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KaiserSchnitzel
Feb 23, 2003

Hey baby I think we Havel lot in common
Honest question. Dell XPS M1330

Specs: http://www.cnet.com/products/dell-xps-m1330/specs/

The only thing I've done to that is upgrade to a whopping 2 GB RAM (I think - maybe I did 4, but I don't think so); I had to put a new screen in it a few years ago, and I replaced the battery and the HDD. The spacebar key sticks, which is highly annoying, but I imagine that just needs to be cleaned inside and it will no longer be a problem.

I haven't really used the laptop in like 5 years. It's a very high quality laptop (in 2007 terms) and did serve me very well, even when I was using it as a gaming laptop hooked up to a 24" monitor. But, at a certain point, Windows 7 just got too fat to run with any degree of satisfaction, and so the laptop just sits there on the shelf, like a little red trophy - it does look quite nice, in fact. Everything works fine; I just can't reasonably run Windows 7 (or 10, I assume...haven't bothered to find out). In any case, it's use as a regular Windows laptop is so severely hamstrung by the limitations of the 10-year old hardware that I really don't even think there is a reason just to try to use it as strictly an internet-browsing device.

Or is there?

I'm not selling it or giving it to charity, but I'm open to any kind of creative use for it, probably involving the installation of a non-Windows OS, and probably also without any real consideration given to running on battery for more than an hour. Any ideas at all? Even just stupid fun poo poo is a worthwhile suggestion; it doesn't need to be strictly "useful." I could use it as a $2600 alarm clock, as far as I'm concerned. I just like it and want to find a use for it.

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penus penus penus
Nov 9, 2014

by piss__donald
Set the lid behavior to "do nothing".

http://www.robotshop.com/en/dfrobot-4wd-arduino-mobile-platform.html

Buy this, use velcro or something to attach it to the bottom of the laptop. Buy a battery and simply wire it to run all the time. Disable two motors on the side of your choice.

Play this video, set to "loop"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s97RuMSyslQ

Adorn top with lights.

Enjoy!

edit: sorry im losing it ever since gbs closed

penus penus penus fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Sep 23, 2016

KaiserSchnitzel
Feb 23, 2003

Hey baby I think we Havel lot in common
I like the cut of your jib. Good answer.

Dr Cox MD
Sep 11, 2001

Listen Up, Newbies.
Dropping a light-weight linux distro on their will breathe new life into the machine.

Linux Mint is fine, or just plain old Ubuntu.

NihilismNow
Aug 31, 2003
It could run windows 10 (or 7) fine.
Problem is anything you want to run on the OS. The 2016 internet is going to choke the life out of the little 1.5 ghz dual core, that isn't going to be much better on linux.

Col.Kiwi
Dec 28, 2004
And the grave digger puts on the forceps...
Yeah. I know it feels weird because it was expensive and awesome at the time, but computers change so fast that a 10 year old laptop is pretty useless. You might be able to use it as an HTPC if it doesnt choke on playing HD video, which it actually might at least with the wrong software.

It's true that a lightweight linux distro (I'd try mint) will probably make the system feel more alive. Indeed it probably won't help much with web browsing or doing any demanding tasks, but if you know anyone who just wants like a word processing machine or something maybe they'd be happy with it.

YouTuber
Jul 31, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
I can't really see that thing doing much work I just had a computer of comparable hardware finally kick the bucket on me. I just used it as a platform for poo poo I didn't want on my main box. IRC Bouncer, Torrent/Usenet downloading, and NAS functions. I guess you could do all that plus an install of OpenVPN as well.

SCheeseman
Apr 23, 2003

Use it as a test bed for experimenting with linux.

Probably Ubuntu or one of its lightweight sister distros (xubuntu, lubuntu etc). I hear good things about Mint too.

Watermelon Daiquiri
Jul 10, 2010
I TRIED TO BAIT THE TXPOL THREAD WITH THE WORLD'S WORST POSSIBLE TAKE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID AVATAR.
Make a Beowulf cluster with other lovely laptops

tsa
Feb 3, 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-abUtRbUS_U

evobatman
Jul 30, 2006

it means nothing, but says everything!
Pillbug
Install a T9700 CPU, SSD drive, Intel 6205 WiFi card and 8GB of RAM and you have a nice Windows 10 or Linux machine. Or do nothing with the hardware and install Cloudready from Neversoft and have a decently nice Chromebook. Or do something inbetween.

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penus penus penus
Nov 9, 2014

by piss__donald
Buy a mosin and a pound of tannerite

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