Laptop question.

[foamcup]

I just acquired an old laptop from my cousin because he hasn't used the thing in like four years, and he says he wants to sell it to me after I asked if I could have it. -__-

Now this thing is oooooold, it's running a P2 400 MHz cpu and 128 megs of memory. No onboard networking capability. So the question is, what would you charge someone for this thing?

And before anyone asks, I'm gonna use it for basic tasks like word processing and checking e-mail and such, or maybe put Linux on there and play around with that.

[Blitzkommando]

I would give someone $10 to take it off my hands. But if you really must pay for it I wouldn't pay more than $15 because it frankly isn't even worth that much today as a lot of schools and whatnot give away similarly spec'd computers for free, both laptops and desktops.

[foamcup]

That's what I was thinking. He hasn't looked at this thing in years, he doesn't care about it. It's not much of a machine, but I'll play with it.

He also has his dad's old PC sitting in the garage! I was like OMG GIB THAT TOO! His dad died within the last year or so, and he kept his machine up to date, so it just has to be a decent machine. I can talk to his mom about that one I think. <_<

The battery is dead from the neglect. If it won't hold a decent charge then I don't know if I want it. I'll test it out later. This thing is like a time capsule too, lol. It's running Windows 2000 SP2, he's got Doom 2 v1.666 on here, Duke Nukem 3D v1.3D and v1.5, Photoshop 4, and Quicktime 3. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_lol.gif

[Blitzkommando]

Up until this past year we still had a 486 machine. It was running Windows 95 on a 100MB harddrive (we had it compressed to 250MB), a 100MHz Am486 DX4, 14MB of memory, a Soundblaster 16-bit ISA based soundcard, and a 1MB ISA based VGA card. We finally dumped it as it hadn't been run in years and might not have even worked. Aside from that we have so many computers stretching from 1998 to today that we frankly didn't even need all that we do have.

If you do get it be sure to get all the updates to Windows 2000 soon as support is going to be gone soon if I remember correctly.

[Firocket1690]

most laptops just aren't upgradable. well. most newer ones can replace the hdd, disc drive, and maybe add ram, but that's about it.

I'd pay a good bunch of money to get a new screen on my current vaio. overall screen seems darker, and three (definetly) dead pixels. on a dual monitor setup, the laptops' darker screen seems significant, when in comparison to the other lcd. <_<

[HUnewearl_Meira]

I recently gave away a Pentium II 400MHz with 256MB RAM tower; granted, it was just the case (no power supply, as that had been canibalized into another computer long ago), the motherboard, processor and RAM, so my buddy that I gave it to still needed to install a hard drive, power supply and some manner of removable media, but all things considered, he likely had all that stuff laying around already.

The point is this: a Pentium II isn't really worth much these days. Much less, a laptop. It's apparent that he is failing to recognize the market value, or rather, lack thereof, of this piece of equipment. Granted, he obviously thinks it's worth something, though at this point, you're not paying him to give you some antiquated hardware, you're paying him to give you the convenience of having a random laptop on which to perform trivial tasks. I believe that Norvekh's suggestion of $15 is probably a fair price for him to part with the device. If he refuses, you'll do well to point out that he'd be unlikely to get any money for it from anywhere else, and he'd otherwise have to pay for it to be disposed of properly, as complex electronic devices (such as major computer equipment) is not legally permitted to be thrown out with regular trash.



Also, Norvekh: the odds are in great favor of that 486 still being functional. 486 systems tend to have extreme longevity, with very stable hardware. I've rarely seen a computer go through so much abuse and still come out out top afterward.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HUnewearl_Meira on 2007-02-25 01:52 ]</font>

[Blitzkommando]

Well, reason I say it likely wasn't functional is that we had a lot of things destroyed during the last move as the movers didn't use climatically controlled areas for storage, thus causing a number of rather expensive items to become destroyed from water damage. I did try to boot the system but unfortunately the screen didn't respond but I have a feeling it was just the card that died. In any event I still have the processor as a paper weight, and speech aid, for talking about ceramic processors versus the newer Silicon, and now Silicon On Insulator, processors. One other thing that I am sad about with the last move is that our Apple IIe, it's various components (minus the mouse and programs), and the 6" greenscreen monitor were also stolen in the move. I enjoyed toying around with it and to have it disappear (along with other items) frankly pissed me off.

I'll reiterate again though: Check local schools, libraries, and other such places for old computers. They tend to have perfectly functional computers sitting on the bench to be scrapped. I had the chance to pick up around 20 17" and 19" CRT monitors in early 2006 as the highschool was getting new systems with 19" LCD monitors. I declined as we already had spare monitors and were in the process of switching over to LCDs ourselves, but they were certainly not bad monitors. They also were giving away a few of the other computers (some 386, 486, and Pentium I and II based machines) as they didn't need all of them for the junior high. If you have a local used computer parts store those are great places for cheap computers as well, and they should be more powerful than that Pentium II laptop. We have a number in the area and one machine I remember in particular was a 1GHz Pentium III, 384MB of PC100, the case, power supply, CD drives, floppy, motherboard, and 20GB harddrive for around $100. I keep idling on the idea of getting it as those 1GHz Pentium IIIs are rather rare, somewhat of collectors items, due to the limited number produced and how many were recalled. I even have some SDRAM sitting around that might even work with it to where I could feasably get it to 768MB and put XP (I would use Windows 2000 if I had a copy of it) on it as a home server or at least a test machine.

[foamcup]

Thanks for the insight guys. At least I have a good idea of features I want in a future purchase now. Now I need to get that desktop out of the garage before it rots. I think it would be a good server.

[washuguy]

He should pay YOU to take it... But really, 20 bucks tops.