Another cheap laptop assembled!
A couple of weeks ago, I had the crazy idea of getting another bare-bones Dell Latitude CPx laptop and outfitting it with the spare parts I had on hand -- battery, hard drive, and memory -- and using it as a "loaner" laptop.
Yes, it's an older laptop -- it has a Pentium III 650 MHz processor in it -- but when I'm on the road, it mostly gets the job done. Web surfing, email, playing short videos, playing music -- it does all of that.
Last week, I found one on EBay for about $40 (plus $10 shipping via Priority Mail). It arrived today. I spent a little bit of time swapping in the spare parts, along with a CD-ROM module I picked up at Laptop World yesterday for $5, and voila! It worked. Well, sort of. It booted, and didn't do anything more because the hard drive was blank. So I installed Ubuntu Linux on the laptop. Now it's working.
I still need to get a wireless network card, a USB 2.0 card, and a power adapter in order for the laptop to be truly roadworthy. I'll probably be going back to EBay for these parts.
Yes, it's an older laptop -- it has a Pentium III 650 MHz processor in it -- but when I'm on the road, it mostly gets the job done. Web surfing, email, playing short videos, playing music -- it does all of that.
Last week, I found one on EBay for about $40 (plus $10 shipping via Priority Mail). It arrived today. I spent a little bit of time swapping in the spare parts, along with a CD-ROM module I picked up at Laptop World yesterday for $5, and voila! It worked. Well, sort of. It booted, and didn't do anything more because the hard drive was blank. So I installed Ubuntu Linux on the laptop. Now it's working.
I still need to get a wireless network card, a USB 2.0 card, and a power adapter in order for the laptop to be truly roadworthy. I'll probably be going back to EBay for these parts.