Old laptop challenge

[CosmicNoodle]

I have an experiment I want to run.
I want to see how possible it is to turn a laptop, on the edge of obseletion into a decent web surfing machine.
I was thinking about buying an old laptop, installing a cheap SSD, some new RAM, a system clean out and an install of nice easy Ubuntu.
But I need a laptop to conduct my experiments on. Do you guys know of any NEARLY obsolete laptops, paerhals a Thinkpad T42?

[Kacey]

Ooh... I thought you meant old as in early windows 7/vista period... But a thinkpad? I don't think there is anything to make that fast...

[CosmicNoodle]

Ooh... I thought you meant old as in early windows 7/vista period... But a thinkpad? I don't think there is anything to make that fast...

I wouldn't underestimate them, the Thinkpad is actually not bad for its age. And really, and SSD works fucking wonders in anything, I just need to make sure that the Thinkpad uses SATA. And Ubuntu is a fairly lightweight OS.
But your right, I may go for something from the early W7 or late Vista.

[Plasma]

I have an experiment I want to run.
I want to see how possible it is to turn a laptop, on the edge of obseletion into a decent web surfing machine.
I was thinking about buying an old laptop, installing a cheap SSD, some new RAM, a system clean out and an install of nice easy Ubuntu.
But I need a laptop to conduct my experiments on. Do you guys know of any NEARLY obsolete laptops, paerhals a Thinkpad T42?

From what I can tell from this website, it does use ATA, and not SATA

[backjruton]

I don't really know too much about this kind of thing but my dad once took the first laptop I ever had (that I completely broke the hard drive on) and restored it then managed to put either windows7 or linux on it I can't really remember which, but it was just cool to see how well it worked. You have to download the Windows files from the internet somewhere I think and you can only use them if the laptop/computer originally had it and has the activation code to use, because you download it from an official sounding website. Just break a laptop and get a new one then try to fix the old one :lol:

[Silicate Wielder]

I have an experiment I want to run.
I want to see how possible it is to turn a laptop, on the edge of obseletion into a decent web surfing machine.
I was thinking about buying an old laptop, installing a cheap SSD, some new RAM, a system clean out and an install of nice easy Ubuntu.
But I need a laptop to conduct my experiments on. Do you guys know of any NEARLY obsolete laptops, paerhals a Thinkpad T42?

the oldest I have gotten running well is a Toshiba A47 and an old 2001 iMac

the toshiba runs well under crunchbang linux as a web surfing machine but the imac I couldnt do much with, I just hooked it up to my ethernet

Yeah a new hard drive with crunchbang can work wonders on old computers

Currently looking for an old machine running win 95 or 98 and gonna beef it up with better hardware from the same era then ill attempt to run crunchbang on it, if all else fails it would make a good retro gaming rig

[CosmicNoodle]

the oldest I have gotten running well is a Toshiba A47 and an old 2001 iMac

the toshiba runs well under crunchbang linux as a web surfing machine but the imac I couldnt do much with, I just hooked it up to my ethernet

Yeah a new hard drive with crunchbang can work wonders on old computers

Currently looking for an old machine running win 95 or 98 and gonna beef it up with better hardware from the same era then ill attempt to run crunchbang on it, if all else fails it would make a good retro gaming rig

I was looking at Crunchbang a while back, but I really oprefer Ubuntu, or even Mint. The oldest PC I ever managed to resurrect was an ancient W95 machine I picked up at a yard sale. All it needed was a new Disk drive and PSU. Fun little retro gaming rig. But no good for web surfing.

[parzzival]

I don't really know too much about this kind of thing but my dad once took the first laptop I ever had (that I completely broke the hard drive on) and restored it then managed to put either windows7 or linux on it I can't really remember which, but it was just cool to see how well it worked. You have to download the Windows files from the internet somewhere I think and you can only use them if the laptop/computer originally had it and has the activation code to use, because you download it from an official sounding website. Just break a laptop and get a new one then try to fix the old one :lol:

If you don't know to much about this stuff then why did you post? And he's not trying to fix a laptop just to fix it. He's trying to get an antique one and get it working.


I did the same thig with a 6 year old dell xps 720 it had xp on it so I bought a new 1t hard drive and installed windows 7 got new ram cards and vwa la

[Hyper]

Why don't you just open up some local auction sites/tech sell&buy forums and browse. The information for hardware is all on the net just find whatever should work for the best price.

You could find a great lap top if you don't care about the storage device or current RAM. I bought mine with a 3rd gen i7 + 2 GB vram gpu and 16 gigs RAM + SSD for 1k$ in total but the base of the machine had a useless 5400 RPM HDD and 8 GB RAM that cost 700$ brand new.

So finding something used with a decent processor should be relatively easy especially if you live in a country with a big market.

I used to buy/sell used lap tops and all it really takes is browse & research.

[CosmicNoodle]

Why don't you just open up some local auction sites/tech sell&buy forums and browse. The information for hardware is all on the net just find whatever should work for the best price.

You could find a great lap top if you don't care about the storage device or current RAM. I bought mine with a 3rd gen i7 + 2 GB vram gpu and 16 gigs RAM + SSD for 1k$ in total but the base of the machine had a useless 5400 RPM HDD and 8 GB RAM that cost 700$ brand new.

So finding something used with a decent processor should be relatively easy especially if you live in a country with a big market.

I used to buy/sell used lap tops and all it really takes is browse & research.

Na, I'm not going for specs, just going for some lovely vintage hardware and trying to resurrect it from the grave of obseletion

[Silicate Wielder]

I was looking at Crunchbang a while back, but I really oprefer Ubuntu, or even Mint. The oldest PC I ever managed to resurrect was an ancient W95 machine I picked up at a yard sale. All it needed was a new Disk drive and PSU. Fun little retro gaming rig. But no good for web surfing.

upgrade to 98 SE and install the XP support pack. that should add some better support for modern websurfing

I did have an old 95 machine that came up with dos at bootup but I could never get it to detect the 160gb hard drive I had put in it.

[CosmicNoodle]

upgrade to 98 SE and install the XP support pack. that should add some better support for modern websurfing

I did have an old 95 machine that came up with dos at bootup but I could never get it to detect the 160gb hard drive I had put in it.

Perhaps you need a smaller hard drive. 160GB seems far too large for a 98 machine, sometimes operating systems will only recognise a hard drive up to a certain size. Or perhaps its the hardware that can't detect the big HDD

[CharlieHorse]

buy an ssd and some ram

that will help

and then get a cpu, a mobo, a gpu, a case, a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and a hammer for the old laptop.

[CosmicNoodle]

buy an ssd and some ram

that will help

and then get a cpu, a mobo, a gpu, a case, a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and a hammer for the old laptop.

I already built a desktop, but that's a bit inconvenient for if I CBA getting out of bed...I'm lasye like that....