Today I mostly .....

[Hoodoo]

Thought you were referring to the list to the left caused by my somewhat substantial weight!!!
Nothing planned for the immediate future, but something will crop up, I'm sure!
Regards,

[Zelandeth]

Turned an old PC which I've been tripping over for months into a media centre for the living room.

Using the projector in there has always been a bit of a faff as it meant using one of the laptops, all of which are a bit quirky about actually displaying an image at 640*480 and trying to untangle both the VGA lead and audio leads from behind the cabinet the projector lives on top of.

Solution, ancient PC, scattering of components scavenged from scrap machines, a bit of patience, some cable ties and we now have a permanent machine which lives in the bottom of the cabinet tied into the projector and audio system. It's also got a TV card fitted which means in theory I should be able to pipe TV through it as well, though I need to get hold of a long enough RF lead to test that theory yet.

No more musical cables, no more dropping laptops off the back of the sofa, no more fighting with Windows 7 to get it to run at 640*480. Push a power button, wait a minute or so, then stick DVD in the drive and press play.

PC is only a Duron 1200, but it's not exactly being asked to do anything terribly difficult, and seems to be perfectly up to the task. Will see if I can find some slightly quieter fans though as it does make a bit of a racket - spending four years running 24/7 as a web server may have had something to do with that...

Think this photo had to be the best one for me of the evening, my flatmate looked slightly puzzled when he walked in to this!



Dodgy image geometry and overlap with the ceiling is because I've not got the cabinet in "operating" position, it's a bit squint, and the zoom control is still set for watching a 16:9 movie. The "screen" area is actually a couple of feet further to the left. For some sense of scale, that's a 36" TV in the corner.

[Zelandeth]

I only discovered 2K about 10 years late to be honest, but have come to rather like it, especially when I find myself working with ancient hardware.

Easier to get into the works of than XP, but just as stable. Doesn't half surprise you sometimes how fast it can run even on ancient hardware too.

About perfect for a role like this I think. Does the job, doesn't complain at me every five minutes, and should be very stable.

[Zelandeth]

Went to the Jools Holland concert in Aberdeen.

My ears are still ringing!

[Janko]

Yupiiiii

[Zelandeth]

This evening I mostly made my head spin by trying to research potential replacement laptop options following the untimely demise of my Compaq Presario V2335 last weekend, which it's looking increasingly unlikely is savable.

Whenever doing something like this it just makes me realise how hopelessly out of touch with current technology I am these days!

[Zelandeth]

General use. The old Compaq was perfect for what I needed, well, until it turned itself into a large silver doorstop without any prior warning anyway.

The real requirements are A: That it's Linux compatible and that B: it has a half decent keyboard. Failure to meet either of these requirements will likely lead to it being hurled into Aberdeen Harbour in frustration in pretty short order!

...Build quality sufficient to stand up to occasionally actually being used on the move would be nice too.

[Zelandeth]

Budget to be honest is "as little as possible" as I can't afford a new laptop, so monthly payments are going the be the order of the day. Looks like the £3-400 bracket is sensible though.

Last one only happened because a friend donated it to me when they upgraded when it "died" the first time (turned out to be nothing more than gunk in the battery terminals and in need of several cubic feet of fluff blown out of the CPU fan). I managed to get another two years out of it, so can't complain really. Seven years isn't a bad run for a laptop I guess, especially when it was utterly neglected for the first five.

[Zelandeth]

From what I've read. the Radeon 6xxx graphics cards are (or at least were) somewhat problematic for Linux users.

Tesco have one possible contender I think Link. This has an intel video chipset which should work from what research I've managed to get done. Bit more expensive than the second link, but at the same time does have double the memory, two more processor cores and double the harddrive space.

To be honest, I'd rather be able to actually have a shot of what I'm buying if possible, especially given my hate of many laptop keyboards - which given that I'll tend to be doing a lot of typing on it when in use is kinda an important component to me! Plus it does mean that you can have a proper look at it before picking one.

Durability for entry level laptops is never going to be great I realise - but my old Compaq was of the same level when it was new, and it's been durable enough to handle normal use, which is all this is ever likely to see. It'll be out here at the weekends, the odd meeting at work or when I need actual working software in the office, and as a backup for when my main PC eventually suffers a catastrophic failure - which it's well overdue for as aside from a memory upgrade and cleaning of the air filters now and then, it's never been touched since 2007 when I built it...

What I meant by reasonable build quality was "reasonable by consumer goods" standards. I've got some old Toshiba portables from the early 90s here, now those are some nicely made machines.

[Zelandeth]

Thanks Gadget. That's really the sort of feedback I needed - just someone who has their head screwed on right not jumping up and down and telling me I'm being a complete idiot!

The Tesco idea is somewhat marred however by the fact that virtually everything they have is apparently out of stock...Ah well, it's a starting point anyway!

...Will keep poking the Compaq for another day or so yet I guess anyway...I might fix it through pure blind luck!

[Zelandeth]

Simple answer, it's as dead as a doornail.

Had been on playing a DVD via the projector in the lounge (sitting on hard surface, elevated above to improve ventilation as always), after the movie finished it was left idle for a while when coffee was being prepared. Screensaver was on when we went into the kitchen, when we got back the machine had powered off. It's never powered on again since. We're not just talking not booting - we're talking COMPLETELY dead, no charge light, no power light, no fans, no HDD, nothing.

Initially I thought the PSU might have failed and the battery had just been drained. Both the PSU and battery are both claiming their innocence through both on and off-load voltage readings.

I've had it apart and there's nothing obviously amiss, voltage checks around the board so far are inconclusive. It's *not* something obvious like a duff power connector as I'd originally hoped.

[Zelandeth]

May well give that reflow trick a try. I assume the removing everything process basically just involves anything which isn't soldered in place - things like the power connector, memory sockets do those have to come off as well? Yes doesn't really sound a practical option, especially as they were originally soldered in...

Currently giving some consideration to this. Link.

Fully Intel chipset, in the budget, feels reasonably sturdy compared to most of the others in the store, has a decent enough keyboard and not a bad display compared to some others there.

[Zelandeth]

Oh dear. I do believe I may have found either the cause or at least an obvious symptom of the reason for my poor little Compaq's demise.

Generally on complex boards...like a computer motherboard...finding semiconductors which have detonated is Not A Good Sign.

...Like the 4800B in the image below.



Me suspects that this has been taken out by another rather catastrophic failure and may well have taken out a bunch of other things with it - even if this is the only thing which has obviously blown up.

I suspect this may well be the end of it.

[nitro_warrior]

...decided I must have been too aggressive, or did something wrong, changing the head gasket of the Panda as it puts out a lot of white smoke from the exhaust. Think the coolant looks a bit brown too. So I guess I'll need to take the engine out and get the head and block machined.

[nitro_warrior]

Nitro, i think i have a 999cc cylinder head in the garage if its any good to you

Thanks for the offer thunder. Think the head will be ok after being machined. (I actually have a spare engine buried under a pile of junk somewhere). But I'm reluctant to change the head because in the process of changing the head gasket I replaced all the stem seals and ground the valves etc. So aside from the gasket not sealing right it's running quite nicely. I think the copper brush I used might not have been copper...