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Post by papaof2 on Apr 9, 2023 8:02:27 GMT -6
The ancient laptop I use for writing (Dell D630, Windows XP w/SP3) is no longer fast enough to deal with the 200 item web pages that Banggood and AliExpress are prone to use :-( So I bit the bullet and bought a faster laptop: Dell E6420, initially sold in 2011. The naked laptop (no hard drive, no battery, no power supply was $40 + shipping on eBay. I had previously gotten a 1TB SSD on sale because I was planning to upgrade to a faster laptop at some point, but I didn't know what a good price I'd find the laptop for ;-)
Very good specs on the naked laptop. Intel i7 chip, quad core, 8 threads. Back-lit keyboard - nice if the space you're working in doesn't have good lighting. 4GB of RAM (all a 32 bit OS can address). I've added a 1TB WD SSD (about $80) and the latest version of Windows 10 32 bit (had the DVD, $15 for the key). Dell does NOT support Win 10 installed on this ancient laptop but it seems to be working fine and Win 10 found drivers for the wired and wireless network cards and the 1600x900 video card ;-)
I've been installing my writing tools (Word for writing, ExamDiff to display the line-by-line differences in two versions of the same Word file, plus a lot of other bits and pieces) and copying all the old and in-progress stories to the new machine, including all the background and reference info for each story (often much bigger than the story itself). I might even get back to writing in a day or three or four…
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Post by feralferret on Apr 30, 2023 19:27:43 GMT -6
The computer you described is a 64 bit processor (i7). The RAM specs are: DDR3 SDRAM (1333 MHz) 2 slots supporting 1G, 2G or 4GB DIMMs It is able to handle 2 of the 4GB modules for a total of 8 GB. Dell E6420 SpecificationsEven 8 GB is very limiting in Windows. That is one of the reasons I use Linux (configured for dual boot from either Linux Mint or Windows 7). I only have a dual core that can handle 8GB max. My current computer has a 500 GB and a 600 GB hard drive. I did recently acquire a i5 quad core desktop Dell Optiplex 990 at an estate sale. I haven't had a chance to do anything except make sure that it boots and that it doesn't have a bunch of objectionable files. It only holds one slimline internal HD as it is a SFF (small form factor) model. Of course it will run external hard drives via USB adapters. The installed drive is a 500 GB that is nearly empty. I haven't checked the amount of memory yet. It is capable of handling up to 16 GB. |
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Post by papaof2 on May 20, 2023 16:21:12 GMT -6
I'm aware of the i7 capabilities but I have some older software which is not 64-bit friendly. Cheaper to go with 32-bit Win 10 and use my collection of older software than to pay the same for 64-bit Win 10 and have to replace a lot of software :-(
If I were doing a lot of development work, I would need 64-bit Win 10 and 16GB RAM, but that's not a concern now - haven't done any big hardware development in quite a few years (double-sided board with one 40 pin microprocessor and one 28 pin, a dozen or so support chips, GPS, position sensors, light level sensors, etc.). And no big software development either - last one was for XP and reading/displaying data from the school zone radar speed signs. The signs can get the speed of traffic moving to or from the sign and each measurement is saved with date and time for every vehicle. The sign only displays the speed during selected hours/days. The data is read out from the sign by IR (older signs that used Palm Pilot collection) or Bluetooth (newer signs). The Bluetooth is much nicer on a rainy day as you don't have to get out of the car to access the transfer port as you did with IR :-(
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Post by feralferret on May 21, 2023 1:02:34 GMT -6
Easy solution. Install both the 32 bit and the 64 bit OS with the multiple boot loader. Put the 32 bit system and programs on one disk partition and put the 64 bit on a different partition.
I have Windows and Linux both installed and choose which to boot when I power up. It is set to automatically boot the Linux Mint if I don't choose within 10 seconds. You can set the default OS and the time to choose to whatever you want.
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Post by papaof2 on Sept 6, 2023 17:35:31 GMT -6
My very nice quad core, 1600 x 900 display $40 laptop stopped talking to the hard drive :-( I don't have the patience (translation: time available when this body can stand long enough use a 'scope) to troubleshoot the hardware so I went looking on ebay. Picked up a slightly newer quad core, 1366 x 768 display laptop for $50 delivered - it's even 4 years newer than the previous one ;-)
Windows 10 said there was an activation problem but then asked "Have you changed any hardware lately?" and a 'yes' to that had it checking that the drive was the same and the Win 10 install was identical so there was something else different and it reactivated Win 10 ;-)
When I went to clean a bit of dirt off the screen, I discovered that it was a touch screen. Don't really have a use for that but it's something else to learn about - maybe actually being able to sign signable PDF files with a stylus?
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