Craptops: Crappy Laptops

[Aniallation]

That top laptop might be an Inspiron 8600. I have one of those. Mine has a Geforce FX Go5200 in it. Those laptops are pretty cool.

Yep that's the one. Mine also has the FX Go5200

[windude99]

Yep that's the one. Mine also has the FX Go5200

Oh yea. Mine has started making a vibration sound, though. I don't know if it is just something vibrating or if the GPU fan is going bad. I have also replaced the palm rest on it. Man, that thing runs hot, though. Even after replacing the thermal paste on the CPU and GPU, it can still get up to 76C under stress. 

[handymanshandle]

= SNIP =

  

I wouldn't consider my Samsung a craptop but something more along the lines of mediocre, and of how I obtained it. Well I bought it.

It has an AMD A8 4500M which if the Mobo isn't dead/dying I might upgrade it to an A10 5750M and turn it into an AiO. Though I'm considering going for another APU laptop from HP because I can't find an Intel laptop that doesn't make use of Intel's bad iGPU.

[thatguy321]

I've got a older Gateway M-1617 that I'm currently messing around with different Linux distro's on. Talk about getting hot, damn thing hits almost 80C just watching some twitch (theater mode, but still, it's in browser). Cleaned out a little dust today, really wasn't much, think I need to replace the 8 year old thermal compound...

[pr0_moo5e]

I'm posting from mine now... Behold! a 2007 (I think) Compaq Presario V6134EA... What a Beast. 

 

Intel Pentium T2080 Running @ 1.73GHZ (All of the other V6000 series' used AMD processors, and I'm not entirely sure why this one came with an intel one. It's still the most powerful version of the laptop, which isn't saying much to be honest)

 

It has 3GB of RAM (thanks 32bit Windows!)

 

Spent a crap ton of money paying an IT shop to replace the terrible 160 gb HDD with a 750 gb so I can use it as my daily driver

That, swapping the 512mb RAM stick to a 1GB, and a stupid "Let me use some canned air on your fans to make it even faster, It'll be only £15 extra!" (I had no idea what I was doing at the time.) All of that ran to well over £100. I hate myself to this day for doing it for such a ludicrous amount of money.

 

It's horrible, Youtube @ 720p is a no-no, let alone games. 40 minutes of battery life, if that. It struggles with iTunes. The previous owner put Win7 Pro on it, so at least i didn't have to use the abomination that was Vista...

 

I also paid far too much money to import an HP XB4 media docking station to the UK from the US (discontinued because they were universally panned) because for some reason I'm too lazy to unplug everything from the laptop so it's nice to only have to undo one cable. Still, there are good speakers on the XB4, which I do use a fair amount. Plus the keyboard on the laptop sucks, so I'm using my £10 Zalman Ebay special instead.

 

I'm stuck with this until the summer, when I can swap over to my Lenovo t410 with an i5-240m in it because I've promised myself a MacBook to start producing with.

 

EDIT: Here's a photo. 

 

 

[Cwazywazy]

I have my main laptop (Precision M4400 with a 3GHz T9900, 512MB Quadro, 4GB DDR2, and dual SSDs) and my ultrabook (Latitude E4300 with a 2.5GHz P9600, Intel GMA x4500MHD, 4GB DDR3, and a 160GB HDD) and I mainly use the ultrabook for portability (Paid about $50-60 for it without HDD or battery.) since it gets a couple hours more than the laptop and isn't worth as much. Still need to get an SSD for it though. The ultrabook is good for web browsing, watching videos, and very light gaming such as FTL. It's ~13 inches which I think is perfect for a portable machine. The M4400 is a workstation. It's got fairly good performance, a great 1920x1200 screen, and is good for some gaming. (ETS2, Portal 2, etc.)

 

I have a couple of working old laptops that I don't use for anything though. (Dell Latitude D505 and some Acer travelmate) as well as some that don't work. I still regret selling my Compaq Presario R3000. It was a beast. It had a 3.2GHz P4 with Hyperthreading. The heatsink was fucking huge. Dual fans and a lot of copper just for the CPU. 1920x1200 screen too. Only downside was the flat battery.

[thatguy321]

I've got a older Gateway M-1617 that I'm currently messing around with different Linux distro's on. Talk about getting hot, damn thing hits almost 80C just watching some twitch (theater mode, but still, it's in browser). Cleaned out a little dust today, really wasn't much, think I need to replace the 8 year old thermal compound...

 

Got some Arctic Silver 5 today and have a new wireless USB adapter coming (sick of trying to get my wireless working with window's drivers on Linux). Hopefully the new paste will curb the temps some and the W-USB will keep me from going mad over wireless connectivity.

[georgespamme]

I've got a older Gateway M-1617 that I'm currently messing around with different Linux distro's on. Talk about getting hot, damn thing hits almost 80C just watching some twitch (theater mode, but still, it's in browser). Cleaned out a little dust today, really wasn't much, think I need to replace the 8 year old thermal compound...

Do a follow up post to see if it improves temps!

[georgespamme]

Got some Arctic Silver 5 today and have a new wireless USB adapter coming (sick of trying to get my wireless working with window's drivers on Linux). Hopefully the new paste will curb the temps some and the W-USB will keep me from going mad over wireless connectivity.

Woops.  Posted too soon.  But still, follow up post on this experiment

[connorpiper]

First laptop that was only mine. (Like, not a past owners)

 

 

Though I don't consider it a computer. Because it had 1GB RAM, 1.66GHz 1 core CPU, 540p Display, and a iGPU with 32MB of vRAM. 

[georgespamme]

snip

That's pretty gnarly.  Congrats on first post!  Honored it was in my thread

[Cwazywazy]

I'm posting from mine now... Behold! a 2007 (I think) Compaq Presario V6134EA... What a Beast. 

 

Intel Pentium T2080 Running @ 1.73GHZ (All of the other V6000 series' used AMD processors, and I'm not entirely sure why this one came with an intel one. It's still the most powerful version of the laptop, which isn't saying much to be honest)

 

It has 3GB of RAM (thanks 32bit Windows!)

 

Spent a crap ton of money paying an IT shop to replace the terrible 160 gb HDD with a 750 gb so I can use it as my daily driver

That, swapping the 512mb RAM stick to a 1GB, and a stupid "Let me use some canned air on your fans to make it even faster, It'll be only £15 extra!" (I had no idea what I was doing at the time.) All of that ran to well over £100. I hate myself to this day for doing it for such a ludicrous amount of money.

 

It's horrible, Youtube @ 720p is a no-no, let alone games. 40 minutes of battery life, if that. It struggles with iTunes. The previous owner put Win7 Pro on it, so at least i didn't have to use the abomination that was Vista...

 

I also paid far too much money to import an HP XB4 media docking station to the UK from the US (discontinued because they were universally panned) because for some reason I'm too lazy to unplug everything from the laptop so it's nice to only have to undo one cable. Still, there are good speakers on the XB4, which I do use a fair amount. Plus the keyboard on the laptop sucks, so I'm using my £10 Zalman Ebay special instead.

 

I'm stuck with this until the summer, when I can swap over to my Lenovo t410 with an i5-240m in it because I've promised myself a MacBook to start producing with.

 

EDIT: Here's a photo. 

Yeah, for some reason Compaq always made some of their laptops with an Intel variant that was more powerful. I used to have an old Compaq Presario something. Had a crappy AMD CPU and after the board fried itself I replaced it with a more powerful Intel board. (Went from a ~2GHz AMD whatever to a 2.4GHz Intel Pentium M or something. I played so much BF 1942 on that thing. 1024x768 screen and no WiFi. I think I might still have it somewhere, just without a screen.

 

Then there was my Compaq R3000. P4 CPU had a heatsink so big I've never seen one bigger on a laptop ever. Then the GPU had zero cooling. Quite well balanced, actually, which just goes to show how inefficient those P4s were.

[thatguy321]

Woops.  Posted too soon.  But still, follow up post on this experiment

 

Don't know if I'll get a chance to mess with it this weekend or not, but I was thinking last night of drilling some holes in the cover plate underneth the fan since there's practically no intake. Lo and behold today I found this article: https://augustapcrepair.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/gateway-m-series-overheating-fix/

 

Probably will clean the little filter that's there and go with the thermal paste first, but if the high temps persist, I'll drill some holes, though I'd go with several more but much smaller holes.

 

Either way, I'll post up the results.

[pr0_moo5e]

That's pretty gnarly.  Congrats on first post!  Honored it was in my thread

Thanks man! Had to get involved at some point

[pr0_moo5e]

Yeah, for some reason Compaq always made some of their laptops with an Intel variant that was more powerful. I used to have an old Compaq Presario something. Had a crappy AMD CPU and after the board fried itself I replaced it with a more powerful Intel board. (Went from a ~2GHz AMD whatever to a 2.4GHz Intel Pentium M or something. I played so much BF 1942 on that thing. 1024x768 screen and no WiFi. I think I might still have it somewhere, just without a screen.

 

Then there was my Compaq R3000. P4 CPU had a heatsink so big I've never seen one bigger on a laptop ever. Then the GPU had zero cooling. Quite well balanced, actually, which just goes to show how inefficient those P4s were.

 

See I was thinking (very briefly) about doing the same as AFAIK the CPUs aren't soldered to the board on these machines so it would be relatively easy, but they're such old architecture that the highest rated CPU I could get was some Core 2 Duo @ 2.2 GHZ (which wouldn't really improve things IMO, plus it would be another import job from some sketchy on line retailer in the far east)

 

 

Oh really? so that's where all the height came from on those old laptops. I guess it's funny how poorly those things are cooled, It's why I use an external keyboard and mouse, I hate hot laptops!

[thatguy321]

Woops.  Posted too soon.  But still, follow up post on this experiment

 

 

Don't know if I'll get a chance to mess with it this weekend or not, but I was thinking last night of drilling some holes in the cover plate underneth the fan since there's practically no intake. Lo and behold today I found this article: https://augustapcrepair.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/gateway-m-series-overheating-fix/

 

Probably will clean the little filter that's there and go with the thermal paste first, but if the high temps persist, I'll drill some holes, though I'd go with several more but much smaller holes.

 

Either way, I'll post up the results.

 

Did get a chance to change of the paste today. The factory stuff had indeed seen better days and had been put on a little thick IMO.

 

Took what felt like forever to 'scrub' it off, was really dried on there good.

 

Anyways, just changing the thermal compound took it from 75-78C average with it peeking around 80C watching twitch on fullscreen, to 70-73C average with a peak of 75C. So a 5C drop, I'd call that a success. Still a little hot though, will be drilling some holes under the fan when I get a chance.

[thatguy321]

Did get a chance to change of the paste today. The factory stuff had indeed seen better days and had been put on a little thick IMO.

 

...

 

Took what felt like forever to 'scrub' it off, was really dried on there good.

 

Anyways, just changing the thermal compound took it from 75-78C average with it peeking around 80C watching twitch on fullscreen, to 70-73C average with a peak of 75C. So a 5C drop, I'd call that a success. Still a little hot though, will be drilling some holes under the fan when I get a chance.

 

Drilled some holes under the fan today. Laying it out with a template:

 

After drilling, tried to make it look somewhat decent:

 

Temps now hover in the upper 60's (66-69C) and it peaked at 72C at some point (probably before the fan kicked on).

 

 

So overall, it's about a 10C drop in temp just changing the thermal compound and drilling a few holes, pretty happy with that.

[georgespamme]

 

 

So overall, it's about a 10C drop in temp just changing the thermal compound and drilling a few holes, pretty happy with that.

 

Not bad at all!  Holes look pretty good, almost like they were there in the first place.  I might do this soon because of you!

[thatguy321]

Not bad at all!  Holes look pretty good, almost like they were there in the first place.  I might do this soon because of you!

 

Thanks, I tried to make them look at least half way decent. The largest is a 1/8", then it step down to 3/32", and finally 1/16" (and repeats over each fan opening).

[thatguy321]

This is a good thread, I know people have more to share.

[CatzRuleZWorld]

I put new thermal compound on my friend's laptop CPU because it goes to 120 degrees at load. The thermal compound didn't help much i don't think but while I was putting it back together I noticed it didn't have hardly any ventilation for the CPU fan... Also the fan doesn't spin very fast even though it's thermal throttling. I think I'll try to install a program to adjust the fan speed and see if that helps and if it doesn't I'll see if he would want to drill some holes there. I doubt he will unfortunately.

[thatguy321]

I put new thermal compound on my friend's laptop CPU because it goes to 120 degrees at load. The thermal compound didn't help much i don't think but while I was putting it back together I noticed it didn't have hardly any ventilation for the CPU fan... Also the fan doesn't spin very fast even though it's thermal throttling. I think I'll try to install a program to adjust the fan speed and see if that helps and if it doesn't I'll see if he would want to drill some holes there. I doubt he will unfortunately.

 

It could be a failing fan, get him to pick up a new one for it if software doesn't work (replacements are easy to find).

[georgespamme]

Just an update: @thatguy321

 

About a month ago or so I bought a $100 craptop from a craigslist girl about an hour away.  This is it on Newegg.  It has a lot of crapness to it, some of which I didn't realize before purchasing:

• It was missing 5 keys and the viewing angles are BAD.AS.BALLS. (Seriously, you have like a 15 degree window of being able to see the already-crappy TN colors on screen.)
• It's rockin a Core i3 that's like one notch above ultracrap and something like last-last-last gen Intel HD 3000 Graphics.
• It has what is the uncontested slowest HDD I've ever used (Crystal Disk Mark results were just sad) that ultimately contributes most to the slowness of the laptop.
• It has a less-than-exceptional touchpad and a poor battery life.
• It smells really weird.  Not kidding.  I've febreezed like every square inch of it but the smell remains lol

On the not so bad side, it has a really good range of I/O, 6GB RAM, a DVD drive for watchin dem movies, a decent FULL keyboard, not bad appearance, and most importantly it just plain works.

 

After reinstalling the OS, I took the whole thing apart, replaced the thermal compound, and "dusted."  Thermal swap brought down load temps at least 5 degrees Celsius.  I ordered replacement keys online and popped em right in.  I also put a spare SSD in it just to see the performance differences and BOY did it make a difference.  You'd hardly think it was the same laptop.  I mean, no, it didn't turn it into a supercomputer, but it made a major major difference, partially I think due to the dinky HDD that was in there in the first place.  I have since taken the SSD out though because I needed it back in my main rig.  After running Windows 10 Technical Preview for a little while, I decided to throw Ubuntu on it for my first time to ever use it.

 

So all in all, was I happy with the purchase?  Yeah.  At the end of the day, the laptop works without being unbearably slow.  There are a lot of minor things that bring down the user experience, but for $100 I got a heck of a lot in my opinion.  The best thing about the craptop may be the fact that it's so cheap.  I can use it in ways that I would never use a more expensive laptop without worrying about ruining an investment.  It would be pretty hard to break, but even if I did break it I wouldn't be upset (and if I scuffed it I wouldn't bat an eye).  It makes for a great backup laptop and an experimental machine, and honestly it would make for a decent daily driver if I was a bit more desperate for a working computer.  With an SSD upgrade, it would be about 4x more attractive.  So all in all, not a terrible purchase, and it will allow me to do all the things one can do with a crap machine.

 

Craigslist recycling masterrace

[thatguy321]

Just an update: @thatguy321

 

About a month ago or so I bought a $100 craptop from a craigslist girl about an hour away.  This is it on Newegg.  It has a lot of crapness to it, some of which I didn't realize before purchasing:

• It was missing 5 keys and the viewing angles are BAD.AS.BALLS. (Seriously, you have like a 15 degree window of being able to see the already-crappy TN colors on screen.)
• It's rockin a Core i3 that's like one notch above ultracrap and something like last-last-last gen Intel HD 3000 Graphics.
• It has what is the uncontested slowest HDD I've ever used (Crystal Disk Mark results were just sad) that ultimately contributes most to the slowness of the laptop.
• It has a less-than-exceptional touchpad and a poor battery life.
• It smells really weird.  Not kidding.  I've febreezed like every square inch of it but the smell remains lol

On the not so bad side, it has a really good range of I/O, 6GB RAM, a DVD drive for watchin dem movies, a decent FULL keyboard, not bad appearance, and most importantly it just plain works.

 

After reinstalling the OS, I took the whole thing apart, replaced the thermal compound, and "dusted."  Thermal swap brought down load temps at least 5 degrees Celsius.  I ordered replacement keys online and popped em right in.  I also put a spare SSD in it just to see the performance differences and BOY did it make a difference.  You'd hardly think it was the same laptop.  I mean, no, it didn't turn it into a supercomputer, but it made a major major difference, partially I think due to the dinky HDD that was in there in the first place.  I have since taken the SSD out though because I needed it back in my main rig.  After running Windows 10 Technical Preview for a little while, I decided to throw Ubuntu on it for my first time to ever use it.

 

So all in all, was I happy with the purchase?  Yeah.  At the end of the day, the laptop works without being unbearably slow.  There are a lot of minor things that bring down the user experience, but for $100 I got a heck of a lot in my opinion.  The best thing about the craptop may be the fact that it's so cheap.  I can use it in ways that I would never use a more expensive laptop without worrying about ruining an investment.  It would be pretty hard to break, but even if I did break it I wouldn't be upset (and if I scuffed it I wouldn't bat an eye).  It makes for a great backup laptop and an experimental machine, and honestly it would make for a decent daily driver if I was a bit more desperate for a working computer.  With an SSD upgrade, it would be about 4x more attractive.  So all in all, not a terrible purchase, and it will allow me to do all the things one can do with a crap machine.

 

Craigslist recycling masterrace

 

Nice, pretty satisfying giving an old laptop new life that's for sure. That is a decent amount of RAM too.

 

I've thought about getting a cheap SSD for my Gateway, but I can't justify that when I haven't even picked one up for my good laptop yet.

 

I've been using mine to try different Linux distros too. Currently using Linux Mint 17.1 Mate. The built in wireless wont run without windows drivers (which is a pain in the ass to do), so I've been using a USB adapter, though it's not the best, it'll work till I get a better one.

 

Craptops FTW!