Meet my friend, Buster.
Hey everyone. As I post this, I am typing from a new (to me) computer. A laptop. A nice, shiny, Toshiba laptop with lots of goodies. His previous owners (or guests of theirs, rather) dropped him several times. He finally died. However!...as a testament to the strength and durablity of Toshiba computers, which come second only to IBMs in the laptop department, unless you buy a military grade Panasonic Toughbook, this machine was brought back to life after a few hours work by me, yours truly. My now resurrected machine has been named Buster, in honor of my heroes the Mythbusters, and their intrepid crash-test-dummy by the same name. For those interested, Buster's specs are as follows.
CPU: P4 2.8GHz with HyperThreading (though I have it disabled for heat/power consumption reasons)
BATTERIES: Dual, swappable, 6.4 amp bricks.
RAM: 512MB
Hard Drive: 60GB
Optical: DVD+/-RW burner
Video: 17" widescreen 1440x900 powered by nVidia FX5200-2Go with 32MB dedicated RAM
Ports: 4 USB, 1 Parallel, 1 VGA, 1 TV/S-video, 1 FireWire, 1 Infrared, 2 PC Card slots, Ethernet, 56k Modem.
Additional: Large Synaptics touchpad, built-in WiFi (G), hardware volume control (for programs that insist on being too loud), SD/MMC card slot.
As for what's still busted:
One key missing from keyboard. So are the springs necessary to replace it.
Power jack is completely busted and snapped. May even be coming off the board. This must be replaced ASAP, as he lives on "umbilical cables" right now.
DVD drive tray won't open unless pulled on. DVD reading is spotty at best. Burning is probably a VERY bad idea.
Touchpad and SD slot don't seem to work at all. Both show up in numerous hardware diagnostics (under Windows and Linux) but neither work under either OS. I suspect an internal USB bus is disconnected.
Many missings screws and one side panel completely ripped off.
Side USB ports are busted almost completely off the motherboard.
WiFi comes and goes as the screen is moved. Since WiFi antennas are frequently located inside the display/lid, I suspect the wire is snapped. Might be an easy fix.
What he's running:
Ubuntu 6.06LTS with a few mobility feature addons I kludged together myself to reduce CPU load, boot time, and unnecessary processes. Added ZSNES for gaming, Audacity and XMMS for music, and VLC for videos. Also added DOSBox for retro software. Wine may be next.
Well, that's all folks.
Here's keepin' fingers crossed I can get him up to 95% or so. Much love!
CPU: P4 2.8GHz with HyperThreading (though I have it disabled for heat/power consumption reasons)
BATTERIES: Dual, swappable, 6.4 amp bricks.
RAM: 512MB
Hard Drive: 60GB
Optical: DVD+/-RW burner
Video: 17" widescreen 1440x900 powered by nVidia FX5200-2Go with 32MB dedicated RAM
Ports: 4 USB, 1 Parallel, 1 VGA, 1 TV/S-video, 1 FireWire, 1 Infrared, 2 PC Card slots, Ethernet, 56k Modem.
Additional: Large Synaptics touchpad, built-in WiFi (G), hardware volume control (for programs that insist on being too loud), SD/MMC card slot.
As for what's still busted:
One key missing from keyboard. So are the springs necessary to replace it.
Power jack is completely busted and snapped. May even be coming off the board. This must be replaced ASAP, as he lives on "umbilical cables" right now.
DVD drive tray won't open unless pulled on. DVD reading is spotty at best. Burning is probably a VERY bad idea.
Touchpad and SD slot don't seem to work at all. Both show up in numerous hardware diagnostics (under Windows and Linux) but neither work under either OS. I suspect an internal USB bus is disconnected.
Many missings screws and one side panel completely ripped off.
Side USB ports are busted almost completely off the motherboard.
WiFi comes and goes as the screen is moved. Since WiFi antennas are frequently located inside the display/lid, I suspect the wire is snapped. Might be an easy fix.
What he's running:
Ubuntu 6.06LTS with a few mobility feature addons I kludged together myself to reduce CPU load, boot time, and unnecessary processes. Added ZSNES for gaming, Audacity and XMMS for music, and VLC for videos. Also added DOSBox for retro software. Wine may be next.
Well, that's all folks.
Here's keepin' fingers crossed I can get him up to 95% or so. Much love!