But even given all of THAT, I'd question the point to the whole thing. I mean, do we need this article to tell us the common sense that "Hey, if you upgrade your system's hard drive and RAM, it'll run as much as 30% faster!" ??
Yeah, that's been true for pretty much every computer, laptop or desktop, throughout history... and it's often a good idea to do during the *viable life* of the system (first 1-3 years of use). After that, the cost/benefits tilt towards just buying a whole new machine, if you're feeling the need to spend ANY more money on the one you've got.
Very few buyers will worry about how much RAM etc it has. Most won't pay more than $x unless it has a fast CPU.
If you think that it is worth spending the extra $125 to have a faster machine for yourself, that's fine, but don't try rationalize it with resale value.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I would be mighty impressed if you got a NEW battery for a 5 year old laptop for only $50. Batteries for older hardware get more expensive over time, not less.
Except for that huge antenna sticking out. And the majority of older laptops would have to go the PCMCIA route, which is both expensive and requires more to stick out.
I've spent at least $600 and have a piece of hardware which will serve me well over the next five years and keeps up with my computing needs. You've spent $200 for something that is likely to be unreliable and will continue to drain money from you, albeit not up front.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
For work, play, school ? Absolutely not.
...
...
... before it died finally..
...
... when I am next to a machine I end up working, or reading dox, except when the machine is useless for anything else than "surfing"...
...
YES: for a
garage computer: to check that "how to fix my XYZ headlamps.
bedroom computer: to browse around, without having to put your shiny macbook next to the bed so your SO can step on it in the morning
kitchen computer: recipes
living room computer: to IMDB that movie trailer, or to run MTR (multi trace route) during an online game, to see your current latency (ping)
asterisk/appliance box: damaged screen, damaged keyboard/touchpad? Still perfect for a quiet always on application. Well I run my asterisk on NSLU, but my close next guess was my OOOLD vaio
A 5 year old machine should also have DVD playback capabilities, USB ports, etc, so they are perfect as a car pc, toilet pc, bathroom pc.... or whatever
I actually have a 6+ year old Toshiba near my bed. It annoys the hell out of me with windows on it, and it is slow as hell, but to quickly google something, or spend a lazy Saturday morning "surfing the net", it is perfect. Oh yeah
just my 2c
I've done this on a few old laptops. A couple of notes:
- Disk drives. Costs go down. A lot. For older HDDs @ 3600 or 4200rpm, if you have anywhere near a reasonable amount of memory, this is the easiest and best bang for the buck.
- Memory. If you buy new memory, the prices for older 'architectures' go up. Check out the price of 1GB pc2700 sodimm vs 1gb pc5300 sodimm (DDR2). It's about 2 to 3 times the cost for the older pc2700.
- CPU. Never actually done this, but have thought about it on some occasions. Best to find some boards or references where it has been done successfully - and which CPUs are OK. Actually finding a CPU can be hard.
Ultimately, I end up maxing out my RAM either when I buy it or within the first year. Hard disk drives, I just buy the minimum size at the time of purchase as I can pick up a cheaper and bigger one later on.
Also, it's worthwhile considering a NSLU2 or the like as a cheaper permanent storage solution and keeping the 'latest' information on the smaller laptop storage.
Cheers
ws
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
Yours was broken, you to replace the keyboard.
I just turned in a 4 year old T40 Thinkpad that had an 80GB drive and 1GB RAM. The RAM is the only thing that wasn't stock. Employer paid for the 512MB stick.
But I also bought my own Bluetooth USB adapter as this machine had none. A Trendnet, about $17.00.
I also disabled the built in 801.11b wireless NIC and bought a PCCard 801.11g NIC from Compusa for net $4.00.
I also bought a USB mulimedia card reader for mini/micro/SD cards as this machine had none. About $10.00.
And last but not least I had to replace the battery recently. Employer paid for the battery.
In my opinion old laptops are only useful as stationary servers for some specific purpose like a router or a home media center or something where you need a small low powered unobtrusive box that runs quiet. If the USB and SVGA ports run you don't even need a keyboard/skidpad or a screen. Take out the battery, chuck it, if the screen doesn't work, chuck that too. Voila you have a 3 lb server.
I did something similar with my desktop a while back, I went from Windows to FreeBSD only, then I switched to a more efficient WM, and next I'll probably go to an even smaller WM like dwn.
I'll probably give damn small a try, out of curiosity, really all OSes should deserve words like "damn small," "nano," "pico," "tiny," and such. If I need or want bloat, I should have to add it myself.
I can't recall the last time I used most of the things which were installed by default anyways.