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Hello, LTT forumers! At the moment im running a PLEX server (when i need it) from my gaming pc. As i've been studying Golang a bit lately i would like to try to "launch" a Golang web app, at least accessible on my LAN. So the idea in my head is brewing that i should reutilize my old laptop as a server just for that purpose and that exactly is where it starts to get tricky. What my soon-to-be server would need to do: - Plex - Nextcloud (probably just some pictures) - Golang apps + databases - maybe something more? Questions related to that: - Should it be a virtual machine on top of my W10 laptop? - Ubuntu server or desktop? -- Or maybe even something else? - How do i "deploy" a Golang app on my server? - Or should i buy an "old random pc"? So the idea is to have at first a sandbox server to be able to try out how things work etc, hence, should i run a VM on my W10 laptop or just go to (some form) of Ubuntu etc.. I hope you guys can direct me in a path to choose. Thanks!

Dear Forum, Thank you for reading, hope this message finds you well. This is my first ever post here so apologies if I posted in wrong category. I know there are LTT videos about DIY NAS and DIY router but I was just wondering if I can make a DIY NAS and DIY router using the same windows computer and run it simultaneously? If yes then can I make it work with my old laptop Lenovo G570 running windows 10 with Intel core i5 2430M and 8GB RAM? And I was also wondering how many SATA drives can I connect as there are no m.2 slots. I swapped the CD drive. Thanks.

Looking for a lightweight and usable OS for my old laptop. I had upgraded it to an SSD not long ago and upgraded it into Windows 10 from windows 8 but it does not seem to like Windows 10 much as it just bogs down on the CPU a lot even when im not doing anything. I am looking for an OS that runs fine on a 5 year old AMD laptop with 4 core 2ghz AMD cpu and with 4gb of RAM. I only plan to use Discord and for light video and media browsing. Is there some kind of OS out there that does not take much tinkering with and I can get it up and running easily?

Hello to this wonderful community. I know Windows 11 just released publicly and many people are installing and using it. Discovering bugs and their own personal likes and dislikes. And I know Linus may do another Windows 11 video. So that said this Windows 11 install question is probably very premature, but all I'm asking is if anyone has any insight for my particular query. I have an old laptop that as far as I can tell, meets all the minimum hardware requirements to install Windows 11 on it. The only issue is seemly the name of the CPU doesn't appear on the "approved list of CPUs" that Microsoft has provided. I'm running a i7-7500U, 8GB RAM and 512GB storage. I reached out to Microsoft at this thread: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/upgrade-to-windows-11-with-i7-7500u/ffb40a40-4583-4fb7-a7d8-e2791e23dd7d And their response leads me to think only the name of the CPU matters and I'm sure there is something else that I'm not seeing or that they are telling or both. I'm not sure exactly where to dig into to understand what my CPU doesn't have that Microsoft is requiring it to have. If anyone can help explain or has some better insight I would greatly appreciate your time. And since Windows 11 is new I'm not expecting any concrete answers here, or quick ones :).

short version: Need help with WIndows 8 because old laptop running WIndows 10 slow and most of the drivers are made for Win8, laptop is Asus X450CC, need an in-depth guide cause its my first time whole story: I'm getting a new SSD soon for this laptop cause I'm still using X450CC slow as fuck HDD, so I'm gonna need reinstall everything anyway, so I might as well just revert this laptop back to Win8. The reason it was upgraded to WIn10 is because this laptop is my brother's old laptop and I recently started using it cause my old daily driver (Asus T100Chi) charging port finally reach its limit and isn't able to charge anymore, so I just yoink my brother's old laptop since he is not using it anymore, and man it's a massive upgrade, even tho it only got an i5-3337U, 8GB RAM & GT720M, but I have no idea why he upgrade it to WIn10. I also notice that when I play LoL my GPU is barely being use, so I search it up and I found this, and even though LoL is a CPU bound game, in a way it says that if the manufucturer has barely any drivers for WIn10 for this particular laptop, then it shouldn't be upgraded to Win10, in which the site has barely any. And since this is my first time doing these kind of stuff, I need a really step-by-step guide on how to do this Oh and since the site shows most of the drivers are for Win8-64bit, I'd want a guide to Win8-64bit UNLESS the drivers works fine in Win8.1, in which it should be but I'm not sure so I'm just gonna play it safe BONUS QUESTIONS: 1. Is there any Win8 debloater? All I've found is Win10 2. How do you unscrew a stripped screw? I've tried using rubber bands but the one I have are all not wide enough and are tiny-winny ones (Important because one of the screw is one of the screw of the HDD and I can't upgrade it if I can't take it out) 3. Once I get into Win8 is it fine to install the latest driver for a hardware? Or do I have to start from the first then work my way up to the latest because a lot of the site's driver say something like "oh make sure u have an older version first before installing this one m8"

I know you can use Windows but how good is that really? I saw the video with Linus and he used redkey, which is currently on sale for $24 bucks. And I've seen people recommend PartedMagic or Dban, but how good are those really? I just want to make sure my bank account information and photos are erased from the Dell xps ssd. I plan on selling it on ebay if it helps. So which one is the best option?

I am looking for something that is the opposite of this adapter so I can put a ssd without its case in a old hp elitebook 2740p because I can not get a 512 gb ssd for the msata adapter that I have for a reasonable price New 1.8 Inch Micro SATA HDD SSD 3.3V to 2.5 Inch 22PIN SATA 5V Adapter | eBay

Hi, one old laptop I was using just had a hard drive failure. I don't really want to bother (trying to) open the computer and see if I can change the drive. I know the laptop is still working since it can still boot Batocera from a SD card. What Linux distro, if any, would you recommend for boot & use from an external USB hard drive, USB key or SD card? By the way, the laptop comes with a dual core i3, 8GB of ram and a touchscreen (said screen being the main reason I don't want to get rid of it yet) and is mainly used for education, YouTube and some games with my daughter. Thanks

Hiya everyone, I have here a conundrum, I have an old Sony Vaio laptop running an Intel dual-core processor from the Merom architecture (yes that old). It has 2Gb of DDR2 RAM (again that old) and a 200Gb HDD. It still runs well, and I plan to turn it into a Media PC (mainly to play movies & music, and maybe Youtube if it can connect to the net). Currently, it still runs Windows Vista and my question is "can it support Windows 10 or should I install Windows 7 or 8 instead?" I'm already in the process of doing some much needed maintenance (thermal paste & HDD replacement and dust removal) to get some extra use out of it. Any tips and advice will be appreciated and thank you in advance.

Hi everyone. I was browsing FaceBook Marketplace and I ended up buying this old Sony Vaio laptop for a bargain, the surprise of it having a blu-ray optical disc drive and a gorgeous 16.4" 1600x900 display (looks like an IPS panel to me, not sure though), proved too much for a film buff\bluray enthusiast like me to resist. The previous owner removed the HDD and installed a Kingston A400 SATA SSD that made it pretty snappy (within reason) and fast to boot. I'm not sure if the second ram stick was an upgrade, but I suspect that it originally came with only 4gigs. Once home I immediately ran msinfo32 and CPU-Z to check out the detailed specs of the machine (detailed .txt below): I did some research but I wasn't able to find any drivers or documentation for it on Sony's website or anywhere else. I then researched the motherboard's PM45 Chipset in order to try to come up with an upgrade path to make it a little snappier and more usable in Windows 10. My idea is to replace the 2gb ram stick with 4 and the P7350 with a C2D P8700 for about 20% more CPU performance, however, I have no way of knowing if it's going to work other than meeting the 25w tdp and going by what the chipset CPU support list indicates. If possible, I would also like to replace the wifi card with something that could support Wi-Fi 6 and BT 5. One thing I fear is the possibility of this machine having any kind of parts whitelist on the bios to restrict upgrades, like some ThinkPads do. It seems like something Sony would do. I would also like to find the recovery discs that come with the original OEM software\drivers and the InterVideo WinDVD BD solution to play BD movies. (I have installed my copy of PowerDVD but I'd like to use the original software that came with it). I tried finding it on the archive but had no luck. Same thing trying to find any teardown\upgrade guides on iFixit or similar websites, nothing at all. Can anyone help me out with this thing? Thanks! DESKTOP-8P834NV.txt

Hello, world!!! I got an HP Omnibook 800CT (F1360A) laptop from my dad for birthday. Device specifications: Motherboard - F1360-80001 REV A (LOT No.174121) Processor - Pentium 166MMX Hard disk - 1 GB Chipset - VLSI Eagle II Video Adapter - NeoMagic MagicGraph 128ZV 2MB RAM - 48 MB RAM (16 MB + 32 MB KTH-0B800/32 Kingston) This sub-notebook is very dear to me, so I decided to write an appeal. I interested in various components and software: Drivers/Programs/BIOS for this device Original battery HP F1119A 64 MB RAM Laptop body (or 3D printing HP Omnibook 800CT case) P.S. I have been trying to find components and circuits for this device for a long time. I contacted the manufacturer, there was no response yet. It will be very interesting to restore it and additionally add a PATA SSD (8GB) for comfortable operation. P.P.S. I would be grateful for possible solutions and help. I will also add some photos of this miracle.

I have a 6-year-old laptop just laying around at home, and can't help thinking that I could be using it for something. For my main computers I have a Custom Desktop, and a MacBook, so there isn't much that I can't do with one of those two. Is there anything I could be using it for? (eg. Linux, Chromebook, Server hosting). Its an okay computer, has a slow as shit 500GB HDD, dual core i5, and Intel HD 3000 with horrendous build quality. Any ideas on giving it a second use? Cheers LAPTOP MODLE: Fijitsu T731 (Pretty beaten up)

Hey everyone! This isn't exactly the oldest laptop ever, but I had an old HP Envy dv4 Laptop that I really wasn't using anymore. The Windows install on it got really slow, and I wasn't really using any of the programs anymore, except Chrome. I decided that I still wanted to use it for schoolwork and travel, and I heard you could install ChromeOS/ChromiumOS (the Linux-based operating system on Chromebooks) on a laptop. This would significantly speed up your laptop web browsing and boot speeds! I was discouraged when I learned that you had to work through the Google Developer Console to install ChromiumOS, and even write some configuration for your specific laptop. Then, I discovered this free software called CloudReady. CloudReady allows you to easily add (a slightly modified version) of ChromeOS onto pretty much any laptop. Also, with some laptops, you can configure dual boot! (so you can either boot to Windows or ChromeOS) (Please note it would probably not work with some laptops, especially from over 10 years ago, but your mileage may vary). Anyways, let's get to the guide: First of all, you need an 8gb or 16gb USB flash drive to put the CloudReady image on. Download the CloudReady image from this site: https://www.neverware.com/freedownload. Make sure you get the right version (32 vs 64 bit) On a computer with Google Chrome installed, download the Chromebook Recovery Utility extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chromebook-recovery-utili/jndclpdbaamdhonoechobihbbiimdgai/related?hl=en Open Chromebook Recovery Utility, and click the gear in the top right corner. Then click "Use local image". Select the CloudReady zip file you just downloaded, and then the correct flash drive. Then, click "Create now" to create the installation disk. It will take a while for the process to complete. You may see weird percentages such as "209%". This is normal because the program isn't exactly meant working with CloudReady. Also, if you are having trouble writing to the USB drive, try force quitting Google Chrome and the Recovery Utility and then running the program as an administrator. This method was able to fixe the problem for me, just make sure you force quit After you are done, eject the flash drive and put it into one of your (powered off) laptop's USB ports. Turn on the laptop and go to the BIOS/Device Priority to boot from the USB drive, instead of the laptop 's hard drive. To find the keys to press during startup to go to your laptop's BIOS, make a google search with your laptop model and then "BIOS Config" You should now boot to CloudReady/ChromeOS and you should see the logo. Setup/Install Instructions Press "Accept & Install" to install Flash Player, this could take a few minutes. Configure Wi-Fi/connect via Ethernet Now, you can log in with your Google account. Also, make sure you've taken all the files you want off of your laptop. Even if you want to dual boot, just incase. After you've logged in, click on the time in the bottom right, then click "Install CloudReady". This will install CloudReady to your hard drive, instead of just booting off your USB disk. Click "Install CloudReady" Now, you may see an option to dual boot. This is if you would like to choose between Windows and ChromeOS every time your laptop boots up. I may check with CloudReady's support devices list to see if your laptop can dual boot: https://guide.neverware.com/supported-devices/. Choose standalone if you just want ChromeOS. The installation may take a while, and it may even restart a few times. When it's done, make sure you take out the USB flash drive before the laptop starts up again. That's it! You've converted your old laptop into a fast Chromebook! I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial, and I hope it helped. I'd love your feedback This is the first one I've done on the LinusTechTips forums! I have a blog where I write about re-using old tech, but I decided I wanted to share it with the LinusTechTips community! If you want to see other ways to re-use your old PC/laptop, I have an article here.

Ok, so here is the deal, My neighbor gave me an old Apple PowerBook G4 and I wanted to salvage the HDD to use in my new build. The only catch is, it's and ATA HDD, so I was wondering, can you buy an adapter to use an ATA HDD with a SATA mobo?

So I'm going back to school soon and I realized I'm going to need a laptop, but not just any laptop. I tend to work on things like 3d modeling, photoshop and some programming. The thing is, I dont have the money right now to invest in a new laptop to do all those fancy things. I have 4-5 yr old laptop. Its an acer as5253-bz602 15.6 in. I've beat it up with some games in the past like guild wars 2, and left 4 dead. (on lowest settings of course) It's very slow, but I think if I upgrade it to additional ram it may help speed? If its not a significant increase in performance should i give up on it? And slowly start saving up for a better laptop? If so, any suggestions? Here's the specs to the laptop: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004ETLO6C?tag=pregnancymi0c-21

I have the old HP ProBook 4520s and I want to reuse it beacause I only have desktop and I need a laptop what upgrades can I do to make it good for some coding all my usage is coding and internet no gaming

I have 1 old laptop and 2-3 2tb hdds laying around and i have nothing to do with them. Any ideas what to do?

Hi y'all amazing people. Prelude: Today i present to you a dilemma i am dealing with since few weeks. Let me explain (skip to TLDR for shorter version ) I moved from Windows platform to Apple few years back simply because it is more user friendly, i still use a windows computer for office use but personally i have moved on. Since my Windows laptop was getting slower every day and eventually started to give problems i thought to get a new one altogether and bought a Macbook Air. My personal usage at the time was in line with hardware Macbook Air has so it was doing the job.... Until i ran out of space, on the very small SSD (128GB). So i decided to hook up my Seagate External Hard drive to create backups and move my music and videos files over. Since it was bulky to carry around i got a wifi router with USB to plug it in and now i can access the files without any hassle. Eventually i ran out of space and bought a couple of more external drives as there was a sale. TLDR: i have a TP LINK Archer C20 AC750 wifi router (with usb support), with Seagate 2 TB external HDD (NTFS format) plugged into it. With few other external HDDs (both NTFS and Journaled HFS+ format) Problem statement: So here i am with couple of external hdd drives with One USB (2.0) port on the wifi router and i need to keep swapping HDD back and forth. On top of it, the router does not support my HFS+ format HDD. Solution: Create a home NAS using my existing old windows 7 based laptop. But i do not know how i will connect the external drives. Details of the hardware ACER ASPIRE 5740 G laptop: (external link) Intel Core i5-430M 2.26 GHz @ 2.53 GHz 4 GB Ram DDR3 (i think 533MHZ) TP LINK Archer C20 AC750 wifi router (will be used to plug in NAS on lan port) also a spare router running DDWRT, if it helps 2 x USB 2.0 External HDD (2 TB each) 3 x USB 3.0 External HDD (two with HFS+ format) 4TB EACH I am thinking of taking out the hardware out of the laptop case into some thing more breathable so that it can run 24x7 Questions: Which OS should i run, should it FreeNAS or NAS4Free, do they support media server or streaming within home network. I like idea of having windows so that i can take remote of the PC (team viewer) etc and see whats going on, also i can set it to download files off the remote servers without me being in the house I understand the chipset has only USB2.0 support, how do i get my USB 3.0 hard drive to work without loosing on speed. In Future should i buy normal 3.5" HDD as they are cheaper.?? will it be more sensible ? Biggest problem: i have no budget, like nothing at all !! 0$ Any and all help is appreciated and sorry for bad english, it is not my first language.

Crucial BX500 vs Kingston A400 240GB for my old VPCEH36EN VAIO laptop. Please don't suggest other costlier ssds because this is the most I can spend. Thank you!!

I have a old laptop (the one on profile) and I am thinking about getting a ssd for it. one problem I am a teen ager with little revenue and little money so would prefer <100$ 500gb or more and needs to be 2.5" because I'm 99% sure this thing is older than m.2.

Hello, my friend have an old HP 6730b laptop. He isnt satisfied with it anymore because its old and laggy. Do you guys think its worth upgrading with ssd and more ram? Or better buying a new laptop? (Its not for playing games, but just for browsing internet, waching videos and working in office.) If its worth, the notebook will be upgraded to 4 or 8 gigs of ram, Crucial BX500 480gb ssd and instead of dvd rom Seagate BarraCuda 2,5 1TB. Notebook specification: CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 RAM: 2GB DDR2 800MHz HDD: 250GB 5400RPM GPU: integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD SYSTEM: Windows 7 64bit Thanks for your replies

I have a 6-year-old laptop 3rd gen Intel i5 with Nvidia 640m. Comparing its performance while playing dota2 3 years back to its current performance --> from 60fps medium settings(70% texture) to 30fps(40% texture) low settings I understand that the game engine has changed, it used to put out 60fps(maybe bit lower settings) in the new engine as aswell . I think the main reason is that CPU and GPU are not being efficiently cooled because when i check temperatures its arround 80c although i am not sure if the performance of electronic components degrade overtime. can someone tell me what might be wrong? I am considering changing thermal paste for now.

I have an Acer Aspire V5-573G from 2013. Specifications: CPU-Core i7-4500U GPU- Nvidia GT 750M RAM- 8gb DDR3 OS- Windows 10 build 1803 Never had any issues with this but recently after updating my nvidia drivers from geforce experience, i atarted getting a BSOD saying it was a driver power state failure. i have seen this before on my friends laptop but in his case removing the driver and reinstalling it worked. in my case nothing is working. even tried different versions of the driver. I do not want to reset my laptop. only way i can use it right now is for basic things using safe mode and thats it. EDIT: For all the drivers i tried, I did a clean install using DDU in Safe Mode. Any help would be appreciated.

Hi everyone! I found an old laptop, i managed to break the password. It's called "Acer Aspire One Happy". It's got an Intel Atom n450 (single core running 1.66 ghz), 1 Gb of Ram (i think it's DDR2) A 160 GB hardrive with Windows 7. Thanks

Hi guys. I'm actually studying Informatics Engineering and the University itself gave me a brand-new very capable laptop for programming propouses(i3/8gb/1TB) and it works fine.But in 2019 I must send it back for recycling propouses or for charity things. So I will need a laptop for programming and I really have one but is a 2010 AMD 64 Dual-Core 2.2 Ghz CPU with 3 gigs of ram. I'm planning on pumping it up, set it up with 8GB of ram, 512 GB SSD, new keyboard, battery,etc. Is it worth it wasting around US$200 on that laptop? Or I just go with the easy way and buy a new i5/8GB for around US$800 (in my country)? Thanks! Things I do (? --> Python, C# (3000+ lines), Java, etc.