[Question] Looking for old laptops

[vieome]

Where would be the best place to find old laptops ?

[AndyD]

Universe direct sell second hand stuff. Why do you want old laptops?

[vieome]

Hi thanks for the reply. I use them to build old arcade game consoles. Will check them out and see if I can get them from there. What I find strange is companies like cash crusaders or the many pawn shops price second computers so high when new models are coming out all the time, and the price keeps getting cheaper and cheaper/

[tec0]

Hi thanks for the reply. I use them to build old arcade game consoles. Will check them out and see if I can get them from there. What I find strange is companies like cash crusaders or the many pawn shops price second computers so high when new models are coming out all the time, and the price keeps getting cheaper and cheaper/

Are laptops the way to go then I wonder? I would recommend old desktop computers as they are more robust cheaper to maintain and more powerful for gaming then laptops. Secondly if this is business orientated you can register at the suppliers and get new components cheaper then what you pay for a second hand "unreliable" notebooks.

[irneb]

And if it's arcade games - your graphics is probably not that high-maintenance

If you still want the innards of a laptop (due to size constraints), but want it as cheap as possible, then look for pre-packaged mini ITX motherboards. That way you can get a new thing for under R2000. E.g. http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=53

Most of those would come with HDMI out so you can link them to most newer TV screens. A lot of them would even have many more features like LAN/WiFi and such - i.e. Lan Gaming possibilities. These things are usually placed inside stuff like NAS boxes, Media Servers, mini-PC's, etc. A lot of them come pre-packaged with built-in CPU & GPU, in which case they sell for under R1000.

[vieome]

The plan is to use really old computers like HP OmniBook xe2-dc which original came loaded with win 98. I have build a couple of old arcade game systems for my daughter and her friends using these old laptops. And the games are really old but the kids seem to enjoy them more then the latest games. At R2000 I am sure people would rather buy a games console.
So I was wondering really where do the very old laptops go to die.

Thanks for the help though, I will look into the ITX boards.

[Dave A]

So I was wondering really where do the very old laptops go to die.

Got some dead ones in a pile in my office - already been heavily pillaged for anything useful though to keep the dying ones going for as long as possible.

[adrianh]

I'm with irneb on this one. You just end up wasting so much time on technicalities, getting parts, running old software, incomparable hardware and unreliability only to mention a few. Wouldn't it be more effective to buy cheap Android tablets? There are thousands of applications available and if a machine fails it is extremely easy to replace.

I don't know, you save a bit of money in the short term by using old machines but its going to bite you in the long run if you develop a large clientbase. If there is one thing I learned from the IT industry it is to keep your systems as consistent as possible over your entire clientbase. You don't want to have different versions of Windows, screen sizes, keyboard layouts etc.

Anyway, think about it...

[vieome]

I'm with irneb on this one. You just end up wasting so much time on technicalities, getting parts, running old software, incomparable hardware and unreliability only to mention a few. Wouldn't it be more effective to buy cheap Android tablets? There are thousands of applications available and if a machine fails it is extremely easy to replace.

I don't know, you save a bit of money in the short term by using old machines but its going to bite you in the long run if you develop a large clientbase. If there is one thing I learned from the IT industry it is to keep your systems as consistent as possible over your entire clientbase. You don't want to have different versions of Windows, screen sizes, keyboard layouts etc.

Anyway, think about it...

I understand where you coming from on this, but old laptops are ideal for the purpose I am using them for. The arcade system is linux based. The OS size is less then 500MB and needs only 250MB RAM, and the Arcade OS can run totally in RAM.

Dave do you have any old towers/monitors and how much will you be willling to sell them for please PM details

[cagenuts]

Where are you?

I may have some here at my office.

[irneb]

I'd be very skeptical of old second-hand laptops. They'd probably have some faulty hardware somewhere - which needs replacing. So you're actually looking for refurbished laptops, unless you'd like to "fix" them yourself. For refurbished, you'd never get anything much cheaper than the cheap new laptops - otherwise they'd not have refurbed it in the first place.

There's a further problem with old laptops: Compatibility of components. Usually with PC's the components are interchangeable to a degree (e.g. RAM chips, CPU's, grapics, etc.) - though you do get some variations (especially between different eras of computing). These differences are much greater and much more likely in laptops however - thus the chances are slim that components from one laptop would fit into another. You'd need to get 2 which are very similar indeed before you might expect such interchangeability.

There's another alternative (since your requirements are so small). I've read about a new motherboard somewhere - or rather extremely micro motherboard with built-in graphics, cpu & ram. It's supposed to be used as a hobbyist "pc". I think it's manufactured (or at least designed) in the UK. Just can't remember the name in order to do a google for you. But as far as I can remember it was dirt-cheap (around R100-R200) and had something like 512MB RAM and a 1.2 GHz single core CPU, some micro USB connectors and a micro-Video connector (can't remember if it was HDMI/DVI/VGA).

I suppose your biggest problem is the screen - old LCDs are rather error riddled as that tech was quite new at the time and dead pixels would be the norm rather than the exception. And I've not seen an old CRT in years.

I do have an old Laptop which I'll PM you about if you're interested. Perhaps advertising on something like Gumtree or so BidOrBuy - though the prices I see there would put you in line of my original suggestion.

[Mike Simmonds]

Try Partserve they do refurbished HP laptops from R 1599 ex VAT. http://www.partserve.co.za/computers...s-displays.php

[tec0]

MB-i2500CCR Intel innovation series d2500CC Canoe Creak Mini-iTX Mob with Integrated Intel Atom D2500 dual-core CPU



This is not to bad?

Sadly a bit of a gamble as I simply don’t know if the integrated GPU is powerful enough. Maybe worth a look?

Also have a look at this TS16GMSA300 Transcend mSATA MLC SSD Drive - 16GB

or

TS8GHSD310 Transcend 8GB 2.5" SATA Half-Slim SSD Drive

Not to bad for that small OS and so on...

[Justloadit]

There's another alternative (since your requirements are so small). I've read about a new motherboard somewhere - or rather extremely micro motherboard with built-in graphics, cpu & ram. It's supposed to be used as a hobbyist "pc". I think it's manufactured (or at least designed) in the UK. Just can't remember the name in order to do a google for you. But as far as I can remember it was dirt-cheap (around R100-R200) and had something like 512MB RAM and a 1.2 GHz single core CPU, some micro USB connectors and a micro-Video connector (can't remember if it was HDMI/DVI/VGA).

Yes what you are referring to is this Raspberry PC. I know he will have stock in the very near future.

[tec0]

It is an extremely small device that offers a good resolution and Graphics acceleration/rendering. However of what I can understand it might well be OS sensitive but the OS seems to be development friendly and a touch screen interface will soon be supported that will make it really versatile.

It uses a standard power-supply "mobile charger as seen on YouTube" and supports HDMI so one can expect good resolutions.
Here is the catch, despite the redundancy of the device SD cards is notoriously famous for crashing and overheating. So I would recommend a bench first.

I would love to know the cost of such a device as I can Identify many uses for it.