@StephenFord sounds like Trigger's broom! 😀

22 hours ago, StephenFord said:

I'm all in favour of 'repairing' a laptop. My one is now 11 years old, and I've replaced the keyboard (£12), internal WebCam (£6), and most recently, replaced the hard drive to an SSD 1Tb item (£90). The most recent mod is transformative, reducing a cold boot up time from 7 minutes (!) to 45 seconds! Everything is now so much quicker, especially using the internal search function which is now pretty much instantaneous. Accidentally, it's also quite 'green' repairing rather than tossing to landfill and buying new LOL

I tried this weekend but pussied out of the repair in the end...  Everything's too small and fiddly and I've got a permanent shake which doesn't help. I'm not surprised the screen cable has come loose after seeing that it's not really held in by anything!  Also surprised at how much force is needed to remove plastic clips.

I did manage to remove the keyboard, at which point an entire pack of cookies worth of crumbs fell out.  Air duster was mentioned above, think I need one of those Dyson blades for this!

I've bought an identical working model on ebay today, hoping to stick my HDD in that and use for now...is it that simple?

Once I've got that as a failsafe I'm hoping to attempt the repair on the other one again at some point.

 

2 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

I've bought an identical working model on ebay today, hoping to stick my HDD in that and use for now...is it that simple?

 

You're getting confused with modern cars which seem to need every bl**dy bit of electronic replacement backed up with a computer program to match it to the car before it works. I have swapped HDDs over with no issue before. However, I've really worked on nothing more modern than Windows 7, maybe '10' might need coded to the motherboard LOL

You should be fine just taking the hard drive out and putting it in the new machine. Usually the worst that might happen is some driver reinstalls if the hardware isn't identical.

Anyone else get a 'ghost' notification that there was a new response to this thread, or just me?

4 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

Anyone else get a 'ghost' notification that there was a new response to this thread, or just me?

i got notified you had replied, no ghost tho

13 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

Anyone else get a 'ghost' notification that there was a new response to this thread, or just me?

It was spam 😞

4 minutes ago, Jimpster said:

i got notified you had replied, no ghost tho

LOL, oh well, just me then...

38 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

LOL, oh well, just me then...

Looks like Alex got his Proton Pack out!

I can give you all an update though...

The broken laptop is still on top of the wardrobe, along with a pair of screen brackets, most likely never to be fitted now.

I'm still using the identical used laptop.  Never did swap the hard drives, just copied pictures and docs onto an external hard drive.

Tried 3 new laptops last year, couldn't adapt to any of them (as well as 2 new phones and a tablet) so just gave up in the end.  I do also have a 3rd identical spare laptop in case this one suddenly breaks.  Hopefully those will see me out!

 

3 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Tried 3 new laptops last year, couldn't adapt to any of them (as well as 2 new phones and a tablet) so just gave up in the end.  I do also have a 3rd identical spare laptop in case this one suddenly breaks.  Hopefully those will see me out!

 

Tom, I really do think you are growing up LOL This planned obsolescence is a copy of the fable of the emperors new clothes. Everyone dances up & down at the 'progress' of IT, yet a few, like me & now you, realise it's largely a con from conglomerates to perpetuate profits. Yes, the functionality ,may improve a bit here and there, but if a 12 year old windows 7 laptop does exactly what I want it to do, why should I be forced to spend more money on something newer, to burden myself with yet another learning curve!

That's why I have such an absolute hatred of battery cars. I don't want government to force me into something I have no desire to get. My old scrapper gets me from A to B in a timely manner, I can get it maintained, and can (just about) afford to full her up once in a while - it's really none of their dam business what I drive. Just, as it's none of their dam business what I eat - though I digress 🤣

I purchased a very cheap Sony Vaio running XP Pro, with a little fettling i got windows 7 on it, and it runs better than it did with XP. I only use it for car stuff etc and a potential backup should i need it if my all singing dancing DELL goes belly up, well it does sing and dance now ive deleted ALL the bloatware LOL oh and downgraded back to 10.

38 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

but if a 12 year old windows 7 laptop does exactly what I want it to do, why should I be forced to spend more money on something newer, to burden myself with yet another learning curve!

Well said 👍

and I'm running a 6 year old laptop with windows 7, and have an 8 year old Sony Xperia mobile AND an identical one in reserve for when it packs up 😀

It's generally security fixes that promote the need for upgrades. Tho if they built them right in the first place there'd be no need

2 minutes ago, Jimpster said:

It's generally security fixes that promote the need for upgrades. Tho if they built them right in the first place there'd be no need

Kind of right. Yes, security upgrades are quite acceptable, however, when someone like MS stop providing such upgrades simply to force you into 'purchasing' a brand new operating system for more income, that's when it becomes immoral...

2 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

security

Ah yes !!

I bet Hunter Biden wishes he'd just kept his old laptop now 🤣🤣

Growing up...feel like I've hit my 90's, unable to adapt to anything new since 2018!

Irony is, my income only increased in 2020...so since having the money to buy new stuff, I can no longer make use of it.  If the process hadn't taken so long, I may now be in a suitable property, with a car I could drive and a phone & laptop that weren't annoyingly slow and glitchy.

 

**23/09/22**

Well, the replacement laptop lasted almost a year.  The hinge failed on that one this morning.

Have been regularly nipping up the casing screws but that doesn't seem to have helped.

Fortunately the ribbon cable hasn't been damaged on this one so still useable currently, just can't be closed.

Not really sure what to do now.  Still stuck in the same situation I was last year.  Can easily afford a new one, but the chances on my brain adapting to that would be slim to none.

21 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

**23/09/22**

Well, the replacement laptop lasted almost a year.  The hinge failed on that one this morning.

 

It's a shame you haven't got access to a 'laptop repair shop', I'm so lucky having one just a couple of miles away. He has kept my old laptop running for over a decade, including an HD upgrade, repairs on the WebCam, and other minor stuff. All for relatively little cost. I guess despite the extreme 'green' credentials of such a business, they just find it hard to survive these days...

22 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

I guess despite the extreme 'green' credentials of such a business, they just find it hard to survive these days...

Is that since Biden (Jn) stopped using him 🤣

Anyone give a quick opinion on the Intel Celeron N4020 chip?  I know it's not going to be lightning fast but average about 5 or 6 Edge tabs open, with a spreadsheet and word processor as well.  No 'heavy' work.  Would upgrading to 8GB of RAM help with speeds or would the processor still be the limiting factor?

Might have one last ditch attempt at a new machine as close as I can find to my current one.  Ebay's 20% offer means I could get this HP 250 G7 brand new for under £200 with the N4020 chip and 4GB RAM.  Or uprade to 8GB RAM for just over £200.  I won't be ar*ing around trying to split the case and fit my own RAM, just want something that'll work fine out of the box.  

HP 250 G7 Laptop Celeron N4020 Education 4GB RAM 128GB SSD 15.6'' Windows 10 Pro 195161147203 | eBay

2 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Anyone give a quick opinion on the Intel Celeron N4020 chip?

 

Tom, hope I'm not hijacking your post, or diverting a proper answer, but, I'm sure that any 'modern' chip will more than meet your needs. My laptop is 12 years old (2009). It's running an old P6200 Pentium chip @ 2.13GHz. It can handle numerous browser tabs, opening other apps on top of, and boots up from cold to working in 45 seconds. It has 4Gb RAM though a recent upgrade to a 1Tb SSD. To me, the SSD is the definitive 'speed' accessory!

I think tech has increased to the level that unless you're taking part in a network of lightening speed, international gaming, standard use is now a walk in the park for most recent laptops.

 

Fully agree with Stephen SSD is the way to go, done both my laptop and PS4 performance is greatly improved the RAM upgrade wont hurt if your machine will accept that.

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

I'm sure that any 'modern' chip will more than meet your needs

 

That's what I was hoping...  But every review on Argos for this model complains about how slow these are!  

Buy HP 15.6in Celeron 4GB 1TB Laptop | Laptops | Argos

3 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

That's what I was hoping...  But every review on Argos for this model complains about how slow these are!  

Buy HP 15.6in Celeron 4GB 1TB Laptop | Laptops | Argos

Just looking at the spec, it states, a 1Tb HDD. I think this may be the issue. An HDD is a different animal to an SSD.  Especially a 1Tb HDD is trying to cope with a huge capacity with older tech...