Extremely Old Laptop, Need Build Advice
Extremely Old Laptop, Need Build Advice
Edit: Nevermind. The battery is getting so hot I'm worried about messing with it now.
Last edited by sum2 on Tue 11 Jul 2017, 01:09, edited 1 time in total.
How much Ram does it have? A quick google showed 256 MB, which is not enough to run modern Puppies well (or at all).
Assuming it is 256 MB and you can't upgrade it, I'd go for something older. Try Lupu 5.28 and if that is too slow, try an older version. Or maybe try a full install.
It might take a little trial and error, but you'll find something that runs well.
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90461
Assuming it is 256 MB and you can't upgrade it, I'd go for something older. Try Lupu 5.28 and if that is too slow, try an older version. Or maybe try a full install.
It might take a little trial and error, but you'll find something that runs well.
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90461
This one has 512MB actually.dancytron wrote:How much Ram does it have? A quick google showed 256 MB, which is not enough to run modern Puppies well (or at all).
Assuming it is 256 MB and you can't upgrade it, I'd go for something older. Try Lupu 5.28 and if that is too slow, try an older version. Or maybe try a full install.
It might take a little trial and error, but you'll find something that runs well.
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90461
Currently it has something called upup raring retro on it, installed it years ago. Works great. What drew me to Puppy Linux in the first place was loading things into memory to keep the hard drive from slowing things down.sum2 wrote:This one has 512MB actually.dancytron wrote:How much Ram does it have? A quick google showed 256 MB, which is not enough to run modern Puppies well (or at all).
Assuming it is 256 MB and you can't upgrade it, I'd go for something older. Try Lupu 5.28 and if that is too slow, try an older version. Or maybe try a full install.
It might take a little trial and error, but you'll find something that runs well.
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90461
Mate...tell us what make and model.
You will get better answers.
Often on you tube people post how to clean them out.
Why not use mains power A/C for the moment.
Power off take out the battery, just run mains power.
I suspect most of your vents are full of dust.
Specs first...then we can help you out.
Chris.
You will get better answers.
Often on you tube people post how to clean them out.
Why not use mains power A/C for the moment.
Power off take out the battery, just run mains power.
I suspect most of your vents are full of dust.
Specs first...then we can help you out.
Chris.
-
Mike Walsh
- Posts: 6351
- Joined: Sat 28 Jun 2014, 12:42
- Location: King's Lynn, UK.
Agree with Chris. The overheating is like as not due to the need for a good spring-clean. Most older laptops will run quite happily without the battery in; I have an elderly Dell Inspiron from 2002 (an original 1100), which, admittedly, has been upgraded to within an inch of its life! (An SSD, and high-capacity 'nano' drives for external storage, along with 1.5 GB of DDR1 RAM).
It, too, runs quite contentedly without the battery pack being in, and, being P4-based, tends to run as hot as hell anyway.....but that's normal for P4s.
Let us have some specs, please (even though you've edited them away). I doubt it's anything that can't be fixed. How competent do you feel yourself to be when it comes to a tear-down?
The beauty of older hardware is that they tend to have a lot more space inside to work with when you do open 'em up...
Mike.
It, too, runs quite contentedly without the battery pack being in, and, being P4-based, tends to run as hot as hell anyway.....but that's normal for P4s.
Let us have some specs, please (even though you've edited them away). I doubt it's anything that can't be fixed. How competent do you feel yourself to be when it comes to a tear-down?
The beauty of older hardware is that they tend to have a lot more space inside to work with when you do open 'em up...
Mike.
-
Sailor Enceladus
- Posts: 1543
- Joined: Mon 22 Feb 2016, 19:43
On my 2005 Dell the battery has been dead since 2014, I just run it plugged in and threw the dead battery in the trash. It does get hot sometimes on the bottom, when it does I just use CPU Frequency tool and lower the Maximum Frequency to something like 1333MHz or 800MHz for a while... or turn it off for a bit and place it against the window when it's windy to cool it off.
If you have 512MB RAM I would create a 2-3GB "linux-swap" partition somewhere with GParted if you're using a big browser.
If you have 512MB RAM I would create a 2-3GB "linux-swap" partition somewhere with GParted if you're using a big browser.
Hot laptop
If you have a Puppy loaded you can check the condition of the battery and how much charge it holds. That would be useful information and you should be able to find the cpu temperature and also the SMART data on the hard drive will also tell you the hard drive temp.
In my experience laptops need a service every so often and if one is running hot or noisy it is time to do it. My idea of a service is a strip down and clean of the filters and reseat of the CPU with new grease.It is amazing how much dust and dirt gets into them. Some people say never leave them on a carpet because that allows them to get clogged up quicker.
Having said the above, stripping a laptop is not easy the first time if you have never done anything like it before, but google is your friend here and if you have a dead laptop then you can practise on it.
In my experience laptops need a service every so often and if one is running hot or noisy it is time to do it. My idea of a service is a strip down and clean of the filters and reseat of the CPU with new grease.It is amazing how much dust and dirt gets into them. Some people say never leave them on a carpet because that allows them to get clogged up quicker.
Having said the above, stripping a laptop is not easy the first time if you have never done anything like it before, but google is your friend here and if you have a dead laptop then you can practise on it.
...late to the party as usual, but coincidentally I am currently renovating a 2003ish Dell Inspiron 1100 that Mike Walsh mentioned earlier in the thread.
I'm doing it up as a writing tool for my 12yo daughter specifically (yWriter 5, FreeMaker Office, with a host of interactive fiction apps like Ren'Py, WinFrotz etc to challenge her). I've kept it as an XP, but heavily modded the desktop so it looks like a Mac (e.g., Leopard X theming, window transparencies, multiple stardock and rocketdock panels etc). Stripped out most of the crap but will prolly go TinyXP if the daughter needs more pep. (Hmm sounds really like a toy project of mine) The plurry heat of the thing is an issue - runs at the high end of 70 degrees C - was much higher before I cleaned it out, replaced the concreted thermal paste so that it doesn't actually burn the thighs when in use. Using a 2.6 GHz P4 that should only really be run in desktops, I understand from my research. Anyways I felt that it actually helped to have both the battery *and* the DVD drive removed so that a healthy cross-breeze could go straight through...
But I digress. Great to know the ol' 1100 can handle both an SSD and 1.5GB DDR1 RAM (I thought I had mine maxed out at 768, but in hindsight I probably just ran out of parts I had to hand). Nice - a much more recent Lenovo X300 just died in the a**** so a home there for the 128GB SSD when the original ATA starts to fail.
I'm doing it up as a writing tool for my 12yo daughter specifically (yWriter 5, FreeMaker Office, with a host of interactive fiction apps like Ren'Py, WinFrotz etc to challenge her). I've kept it as an XP, but heavily modded the desktop so it looks like a Mac (e.g., Leopard X theming, window transparencies, multiple stardock and rocketdock panels etc). Stripped out most of the crap but will prolly go TinyXP if the daughter needs more pep. (Hmm sounds really like a toy project of mine) The plurry heat of the thing is an issue - runs at the high end of 70 degrees C - was much higher before I cleaned it out, replaced the concreted thermal paste so that it doesn't actually burn the thighs when in use. Using a 2.6 GHz P4 that should only really be run in desktops, I understand from my research. Anyways I felt that it actually helped to have both the battery *and* the DVD drive removed so that a healthy cross-breeze could go straight through...
But I digress. Great to know the ol' 1100 can handle both an SSD and 1.5GB DDR1 RAM (I thought I had mine maxed out at 768, but in hindsight I probably just ran out of parts I had to hand). Nice - a much more recent Lenovo X300 just died in the a**** so a home there for the 128GB SSD when the original ATA starts to fail.
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-
Mike Walsh
- Posts: 6351
- Joined: Sat 28 Jun 2014, 12:42
- Location: King's Lynn, UK.
Hiya, puppyt.
Nice to know there's still a few of the old 1100s kicking around... Built like a brick outhouse, they are. Solid as a rock.....and they just keep on going.
Like you, I replaced the original 2.2 GHz 'Celly' with a 2.6 GHz P4. It was easily available at the time (though they seem to be rarer than hen's teeth now), and the TDP was about the same. They do run hot though; old Fossil reckons his works a treat on his 'rheumaticky knees'. It does a fair approximation of a hot-air paint stripper!
The chipset will in fact handle up to 2 GB of DDR1 RAM. The reason I have 1.5 is because I bought 2 new 1 GB modules to replace the pair of 512 MB modules that used to be in there.....and one turned out to be faulty.
You can do the maths yourself..! Word to the wise, however; DDR1 is getting pretty pricey now, since there's no call for it. Good quality stuff costs an arm and a leg; don't bother with the cheap stuff from the Far East, it's more trouble than it's worth.
The info about the chipset support capabilities is publicly available on Intel's website.....but, by golly, do you have to dig for it. It's not easy to find. Ignore the 'words of wisdom' about this on the Dell forums of the time, from the so-called Dell 'experts'; 1 GB is not the maximum.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I replaced the original tiny 20GB Hitachi Travelstar, initially with a KingSpec 32 GB SSD (must be IDE/PATA; SATA won't work, I'm afraid), then later on I upgraded it to a 64 GB version. I keep toying with the idea of going for a 128 GB model, but I don't think I'll bother.
The two USB 2.0 ports at the back are now occupied by a pair of SanDisk Ultra 'Fit' 128 GB 'nano' USB drives, that act as permanent 'external storage'. Gives me a total of 320 GB.
All my data folders , plus 'Downloads', 'my-documents', and 'Mike's Stuff' live on these 'externals', and are sym-linked into /root for ease of access. The wireless connection is taken care of by a NetGear PCMCIA 'CardBus' wireless adapter; a period one, which would have been available at the time the Inspiron was originally on the market. I found a source that's selling these as new 'old' stock, still in the factory packaging.....running via the 'ath5k' driver, which has been in the kernel since, like, forever.
She currently triple-boots Slacko 560, Xenialpup, and rg66's X-Slacko 232.
15 yrs old.....and counting! And still keeps chugging.....and chugging.....
-------------------------------------
EDIT:- I can no longer find the Intel spec-sheet for the 845 chipset; the link simply takes you to an Intel page for their brand-new X299 one instead. One member of the 845 family (there's dozens of variants) actually has a built-in 512 MB hardware limit, but yours should be the same as mine. However, this page from a 2003 article probably gives you as much detail as any:-
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=339067
This should help to clarify, too; the chipset in use by our old boxes is the 82845GL. As you see, RAM support for 2 GB is indicated:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I ... 4_chipsets
Mike.
Nice to know there's still a few of the old 1100s kicking around... Built like a brick outhouse, they are. Solid as a rock.....and they just keep on going.
Like you, I replaced the original 2.2 GHz 'Celly' with a 2.6 GHz P4. It was easily available at the time (though they seem to be rarer than hen's teeth now), and the TDP was about the same. They do run hot though; old Fossil reckons his works a treat on his 'rheumaticky knees'. It does a fair approximation of a hot-air paint stripper!
The chipset will in fact handle up to 2 GB of DDR1 RAM. The reason I have 1.5 is because I bought 2 new 1 GB modules to replace the pair of 512 MB modules that used to be in there.....and one turned out to be faulty.
You can do the maths yourself..! Word to the wise, however; DDR1 is getting pretty pricey now, since there's no call for it. Good quality stuff costs an arm and a leg; don't bother with the cheap stuff from the Far East, it's more trouble than it's worth.
The info about the chipset support capabilities is publicly available on Intel's website.....but, by golly, do you have to dig for it. It's not easy to find. Ignore the 'words of wisdom' about this on the Dell forums of the time, from the so-called Dell 'experts'; 1 GB is not the maximum.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I replaced the original tiny 20GB Hitachi Travelstar, initially with a KingSpec 32 GB SSD (must be IDE/PATA; SATA won't work, I'm afraid), then later on I upgraded it to a 64 GB version. I keep toying with the idea of going for a 128 GB model, but I don't think I'll bother.
The two USB 2.0 ports at the back are now occupied by a pair of SanDisk Ultra 'Fit' 128 GB 'nano' USB drives, that act as permanent 'external storage'. Gives me a total of 320 GB.
All my data folders , plus 'Downloads', 'my-documents', and 'Mike's Stuff' live on these 'externals', and are sym-linked into /root for ease of access. The wireless connection is taken care of by a NetGear PCMCIA 'CardBus' wireless adapter; a period one, which would have been available at the time the Inspiron was originally on the market. I found a source that's selling these as new 'old' stock, still in the factory packaging.....running via the 'ath5k' driver, which has been in the kernel since, like, forever.
She currently triple-boots Slacko 560, Xenialpup, and rg66's X-Slacko 232.
15 yrs old.....and counting! And still keeps chugging.....and chugging.....
-------------------------------------
EDIT:- I can no longer find the Intel spec-sheet for the 845 chipset; the link simply takes you to an Intel page for their brand-new X299 one instead. One member of the 845 family (there's dozens of variants) actually has a built-in 512 MB hardware limit, but yours should be the same as mine. However, this page from a 2003 article probably gives you as much detail as any:-
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=339067
This should help to clarify, too; the chipset in use by our old boxes is the 82845GL. As you see, RAM support for 2 GB is indicated:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I ... 4_chipsets
Mike.
oooooh - 2 Gb* limit! That is wonderful news, I'm definitely going to do that upgrade, but I'm going to renege on swapping up to SSD for the time being. I have a 128GB ssdNow V+ from the 2008 Lenovo X300 - motherboard/daughterboard BS where if either fails, the consumer is up for a new lappie or the cost of replacing a new twinned mbo/daughterboard. Programmed obsolescence was becoming to be widely recognised by the public, by that stage.
So to get back to the OP, and to reiterate what others have already stated in the thread regarding "extremely old" laptop builds (in no particular order):
1. Know your particular beast - hunt around for its maximum specs, with a mind that the Industry might want to conceal the limits of what your machine is actually capable of (Cheers to Mike Walsh above),
a. Spread the load - it's widely recognised that by "maxing out" your RAM, HDD/SDD and CPU specs you actually protect the longevity of the motherboard - and, by extension, the life of the other components.
b. Puppy's particular genius (lets not get started
) is to disperse the processing more effectively that MicroSoft and the industry could ever consider, so the wear is more on the cheaper and replaceable RAM rather than the sometimes-welded on CPU, and write-cycles are also reduced to increase the life of the HDD. (I'm skimming my understanding - please correct me if wrong).
c. Tools like Hirens or Ultimate Boot CD can help you suss out your vital statistics regarding the motherboard, bios, RAM and HDD fitness etc before you consider your time and money outlay in a rebuild project,
2. Update the BIOS to the most recently-supported version - and perhaps the FreeBIOS/linuxBIOS/coreboot project could be of additional help to upgrade your machine - but I haven't tried that route yet,
3. Manually clean it out - open her up, keep track of the different screws in separate containers and take photos as you go so you can retrace your steps putting it all back together. Steer clear of using the household vacuum which can be bad mojo for the electrostatically-sensitive innards, canned air is gold-standard (but you could use a blow gun kit and the air from your car tyres to do the job... pays for itself after a few computer cleanouts I've found ). Special attention to the vents and fans, use good quality q-tips with a smidge of alcohol of the non-drinking kind and get all the gunk off the blades. I've also used a drop of sewing oil in the bearings for overnight marinating but doesn't seem to last as long as I hoped when replaced, have got by with replacement fan+heatsink units but now will just replace the fans - not like the copper spreader wears out,
4. Replace the thermal paste/thermal grease on the old CPU/heatblock sink unit. My last project (the Dell 1100) was so baked together I had to use dental floss to saw it apart and it took about 40 minutes of hard graft - never use screwdrivers etc to do the job,
5. Take the process of getting it all back together again calmly and systematically - lost count of the number of times a wifi card etc wasn't properly seated or re-attached. Those extra screws I find after a job are always handy though,
6. If you are reading this far, if at all, you know that you should remove the malware entirely (generally XP or Vista) and wipe the drive completely for Puppy in the more antiquated builds. Frugal installs have always been my preference, for reasons that are thoroughly debated elsewhere on the forum. I confess to generally always keeping the resident M$ there anyway, after a lengthy process using tools like CCcleaner and defragging (in the IDE/PATA HDD's) with something like Ultimate Defrag etc, before re- partitioning with Gparted for a dual boot with Puppy(ies) on an ext2 or ext3 partition.
Good Luck and Happy Recycling
P.S. I don't know how it holds up against the most recent range of laptop productions, but I seem to recall an industry-wide "sweet spot" of laptop manufacture from about 2001-2007 that even Linus Torvalds wrote about... (but I can't reference ATM) so spending a bit of effort really saves in the long haul.
*Was gifted an old Vaio VGN-TX37GP (2006ish) that had been progressively hemorrhaging under the weight of XPpro and 1Gb RAM. Maxed it out to 1.5Gb RAM (now I'm not so sure, re Mike Walsh's post!) and the lift in speed was palpable - my favourite "go-to" machine without doubt now, once I tested a range of Series 5 and Series 6 Pupplets on it. A version of TahrPup 6.05 is absolutely fanging on that one even with the old HDD. Can't wait to see what a RAM upgrade will do for the Dell 1100... (bummer about the experiences with far-Eastern (my near-Northern) RAM replacements... had me a few postage-free, sub-$5 SODIMM trinkets lined up for purchase before I came to the end of Mike's post, above)
UPDATE:
P.P.S. Mike and other Dell 1100 "tragics" - don't think that you are limited to PC2100 DDR for the 845GL either, like in the first link Mike posted in the previous post. I have a 512Mb PC2700 (2004 vintage!) in mine working with the 256 PC2100, and I caught another user on a Dell forum stating similar. Onwards and upwards!
So to get back to the OP, and to reiterate what others have already stated in the thread regarding "extremely old" laptop builds (in no particular order):
1. Know your particular beast - hunt around for its maximum specs, with a mind that the Industry might want to conceal the limits of what your machine is actually capable of (Cheers to Mike Walsh above),
a. Spread the load - it's widely recognised that by "maxing out" your RAM, HDD/SDD and CPU specs you actually protect the longevity of the motherboard - and, by extension, the life of the other components.
b. Puppy's particular genius (lets not get started
) is to disperse the processing more effectively that MicroSoft and the industry could ever consider, so the wear is more on the cheaper and replaceable RAM rather than the sometimes-welded on CPU, and write-cycles are also reduced to increase the life of the HDD. (I'm skimming my understanding - please correct me if wrong).c. Tools like Hirens or Ultimate Boot CD can help you suss out your vital statistics regarding the motherboard, bios, RAM and HDD fitness etc before you consider your time and money outlay in a rebuild project,
2. Update the BIOS to the most recently-supported version - and perhaps the FreeBIOS/linuxBIOS/coreboot project could be of additional help to upgrade your machine - but I haven't tried that route yet,
3. Manually clean it out - open her up, keep track of the different screws in separate containers and take photos as you go so you can retrace your steps putting it all back together. Steer clear of using the household vacuum which can be bad mojo for the electrostatically-sensitive innards, canned air is gold-standard (but you could use a blow gun kit and the air from your car tyres to do the job... pays for itself after a few computer cleanouts I've found
). Special attention to the vents and fans, use good quality q-tips with a smidge of alcohol of the non-drinking kind and get all the gunk off the blades. I've also used a drop of sewing oil in the bearings for overnight marinating but doesn't seem to last as long as I hoped when replaced, have got by with replacement fan+heatsink units but now will just replace the fans - not like the copper spreader wears out,4. Replace the thermal paste/thermal grease on the old CPU/heatblock sink unit. My last project (the Dell 1100) was so baked together I had to use dental floss to saw it apart and it took about 40 minutes of hard graft - never use screwdrivers etc to do the job,
5. Take the process of getting it all back together again calmly and systematically - lost count of the number of times a wifi card etc wasn't properly seated or re-attached. Those extra screws I find after a job are always handy though
,6. If you are reading this far, if at all, you know that you should remove the malware entirely (generally XP or Vista) and wipe the drive completely for Puppy in the more antiquated builds. Frugal installs have always been my preference, for reasons that are thoroughly debated elsewhere on the forum. I confess to generally always keeping the resident M$ there anyway, after a lengthy process using tools like CCcleaner and defragging (in the IDE/PATA HDD's) with something like Ultimate Defrag etc, before re- partitioning with Gparted for a dual boot with Puppy(ies) on an ext2 or ext3 partition.
Good Luck and Happy Recycling
P.S. I don't know how it holds up against the most recent range of laptop productions, but I seem to recall an industry-wide "sweet spot" of laptop manufacture from about 2001-2007 that even Linus Torvalds wrote about... (but I can't reference ATM) so spending a bit of effort really saves in the long haul.
*Was gifted an old Vaio VGN-TX37GP (2006ish) that had been progressively hemorrhaging under the weight of XPpro and 1Gb RAM. Maxed it out to 1.5Gb RAM (now I'm not so sure, re Mike Walsh's post!) and the lift in speed was palpable - my favourite "go-to" machine without doubt now, once I tested a range of Series 5 and Series 6 Pupplets on it. A version of TahrPup 6.05 is absolutely fanging on that one even with the old HDD. Can't wait to see what a RAM upgrade will do for the Dell 1100... (bummer about the experiences with far-Eastern (my near-Northern) RAM replacements... had me a few postage-free, sub-$5 SODIMM trinkets lined up for purchase before I came to the end of Mike's post, above)
UPDATE:
P.P.S. Mike and other Dell 1100 "tragics" - don't think that you are limited to PC2100 DDR for the 845GL either, like in the first link Mike posted in the previous post. I have a 512Mb PC2700 (2004 vintage!) in mine working with the 256 PC2100, and I caught another user on a Dell forum stating similar. Onwards and upwards!
Last edited by Puppyt on Sat 15 Jul 2017, 00:46, edited 1 time in total.
-
Mike Walsh
- Posts: 6351
- Joined: Sat 28 Jun 2014, 12:42
- Location: King's Lynn, UK.
@ puppyt:-
Just in case you haven't upgraded the BIOS in the old girl, you want the A32 in there really.....and then you can max the shared VRAM for the graphics adapter up to 8MB, and enable the trick Micko gives in the Slacko release notes for 560 and above, of the kernel line addition 'i915.modeset=0'.
Makes all the difference of getting Pups working properly; no more tiny desktop squashed into the top left corner of the screen!
------------------------------------
You can get this from a site called Bay-Wolf.com:-
http://bay-wolf.com/flashbios.htm
It's in the form of an ISO image, so it doesn't matter whether you're running Windoze or Linux; it's like booting from a LiveCD. It does one thing, and one thing only; upgrades the BIOS ROM image in the flash ROM chip.
Burn it to CD, boot from it, and.....it's all over & done with in about 90 seconds. Easiest BIOS upgrade I've ever performed!
The download should be called 'l1100A32.zip'.
Mike.
Just in case you haven't upgraded the BIOS in the old girl, you want the A32 in there really.....and then you can max the shared VRAM for the graphics adapter up to 8MB, and enable the trick Micko gives in the Slacko release notes for 560 and above, of the kernel line addition 'i915.modeset=0'.
Makes all the difference of getting Pups working properly; no more tiny desktop squashed into the top left corner of the screen!
------------------------------------
You can get this from a site called Bay-Wolf.com:-
http://bay-wolf.com/flashbios.htm
It's in the form of an ISO image, so it doesn't matter whether you're running Windoze or Linux; it's like booting from a LiveCD. It does one thing, and one thing only; upgrades the BIOS ROM image in the flash ROM chip.
Burn it to CD, boot from it, and.....it's all over & done with in about 90 seconds. Easiest BIOS upgrade I've ever performed!
The download should be called 'l1100A32.zip'.
Mike.
Oh hi Mike -
thanks very much for the tip on the BIOS. Yup I'm up to A32, but I think I did that from the Dell support site. There was a file to flash update the bios from within XP, and it worked without drama. (Unlike my recent IBM Lenovo T60 update, which insisted on having AC power *plus* a fully charged battery on board before updating. The battery actually flatlined suddenly the week before, but fortunately a 9-cell replacement cost less than $20 for a brand new one).
Back to the Dell - I bought a D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G630 PCMCIA wifi for about A$8 and it works really well indeed.
Admittedly, I haven't given Slacko varieties a proper go - I much prefer the Ubuntu and Debian flavours of Puppy due to issues like the availability of R statistical environment packages, but the 8Mb VRAM video is certainly something to watch out for in future improvements for a pre-teen machine,
Cheers,
Puppyt
EDITS: nope, the T60 9-cell battery was A$25. Think I paid over $80 when I bought the thing 2nd hand a few years back.
And another classic tale of trying to upgrade too far - wasted a lot of time trying to find a 44-pin IDE to SATA 2 adapter (for the Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+ 180mb/s). Course I will never get the designed transfer rate through the ol' ATA, but I have it hanging around so why not? I found that while there are plenty of IDE/PATA adapters for SATA1 SSD's, SATA2's are a technological bridge too far, it would seem. Next best case scenario for the HDD replacement is to use one of my IDE-CF card adapters. Again won't get the top speed through the ATA 166 connection, but the price could be right for a 32GB CF in there down the track.
@Mike Walsh - kudos for having 320 GB storage going in a 15yo Dell lappie!
thanks very much for the tip on the BIOS. Yup I'm up to A32, but I think I did that from the Dell support site. There was a file to flash update the bios from within XP, and it worked without drama. (Unlike my recent IBM Lenovo T60 update, which insisted on having AC power *plus* a fully charged battery on board before updating. The battery actually flatlined suddenly the week before, but fortunately a 9-cell replacement cost less than $20 for a brand new one).
Back to the Dell - I bought a D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G630 PCMCIA wifi for about A$8 and it works really well indeed.
Admittedly, I haven't given Slacko varieties a proper go - I much prefer the Ubuntu and Debian flavours of Puppy due to issues like the availability of R statistical environment packages, but the 8Mb VRAM video is certainly something to watch out for in future improvements for a pre-teen machine,
Cheers,
Puppyt
EDITS: nope, the T60 9-cell battery was A$25. Think I paid over $80 when I bought the thing 2nd hand a few years back.
And another classic tale of trying to upgrade too far - wasted a lot of time trying to find a 44-pin IDE to SATA 2 adapter (for the Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+ 180mb/s). Course I will never get the designed transfer rate through the ol' ATA, but I have it hanging around so why not? I found that while there are plenty of IDE/PATA adapters for SATA1 SSD's, SATA2's are a technological bridge too far, it would seem. Next best case scenario for the HDD replacement is to use one of my IDE-CF card adapters. Again won't get the top speed through the ATA 166 connection, but the price could be right for a 32GB CF in there down the track.
@Mike Walsh - kudos for having 320 GB storage going in a 15yo Dell lappie!
Last edited by Puppyt on Sat 15 Jul 2017, 09:14, edited 1 time in total.
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-
Mike Walsh
- Posts: 6351
- Joined: Sat 28 Jun 2014, 12:42
- Location: King's Lynn, UK.
Well, the max VRAM trick works on the 1100 for all Pups.....not just Slackos, but the 'buntu and Debian-based varieties as well. Astonishing, really; considering the age of the system by this time, that flat-panel display is still crisp & sharp, ain't it?
The first Puppy I ever tried on there was Precise 571, back in May '14. Wouldn't display at all (except as 'broken' and scattered blocks all over the screen). Thought it was a bad download, so I tried 570 instead. Same result.
This was very early days for me, though; not just wi' Puppy, but Linux in general. Didn't know the first thing about editing config files and the like, and adding kernel parameters, etc. And that was before reading Micko's Slacko release notes:-
Green as grass, I was! But, you 'live & learn'..... 570 is now one of my firm favourites; it's just very, very stable. And X-Slacko 232 is simply 570 with XFCE...one of my very favourite lightweight desktops.
(Incidentally, I'm using PC3200 DDR SoDIMM's - 400 MHz - and have done ever since I began to upgrade from the paltry 128 MB RAM the old girl originally came with direct from Dell. How the hell XP ever managed to run on the darn thing beats me.....)
Mike.
The first Puppy I ever tried on there was Precise 571, back in May '14. Wouldn't display at all (except as 'broken' and scattered blocks all over the screen). Thought it was a bad download, so I tried 570 instead. Same result.
This was very early days for me, though; not just wi' Puppy, but Linux in general. Didn't know the first thing about editing config files and the like, and adding kernel parameters, etc. And that was before reading Micko's Slacko release notes:-
Which was when I discovered I needed to upgrade the A22 to the A32; the A22 had no capability to increase the VRAM. It was super basic.Known Issues
If you boot to blackscreen:
for intel cards:
i915.modeset=0
ATI/AMD radeon cards:
radeon.modeset=0
nvidia cards:
nouveau.modeset=0
Those strings must be placed after (example) "puppy pfix=ram i915.modeset=0" for live boot or on the kernel line of extlinux.conf, syslinux.conf, menu.lst, lilo.conf
Old nvidia N3x cards (mx440, fx5200 and some others) often do not render properly.
For those use this string in a similar fashion to above:
nouveau.noaccel=1
If you have an Intel® Brookdale graphics controller you must enable 8 MB of memory to the graphics in the BIOS of the computer.
Green as grass, I was! But, you 'live & learn'..... 570 is now one of my firm favourites; it's just very, very stable. And X-Slacko 232 is simply 570 with XFCE...one of my very favourite lightweight desktops.
(Incidentally, I'm using PC3200 DDR SoDIMM's - 400 MHz - and have done ever since I began to upgrade from the paltry 128 MB RAM the old girl originally came with direct from Dell. How the hell XP ever managed to run on the darn thing beats me.....)
Mike.
Last edited by Mike Walsh on Sat 15 Jul 2017, 11:39, edited 2 times in total.
back @Mike - Synchronicity! I was just updating when you posted, and forgot to mention I went back in to the bios and selected the yellow - highlighted 8MB VRAM option earlier today. Haven't worked with the machine since then but I agree, the Digital Flat Panel display is certainly very sharp
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