revive and old laptop

[Spike]

I have an old HP laptop sitting around that was given to me because it did not work. I'm not sure the exact specs but I believe it is a 2.4ghz celery, 256mb ram, CDrw, 40gb drive, etc... It's big, heavy, and until recently was no more than a paper weight. I finally did some poking around and found that the issue was the HDD. I borrowed a 2.5" drive from work and found that it worked just fine with that drive. So here is the question, should I pony up for a new drive ($40ish), some more ram ($35ish) and revive this old puppy or is it even worth it? I was thinking of installed windows home server beta whenever they get around to sending me a copy and this might do a decent job of testing it. Would that work? Any other suggestions for old laptops?

I also have an old Thinkpad T23 (1.2ghz p3, 512mb ram, 40gb) doing nothing so I need to figure out something before I get buried in laptops.

 

[herm0016]

i think it would be worth it if you want to play with it. use it for music or pictures or something, sit it in the living room with a picture slide show to show people? lots of different uses.

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: herm0016
i think it would be worth it if you want to play with it. use it for music or pictures or something, sit it in the living room with a picture slide show to show people? lots of different uses.

I guess those are options... It's just such a heavy, ugly beast that it seems strange to spend any money on it. could it run linux and work as a mobile game server or something? For CS Source, UT 2004, BF 2, etc...?

 

[dnuggett]

Originally posted by: Spike

Originally posted by: herm0016
i think it would be worth it if you want to play with it. use it for music or pictures or something, sit it in the living room with a picture slide show to show people? lots of different uses.

I guess those are options... It's just such a heavy, ugly beast that it seems strange to spend any money on it. could it run linux and work as a mobile game server or something? For CS Source, UT 2004, BF 2, etc...?

I wouldn't use it as a server, I think you may be dissapointed. I think it would be fine with a copy of XP, Office 03 as a plain ol PC. I doubt you would get much battery life out of it.

I would get a 60 GB 5400 RPM (at least) drive and a min of a GB of RM and you are all set.

 

[xSauronx]

i use an inspiron 1000 daily for work and at home for email, browsing, and mp3s. i run xubuntu on it. i say stick it in FS/T and say it needs a hard drive and see what you can get for it, if you dont otherwise need a laptop for something.

 

[IlllI]

MAME

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Sell it to me?

- M4H

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: clandren
MAME

?

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
Sell it to me?

- M4H

Sure, pm me a price and we'll talk

 

[Spike]

Ok, here is another question... My house is wired with fiber, it came that way, and we have ethernet jacks all over the house. I can hook up 4 at any time and each of those 4 gets and independant IP address. As my router HATES bit torrent and loves to crash if it's ever running on it would it be possible to hook this laptop up in some corner of the house to another jack, run remote desktop, and use this as basically a torrent box? I'm not sure how I would get the downloaded files back to my other machines (FTP?) but at least the router would stop crashing...

I dunno, it just seems a shame to do nothing with this honking monster.

 

[IlllI]

i guess if you dont know what MAME is, then you wouldnt have a use for it

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: clandren
i guess if you dont know what MAME is, then you wouldnt have a use for it

I finally got around to doing a google search. I assume you are talking about the arcade emulation software. That sounds interesting but I don't really like old arcade games. Still the idea of having a dedicated arcade machine is pretty funny and would get some laughs (and use) at parties.

 

[IlllI]

yep, thats what it is. when i read your post i thought that old laptop would make a good mame system

 

[Kaervak]

I also have an old Thinkpad T23 (1.2ghz p3, 768mb ram, 40gb) doing nothing so I need to figure out something before I get buried in laptops.

MMMM, Thinkpad. If I had the cash, I'd be really interested in buying it. Anyway, with the HP laptop, I'd at least replace the HDD and use it as a test system (hardware/OS ectera). On a side note, windows home server is pretty neat. Finally got my invite last week.

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: Kaervak

I also have an old Thinkpad T23 (1.2ghz p3, 768mb ram, 40gb) doing nothing so I need to figure out something before I get buried in laptops.

MMMM, Thinkpad. If I had the cash, I'd be really interested in buying it. Anyway, with the HP laptop, I'd at least replace the HDD and use it as a test system (hardware/OS ectera). On a side note, windows home server is pretty neat. Finally got my invite last week.

I signed up about a week ago but still don't have the invite yet... I am hoping it will come soon.

Yah, my wife used that thinkpad for 3.5 years, never had a problem with it at all, ROCK solid. Thats why we replaced it with... you got it, another thinkpad! This time an X60s so she can take the little thing anywhere. I only got her the new one because I was frustrated with how slow it was, she was still doing fine. I am debating selling it as I'm not sure what I would do with it. I could also simply gut it to get the HP working since the HP is faster but it seems like such a shame...

 

[Kaervak]

Originally posted by: Spike

I signed up about a week ago but still don't have the invite yet... I am hoping it will come soon.

Yah, my wife used that thinkpad for 3.5 years, never had a problem with it at all, ROCK solid. Thats why we replaced it with... you got it, another thinkpad! This time an X60s so she can take the little thing anywhere. I only got her the new one because I was frustrated with how slow it was, she was still doing fine. I am debating selling it as I'm not sure what I would do with it. I could also simply gut it to get the HP working since the HP is faster but it seems like such a shame...

It took about three weeks before my invite showed up. What's nice about it is you can generate four authentication keys per invite.

Right there with you on the Thinkpads. I purchased a used T23 a while back. Third owner of the sysem and it's still going strong. My mom is finally talking about getting a laptop, first thought was a Thinkpad. If you gut it/sell it complete, let me know. Depending on how the spare cash situation is I might buy it.

 

[BladeVenom]

Keep one as a bedside laptop, and turn the other into a picture frame.

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
Keep one as a bedside laptop, and turn the other into a picture frame.

You know, I have considered that in the past (the picture frame idea). Theres gotta be some way to rip apart some of the ugly frame, reframe it nicely, and make it a digital picture frame. That would be kinda cool in a uber geeky sorta way.

 

[BladeVenom]

I've seen the mod done several times on websites.

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
I've seen the mod done several times on websites.

Link? I'm more and more tempted to try that...

 

[BladeVenom]

There's not a specific one I'd recommend, but just Google something like laptop picture frame mod and you'll find several.