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Thread: Am I Odd / Crazy?

  1. #1
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    Default Am I Odd / Crazy?

    As some may know I have an older laptop, A Dell Latitude D600.

    Now its about 8 Years old approx but still works rather well even with its few design flaws, Is it odd of me to always want to improve this old laptop. now I never had it from new and this is an ex company machine I bought second hand. but ive been finding outside of gaming its been rather great for most things.

    Since getting it I have upgraded many aspects of the laptop and do plot on upgrading more to it.

    When I got it the specs was (ill just mention what I had upgraded)

    Intel Pentium M 1.6Ghz 1MB L2 Cache 400FSB
    1GB DDR1 Ram
    40GB Hitachi 5400RPM HDD
    Intel Wireless B Card

    I Upped this with some being what I had around here (Marked with a *)

    Intel Pentium M 1.7Ghz 2MB L2 Cache 400FSB
    1.5GB DDR1 Ram *
    120GB Samsung 5400RPM HDD *
    Dell 1470 Wireless A/B/G Card *

    I Had been considering Doing a few more upgrades, now i Have Switched out the Original CPU Cooling System which was Steel and Aluminum for a Copper and Aluminum set and Repasted the Chipset, ATi 9000 and CPU with some Nice Equivilent to Arctic Silver 5 Paste which did seem to help alot with temps allowing for some software over clocking (CPU 1.88Ghz and GPU is up about 15%)



    Now since I've been doing this rather slow and selling any older parts on ebay to help cover the cost of the upgrades its not been so bad on the pocket but im thinking of doing some more upgrading, maybe not to the hard drive as of yet for what I use my laptop for 120GB is rather good, but more thinking of Switching out the 512MB dimm for a 1GB, trying to find a 1.8 or even 2.0ghz CPU for the dell as well as acquiring some of the media bay addons like the Floppy Addon (for those that do not know the CD Drive is hot swappable for many other addons such as a Floppy Drive, a 2nd battery, 2nd hdd or CD/DVD/Combo/DVDRW Drive)

    I've also got to get a new battery for the laptop, lol the battery just went faulty this week but after about 8 years thats damn good going it was still operating with between 40 to 50% of its charging capacity (Cells was Panasonic btw)

    As it stands the laptop makes a nice xp unit that is also handy for the older games that refuse to work on Vista or 7 like for instance Might and Magic IX or even 16 Bit apps that do not work on my 64 bit desktop, Or even watching films or surfing while in bed.

    But alas Im wondering what YOU guys think. Am I crazy to want to continue to upgrade such a old laptop, Would you bother too? Remember my method of upgrades is to buy the upgrade then ebay off the part Ive replaced.

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    Until you give actual numbers of how much you have spent, you have probably spent enough money (including your own labor costs) to make a 30%-50% down payment on a new laptop that performs at a much higher rate. Of course including your own labor costs is dependent on how you value your time on a project. I still have 100 Xbox DVD remotes sitting in my garage and I probably spent a total of 5 hours figuring out how to price them for individual sale. It's still worth investing my time in the matter because of the $300 I spent on it and wanting to recoup most of it while getting rid of some space in the garage. The ultimate answer to your question is how you value your time followed by using the market to determine your best decision money-wise.

    For me I was considering my options for upgrading parts on a laptop and my machine was so old, it would cost around $60 to make it shitty enough to run XP well (it used non-ddr ram). Meanwhile I could have bought a refurbished laptop for $150 that had almost twice the specs and a longer battery life. Your machine at it's original specs was good enough to do the majority of things a person would expect from it today. If your power cord is still working, you should dedicate it as an arcade machine to your TV (or whatever you want) and buy a new lappy. It should be more than capable at running MAME and anything Genesis and below (plus it should use less wattage at stock settings than modding a console for that function). Unless you don't mind wasting a few hours hunting for parts to give the machine at best a 20% boost, you should stop working on it.
    Last edited by Mr. Nemo; 11th-June-2011 at 13:58.

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    You are crazy in general, but I think that it's perfectly fine to upgrade that laptop.

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    It's kind of like what The Velveteen Rabbit is all about. You know and love this Laptop and have invested so much time and energy into it that it's practically a part of you, and someday you will most likely have it integrated directly into your cerebral cortex. Only then will its true, sinister nature make itself known. But until then, this item is very much alive, and loves you the same.

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    Well its been also a kinda project of mine the laptop seeing how far i can upgrade it

    and so far its seen over a 25% boost with not that much cost involved since i sell the old when upgrading or use what I got, not to mention buying 2nd hand too

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    Would I bother too? no

    do I think your odd/crazy for wanting to? again no

    as said by Andy you've had this laptop for 8 years if you got rid of it you would not be happy with yourself
    for 1 because of the sentimental attachment of owning something for 8 years
    for 2 because of the joy of building/upgrading something with your own 2 hands

    I for one admire you for this as a lot of people myself included don't understand/can't perform more than simple upgrades (such as changing ram/hard drive ) on laptops.

    There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity ignorant people can be taught
    stupid people need to be shot.

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    Personal projects are way different than trying to increase performance for F$%@'s sake. Like I said, if you put a value on the time you spent working on the laptop versus just buying a new one, it's a fool's errand to increase performance versus buying parts that are superior to the stuff you are using. Because you are doing it for the hunt, that's a different beast and it's perfectly acceptable. Just don't sell your first born for that super rare bga2 CPU.

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    hey if it works for you and you enjoy it then fuck it. your not crazy. however, you might be crazy if you like gold plated it or something like that. just saying.
    "Life is what you make of it. Don't make excuses. Make it happen."
    This my World.
    --- Chamillionaire

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    For those of you Namely mailmann006 and fatmeegz who took the time to flame me in chat about this

    This is a PERSONAL Side project of mine and also its my money and my laptop to do so as I please. I have a perfectly good desktop (3ghz core 2 quad, hd4870, 8gb ram, 1920x1080 lcd, 2.5 tb of storage) now i realise kids like you 2 cannot grasp this but just becuase something is not current gen does not mean its not useful in fact I find this (to quote you mail)

    mailmann006
    7:12 PM
    anyone see the guys thread about whether or not he should keep piling money into his shitty laptop lol
    Is actually much more useful than you would expect. also it has not cost me as much as you think to do what I have done.

    Oh and as a side note: No Im Not Gay

    Thank you and good day
    Last edited by Kouen Hasuki; 20th-June-2011 at 08:12.

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    i for one see this as remarkable, i myself have an old zoostorm pc it orginally had a 1.6 gh'z proecssor 1 gb of ddr2 ram and a 260 gb hardrive,

    im in the process of upgrading it, ive got rid of the old mobo and brought myself a nice bundle, im now getting a new graphics card and im getting another 2 GB of ram, tbh im glad there are people like you, your not wasting money i think its rather cool and if you can do something like this, why not?
    *Computer Specs*
    Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
    Processor: AMD FX 8350 Processor (8 CPUs), ~4.1GHz
    Memory: 16GB RAM
    Graphics Card: AMD Radeon R9 8GB GDDR5

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    As Kouen already knows, ive got an Acer 5315 from 2007.

    Original specs are:

    Processor: Intel Celeron 530 @ 1.73GHZ
    Ram: 1GB DDR2
    GPU: Intel GMA965 chipset
    HD 360GB

    Upgrading to:

    Processor: Intel Core2 Duo T7200 @ 2.0GHZ
    RAM: 2GB DDR2


    I would love to get a different GPU, but its integrated

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bennieboi20 View Post
    i for one see this as remarkable, i myself have an old zoostorm pc it orginally had a 1.6 gh'z proecssor 1 gb of ddr2 ram and a 260 gb hardrive,

    im in the process of upgrading it, ive got rid of the old mobo and brought myself a nice bundle, im now getting a new graphics card and im getting another 2 GB of ram, tbh im glad there are people like you, your not wasting money i think its rather cool and if you can do something like this, why not?
    Quote Originally Posted by The Worm View Post
    As Kouen already knows, ive got an Acer 5315 from 2007.

    Original specs are:

    Processor: Intel Celeron 530 @ 1.73GHZ
    Ram: 1GB DDR2
    GPU: Intel GMA965 chipset
    HD 360GB

    Upgrading to:

    Processor: Intel Core2 Duo T7200 @ 2.0GHZ
    RAM: 2GB DDR2


    I would love to get a different GPU, but its integrated
    Thanks guys for the kind words, I just cant see myself throwing out a perfectly good working laptop, outside of gaming it does everything i would want out of a laptop its as fast as some of those netbooks that was all the rage, and hell it also makes a nice and handy older gaming machine too for games that simply wont work on my x64 PC.

    Hell a good chunk of the upgrades was simply what I had around here and if i buy any upgrades which are always off ebay so there cheap i normally sell the older item im switching getting back some of the cost. some have said the amount of money ive poured into the D600 could have got me a new laptop. well I worked it out in my head and no it wouldn't (and a second hand laptop at the amount of money put into the D600 wouldn't get me a laptop that much better than how my D600 was before the upgrades) and even then it wouldn't help me with the one side of classic pc games that hate the OS's above XP or are 16 Bit installers / games (as 16 Bit Apps do not work on 64 bit operating systems)

    also when you look at things... some people say why bother with older games... I ask why not? some older games are still classic take Discworld Noir for instance or Fallout 2

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kouen View Post
    Thanks guys for the kind words, I just cant see myself throwing out a perfectly good working laptop, outside of gaming it does everything i would want out of a laptop its as fast as some of those netbooks that was all the rage, and hell it also makes a nice and handy older gaming machine too for games that simply wont work on my x64 PC.

    Hell a good chunk of the upgrades was simply what I had around here and if i buy any upgrades which are always off ebay so there cheap i normally sell the older item im switching getting back some of the cost. some have said the amount of money ive poured into the D600 could have got me a new laptop. well I worked it out in my head and no it wouldn't (and a second hand laptop at the amount of money put into the D600 wouldn't get me a laptop that much better than how my D600 was before the upgrades) and even then it wouldn't help me with the one side of classic pc games that hate the OS's above XP or are 16 Bit installers / games (as 16 Bit Apps do not work on 64 bit operating systems)

    also when you look at things... some people say why bother with older games... I ask why not? some older games are still classic take Discworld Noir for instance or Fallout 2
    your more than welcome Kouen, dont listen to the haters I can tell your pasionate about doing this upgrade so if your liking it then why not its like saying that why should you bother being a ball boy for tennis, if you enjoy it and you feel that your getting a good experience from it then its up to you what you do and i agree with what you said aswell why not play older games, sure there are various ports and remakes but nothing comes close to actually playing a good old game to bring back the nostalgia i for one had it whilst playing FF 8 on epsxe and finally completing it after 8-9 years? i think lol its a sense of achievment very much like you will be when you have finished upgrading it btw what OS is/was it?
    *Computer Specs*
    Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
    Processor: AMD FX 8350 Processor (8 CPUs), ~4.1GHz
    Memory: 16GB RAM
    Graphics Card: AMD Radeon R9 8GB GDDR5

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    My guess is that the hater is an Alienware fan boy.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Inferno. View Post
    My guess is that the hater is an Alienware fan boy.
    i think so either that or is just a knob either one fits
    *Computer Specs*
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