Pimp my Laptop - Dell Edition

overdrive148

overdrive148

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overdrive148
Well, not my laptop but the fiancee's. Specifically her old Dell Inspiron 1501 that she used in college.

8deWMCS.png


We found it in her parents' storage unit and I was very interested in seeing if it would run after so long. Started right up and went well until she didn't know the password. I had to search around the internet and use a trick to set the Ease of Access center on the login screen to open the command prompt to reset the password for her.

Anyway, so after she pops the lid off the time capsule, she falls back in love with it. She has a netbook now but doesn't like how flimsy it is and the low/non-upgradable storage it came with.

1qh9rPS.png


She only uses her current laptop for writing and web surfing, nothing intensive. I start looking around online and it surprisingly looks like it has some promise to it - According to Dell's website you can upgrade the RAM/HDD/CPU. She is pretty excited about being able to use it again and it's more of a sentimental thing rather than a smart thing. I thought it would be fun to give it a try if it's viable.

oEN8L2J.jpg


Here's one of the bays on the back. Right now I'm looking at a single stick of 512mb DDR2 RAM. Running Windows Vista Home Basic 32 bit. Here's the other hardware:

bi10KPM.jpg


Another stick of the RAM she has now is a whopping 5 bucks on Amazon, 2GBx2 are about 20 and the CPUs that Dell says are compatible (The best performer of which is the AMD Turion TL-60 dual core vs the Mobile AMD Sempron 3800+ single core in it now) are about as much as the thermal paste to put them in. The Dell thread states what CPUs are compatible but the one that she has is rocking a 3800+ which isn't on the list.

So, my plan is to possibly upgrade it with maybe 30-40 bucks in parts and make it into a netbook equivalent minus the net. Drop Win 10 or 7 into it, maybe upgrade the 100gb HDD into something a little larger or faster (an SSD is tempting but probably overkill for her needs).

What I'm looking for is any advice or possible hangups in the process that I'd need to watch for or incompatibilities that aren't apparent to me. Windows 10 min requirements aren't that intense and I think it could be a good laptop for her needs and her nostalgia.
 
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Check on that wireless adapter. My co-pilot has an older machine and it is Wi-Flaky so she's stuck with a USB adapter for dependable connection. At the hangar she uses something called an Ethernet cable. Not sure what that's all about.
 
You may have trouble getting Windows 7 or 10 to run on it. Check the compatibility. Laptops are notorious for the hardware support going away rapidly. You could certainly get some up to date linux distribution for it if that would work. Windows 7 _might_.
 
Laptops and Windows didn't even exist when I was in college. Here is what my dorm room PC looked like:

1024px-Ibm_px_xt_color.jpg


And yet my roommate and I had hours of fun playing one of the first versions of Flight Simulator on it!
 
colojo said:
Laptops and Windows didn't even exist when I was in college. Here is what my dorm room PC looked like:
And yet my roommate and I had hours of fun playing one of the first versions of Flight Simulator on it!
Click to expand...

My dorm room PC was three pieces of bamboo with little tiny ink scratchings on it.
slipstick.jpg
.
 
kgruber said:
The one and only upgrade that makes any sense is an SSD drive.
Click to expand...
I thought RAM at the least would be a good upgrade as well. Any reason in particular?

jsstevens said:
You may have trouble getting Windows 7 or 10 to run on it. Check the compatibility. Laptops are notorious for the hardware support going away rapidly. You could certainly get some up to date linux distribution for it if that would work. Windows 7 _might_.
Click to expand...
Not well versed in trying to install new OS's on older equipment, the hardware itself can cause issues with OS installation? Or do you meam drivers or?

colojo said:
Laptops and Windows didn't even exist when I was in college. Here is what my dorm room PC looked like:

1024px-Ibm_px_xt_color.jpg


And yet my roommate and I had hours of fun playing one of the first versions of Flight Simulator on it!
Click to expand...

Great. Now I feel young! :p
 
overdrive148 said:
I thought RAM at the least would be a good upgrade as well. Any reason in particular?


Not well versed in trying to install new OS's on older equipment, the hardware itself can cause issues with OS installation? Or do you meam drivers or?



Great. Now I feel young! :p
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The hardware mfg usually develops the drivers. There always comes a point with older hardware where the mfg (Dell) will stop creating drivers for that hardware to support the newer OS's. It is highly likely you will have driver issues. It may default to generic drivers for things like video, so it may actually work to a degree, but would be limited in functionality. For instance, it may not give you full resolution on the screen, possibly no support for things like touchpads, etc. RAM can help, especially if you only have 512 mb in there, but I honestly wouldn't spend a penny on this machine. Just slap new stickers on a newer laptop.
 
Yeah, what he said. Drivers for the hardware come from the manufacturer. Windows 7 would be your best bet of the "current" Windows OS. Or you could go Linux. Since you're building a glorified netbook, linux might be the better choice. Check out Mint (https://linuxmint.com) for a current popular distribution. The problem with older Windows systems (XP, which is what that probably ran new) for a netbook is they're not kept up to security standards.

John
 
jsstevens said:
Yeah, what he said. Drivers for the hardware come from the manufacturer. Windows 7 would be your best bet of the "current" Windows OS. Or you could go Linux. Since you're building a glorified netbook, linux might be the better choice. Check out Mint (https://linuxmint.com) for a current popular distribution. The problem with older Windows systems (XP, which is what that probably ran new) for a netbook is they're not kept up to security standards.

John
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He said it was on Vista Home Edition. So that gives you an idea of the age. There is a good chance Win 7 would work, but you would want at least 2 Gb RAM for Win 7.
 
John221us said:
He said it was on Vista Home Edition. So that gives you an idea of the age. There is a good chance Win 7 would work, but you would want at least 2 Gb RAM for Win 7.
Click to expand...

OK, then. Win 7 should be reasonably secure for a while longer.
 
kgruber said:
The "day" A diploma from UW Industrial Engineering came in the mail, HP announced the HP-35!!
Click to expand...

I was the highest paid EE out of my class of several thousand and went to work on Apollo. The day the HP-35 came out and I ordered one at $700 (plus accessories) my wife of a year or so, with my monthly salary of $750 told me that I had sold the family down the river (figuratively, of course). I don't believe she ever forgave me for that.

I could do in ten minutes what my colleagues could do even with a teletype connected computer could do in a whole day. It just wasn't an evolution; the -35 was a revolution.
 
I wouldn't put much money into a lappie that old @overdrive148 unless it was just for nostalgia. The new ones are way too cheap. Putting $100 in that thing is 33% of the cost of a decent new laptop. Or 10% if you're buying Apple. Heh.
 
@overdrive148 just poking an example toward ya... this machine isn't "high end", but at $179 out the door shipped, it's kinda hard to beat it when compared to a really old laptop... if she needs something but doesn't need a screaming machine.

And there's a bunch out there at this price point... this just came up in some emailed "deals" email I'm on this week...

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-...mmc-flash-memory-blue/5579834.p?skuId=5579834

Honestly I think you can do even better than the one above, it's just an example. They do toss in $99 worth of Office 365 with this one, a year free... stuff like that in lots of them, too.

If there's a MicroCenter near you, get on their mailing list... that's where they send out the clearance deals, and those are often loss-leaders or break-even as best as I can tell, just overstock they need to get rid of, which means the machine may not have the exact features everyone wants in the "perfect" laptop, so they're not selling as well as a competitor's brand, but MicroCenter seems to know this and just drops the price down to where they don't make any money on the things, and dumps them quick, so they can change to something else in stock... and you get a deal on the thing at that point. It'll usually say "one per household" or something on the best deals.
 
The one advantage the old Dell MIGHT have is a higher res screen. That Lenovo is only 1368x768. That's not a lot of pixels even for web these days. That seems to be the main cost driver on low end laptops-screen resolution.
 
overdrive148 said:
Well, not my laptop but the fiancee's. Specifically her old Dell Inspiron 1501 that she used in college.

We found it in her parents' storage unit and I was very interested in seeing if it would run after so long. Started right up and went well until she didn't know the password. I had to search around the internet and use a trick to set the Ease of Access center on the login screen to open the command prompt to reset the password for her.

Anyway, so after she pops the lid off the time capsule, she falls back in love with it. She has a netbook now but doesn't like how flimsy it is and the low/non-upgradable storage it came with.



She only uses her current laptop for writing and web surfing, nothing intensive. I start looking around online and it surprisingly looks like it has some promise to it - According to Dell's website you can upgrade the RAM/HDD/CPU. She is pretty excited about being able to use it again and it's more of a sentimental thing rather than a smart thing. I thought it would be fun to give it a try if it's viable.

oEN8L2J.jpg


Here's one of the bays on the back. Right now I'm looking at a single stick of 512mb DDR2 RAM. Running Windows Vista Home Basic 32 bit. Here's the other hardware:



Another stick of the RAM she has now is a whopping 5 bucks on Amazon, 2GBx2 are about 20 and the CPUs that Dell says are compatible (The best performer of which is the AMD Turion TL-60 dual core vs the Mobile AMD Sempron 3800+ single core in it now) are about as much as the thermal paste to put them in. The Dell thread states what CPUs are compatible but the one that she has is rocking a 3800+ which isn't on the list.

So, my plan is to possibly upgrade it with maybe 30-40 bucks in parts and make it into a netbook equivalent minus the net. Drop Win 10 or 7 into it, maybe upgrade the 100gb HDD into something a little larger or faster (an SSD is tempting but probably overkill for her needs).

What I'm looking for is any advice or possible hangups in the process that I'd need to watch for or incompatibilities that aren't apparent to me. Windows 10 min requirements aren't that intense and I think it could be a good laptop for her needs and her nostalgia.
Click to expand...

B-DIMM is a most outstanding rap name.
 
jsstevens said:
The one advantage the old Dell MIGHT have is a higher res screen. That Lenovo is only 1368x768. That's not a lot of pixels even for web these days. That seems to be the main cost driver on low end laptops-screen resolution.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the Lenovo was just an example of current pricing, not an example of a perfect replacement or upgrade.
 
If you can manage it, a 64Gb SSD will do wonders for the speed. 128Gb woukd be the next step up.

I stuck an SSD in a netbook and it completely changed the machine.

I'd definitely stick more RAM in it. 512Mb is just useless. 2Gb would be a minimum for me. I can't remember, but won't XP only recognize 3Gb?

To be honest, I didnt know you could replace the processor on a laptop... but, if you can, I wouldnt for this build. I dont see the need.

Yeah, you could buy new but if you want something fun to do while spending a couple of bucks, go for it. She'll like you for it.

Make sure you download CCleaner and Revo Uninstaller to get rid of everything you dont need. Be sure to clean up any and all viruses. There no point in bogging down a machine that isnt getting any younger.
 
denverpilot said:
Yeah, the Lenovo was just an example of current pricing, not an example of a perfect replacement or upgrade.
Click to expand...

All the inexpensive ones will be comparable. They are amazingly cheap but screen resolution is where you pay the piper.
 
jsstevens said:
All the inexpensive ones will be comparable. They are amazingly cheap but screen resolution is where you pay the piper.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I've noticed with family non-tech users they don't even really care or notice as long as it'll do "HD" which is a pretty low bar for laptops these days.

Stepdad had some monster gaming video card in a machine he owns and bought a monster monitor and called me one night because he couldn't get it to come on.

A little while later after asking all the usual questions (monitor input set right, etc), and having him send me a photo of the back of his machine, I realized he'd been running all his previous monitors on the motherboard's built in video card -- because the Nvidia had dust caps installed on its ports by the PC assembler, when he bought it three years prior. LOL!

He had no idea he wasn't using high res nor acceleration of any sort. He loaded up a few photos he'd shot in RAW from a pro camera and just kept saying "Wow". Haha.
 
denverpilot said:
Yeah, but I've noticed with family non-tech users they don't even really care or notice as long as it'll do "HD" which is a pretty low bar for laptops these days.

Stepdad had some monster gaming video card in a machine he owns and bought a monster monitor and called me one night because he couldn't get it to come on.

A little while later after asking all the usual questions (monitor input set right, etc), and having him send me a photo of the back of his machine, I realized he'd been running all his previous monitors on the motherboard's built in video card -- because the Nvidia had dust caps installed on its ports by the PC assembler, when he bought it three years prior. LOL!

He had no idea he wasn't using high res nor acceleration of any sort. He loaded up a few photos he'd shot in RAW from a pro camera and just kept saying "Wow". Haha.
Click to expand...

I mostly notice because the web pages don't scale to screen size so lots of the content is off the screen. Or the danged ads take up 2/3 of the browser window. Or my Word window only has 3 lines of text in it. Things like that. Sure, I can unzoom etc. but it's a pain.
 
jsstevens said:
I mostly notice because the web pages don't scale to screen size so lots of the content is off the screen. Or the danged ads take up 2/3 of the browser window. Or my Word window only has 3 lines of text in it. Things like that. Sure, I can unzoom etc. but it's a pain.
Click to expand...

Zoom isn't so bad if you do it with a scroll wheel. Or a pinch-zoom feature on a touchpad. But I hear ya.
 
Cpt_Kirk said:
If you can manage it, a 64Gb SSD will do wonders for the speed. 128Gb woukd be the next step up.

I stuck an SSD in a netbook and it completely changed the machine.

I'd definitely stick more RAM in it. 512Mb is just useless. 2Gb would be a minimum for me. I can't remember, but won't XP only recognize 3Gb?

To be honest, I didnt know you could replace the processor on a laptop... but, if you can, I wouldnt for this build. I dont see the need.

Yeah, you could buy new but if you want something fun to do while spending a couple of bucks, go for it. She'll like you for it.

Make sure you download CCleaner and Revo Uninstaller to get rid of everything you dont need. Be sure to clean up any and all viruses. There no point in bogging down a machine that isnt getting any younger.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the major reasoning behind the RAM upgrade (for me) is because it idles at like 90% ram usage on desktop making retrieving anything from it incredibly painful (also 512mb is soul crushing). XP/Vista can only see 3gb but thats why I was considering the OS upgrade. The processor being like 7 bucks was more of an opportunity than a real need too.

And for sure I would be reformatting the thing to get it squeaky clean for her, nuking it to 0 is always doable...although I wonder where I could find all her latest drivers? The other one she has now doesn't have the option to expand even storage. I could get her an external drive for the netbook but I was thinking I could spruce this up much cheaper.

I put a 256gb SSD in my gaming laptop (Asus g74sx) a few years ago and the difference was amazing.
 
overdrive148 said:
Yeah, the major reasoning behind the RAM upgrade (for me) is because it idles at like 90% ram usage on desktop making retrieving anything from it incredibly painful (also 512mb is soul crushing). XP/Vista can only see 3gb but thats why I was considering the OS upgrade. The processor being like 7 bucks was more of an opportunity than a real need too.

And for sure I would be reformatting the thing to get it squeaky clean for her, nuking it to 0 is always doable...although I wonder where I could find all her latest drivers? The other one she has now doesn't have the option to expand even storage. I could get her an external drive for the netbook but I was thinking I could spruce this up much cheaper.

I put a 256gb SSD in my gaming laptop (Asus g74sx) a few years ago and the difference was amazing.
Click to expand...

RAM increases performance only when you run out of it. When the OS runs out of RAM it will use the swap file on your hard drive. That is the soul crushing performance hit that you are talking about. If she is primarily Internet browsing and word processing, she probably doesn't need a lot of RAM, but 512 is low by any standard.
 
weirdjim said:
My dorm room PC was three pieces of bamboo with little tiny ink scratchings on it.
View attachment 51666
.
Click to expand...

Pickett N4-ES was my "calculator" when I started college in 1970.

John221us said:
He said it was on Vista Home Edition. So that gives you an idea of the age. There is a good chance Win 7 would work, but you would want at least 2 Gb RAM for Win 7.
Click to expand...

I was told by a MS rep that you needed that much RAM for Vista to work well, too. As he said, "It will run in 512 MB, but you did want to do something in addition to running the OS, didn't you?"

weirdjim said:
I was the highest paid EE out of my class of several thousand and went to work on Apollo. The day the HP-35 came out and I ordered one at $700 (plus accessories) my wife of a year or so, with my monthly salary of $750 told me that I had sold the family down the river (figuratively, of course). I don't believe she ever forgave me for that.

I could do in ten minutes what my colleagues could do even with a teletype connected computer could do in a whole day. It just wasn't an evolution; the -35 was a revolution.
Click to expand...

$700? I was first aware of the HP-35 when it was $395 at the Bookie at WSU. Still too expensive. I bought a TI SR-10 (square, square root, inverse and scientific notation) for about $170 and kept my slide rule as a portable log and trig table. And I remember the teletype connected to a computer. Started with that in high school, connecting to WSU's IBM 360/67. CRBE (Conversational Remote Batch Entry system) for the interface. FORTRAN using the Watfor compiler, later the Watfiv compiler. I miss FORTRAN, wish I had a good compiler for it for my PC.

Got my BSEE in 1975. Great degree and it led to a great career.
 
Ghery said:
$700? I was first aware of the HP-35 when it was $395 at the Bookie at WSU.
Got my BSEE in 1975. Great degree and it led to a great career.
Click to expand...

You are almost exactly 10 years behind me. The -35 came out in '68 and was $700 off the blocks with carrying case, recharge station, and such. They were recalled by HP for an error in the 10th decimal place when you did a trig function and then the inverse trig function to see if they came out equal. They didn't and HP recalled the lot of them.

I opted for a BS in Semiconductor Physics and yes, it has been one hell of a fine ride. It was really helpful not only to know how to use the device but what is going on inside of it that makes it work that way. Much easier on design without all the hidden gotchas. Besides, I found out that ALL the engineering students had to take classes in cracking cement and greasy machinery and figured it wasn't going to help me much dealing with little black balls of negative electricity bouncing around in a microstrip circuit. I was getting enough of the greasy machinery work at the airlines at my night job.
 
denverpilot said:
Zoom isn't so bad if you do it with a scroll wheel. Or a pinch-zoom feature on a touchpad. But I hear ya.
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It probably doesn't help that my primary display is a 29" Apple Retina. :)
 
My sister graduated from high school in 1972. She headed off to CalTech with a brand new Post slide rule (bamboo slides!). I was 5 years behind her but I learned how to use a slide rule and did use it in high school classes. After her freshman year she bought a TI SR50. (They were less than half of the HP price. Pretty much equally functional, but certainly not made as well.) In 1976 I worked and saved for the summer to buy an SR-51A ($150). I couldn't swing the model with the mag card reader/writer built in. I was more into the programming (I wrote a Nim game on it. Pretty tough with only 50 instructions.) than the engineering. And that's worked out pretty well for me. I do still have an HP-16C that I bought on my first SW Engineering job. I get it out occasionally just to play with. It still works fine. But for work, it's all in the computer in a variety of VMs.

John
 
weirdjim said:
You are almost exactly 10 years behind me. The -35 came out in '68 and was $700 off the blocks with carrying case, recharge station, and such. They were recalled by HP for an error in the 10th decimal place when you did a trig function and then the inverse trig function to see if they came out equal. They didn't and HP recalled the lot of them.

I opted for a BS in Semiconductor Physics and yes, it has been one hell of a fine ride. It was really helpful not only to know how to use the device but what is going on inside of it that makes it work that way. Much easier on design without all the hidden gotchas. Besides, I found out that ALL the engineering students had to take classes in cracking cement and greasy machinery and figured it wasn't going to help me much dealing with little black balls of negative electricity bouncing around in a microstrip circuit. I was getting enough of the greasy machinery work at the airlines at my night job.
Click to expand...

I thought the -35 came out in late 72 or early 73. That year (my Junior year) was the first time I was aware of its existence. I do recall something about inverse functions not bringing you back to the original value.

In my BSEE curriculum I don't recall cracking cement and greasy machinery. Statics/Dynamics from the CE (Close Enough) department, Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer from the ME department. And enough math that one more math class and I would have had a minor in math. I do recall that there was a EE class that the MEs and CEs had to take, and it was taught as "revenge" for the classes we had to take in their departments. :)

jsstevens said:
My sister graduated from high school in 1972. She headed off to CalTech with a brand new Post slide rule (bamboo slides!). I was 5 years behind her but I learned how to use a slide rule and did use it in high school classes. After her freshman year she bought a TI SR50. (They were less than half of the HP price. Pretty much equally functional, but certainly not made as well.) In 1976 I worked and saved for the summer to buy an SR-51A ($150). I couldn't swing the model with the mag card reader/writer built in. I was more into the programming (I wrote a Nim game on it. Pretty tough with only 50 instructions.) than the engineering. And that's worked out pretty well for me. I do still have an HP-16C that I bought on my first SW Engineering job. I get it out occasionally just to play with. It still works fine. But for work, it's all in the computer in a variety of VMs.

John
Click to expand...

I still use my HP-41CV for figuring loan payments and general calculating. Still have some programs I wrote for it when it was new (early 1980s) for EMC purposes, too. I preferred the HP calculators over the TI calculators for programming as RPN results in much more compact programs than the algebraic language used by TI. Personal preference.
 
Ghery said:
I thought the -35 came out in late 72 or early 73. That year (my Junior year) was the first time I was aware of its existence. I do recall something about inverse functions not bringing you back to the original value.
Click to expand...

By '73 I had finished my work in the space program, moved on through two more positions (learning more every time I moved) and founded RST. The buttons on that calculator were nearly worn to invisible. However, you may be right. HP had something that they later CALLED the '35 that was only labeled HP on the face, but the form and functionality were the same. I only called it the '35 because it was nearly identical with what later became the '35.
 
Ghery said:
I thought the -35 came out in late 72 or early 73. That year (my Junior year) was the first time I was aware of its existence. I do recall something about inverse functions not bringing you back to the original value.

In my BSEE curriculum I don't recall cracking cement and greasy machinery. Statics/Dynamics from the CE (Close Enough) department, Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer from the ME department. And enough math that one more math class and I would have had a minor in math. I do recall that there was a EE class that the MEs and CEs had to take, and it was taught as "revenge" for the classes we had to take in their departments. :)



I still use my HP-41CV for figuring loan payments and general calculating. Still have some programs I wrote for it when it was new (early 1980s) for EMC purposes, too. I preferred the HP calculators over the TI calculators for programming as RPN results in much more compact programs than the algebraic language used by TI. Personal preference.
Click to expand...

RPN definitely writes a more compact program. But HPs were 2-3 times the price of the TI and I couldn't afford it. Later National Semiconductor came out with an inexpensive line of RPN scientific calculators. In fact, I was presented one by the instructor in an electronics technology class I was in. Somebody had donated it and he couldn't figure out if it worked. He'd never seen a RPN calculator. I showed him how it worked and that it did, indeed work and somehow became the class calculator repair person. (No good deed goes unpunished.)
 
jsstevens said:
RPN definitely writes a more compact program. But HPs were 2-3 times the price of the TI and I couldn't afford it. Later National Semiconductor came out with an inexpensive line of RPN scientific calculators. In fact, I was presented one by the instructor in an electronics technology class I was in. Somebody had donated it and he couldn't figure out if it worked. He'd never seen a RPN calculator. I showed him how it worked and that it did, indeed work and somehow became the class calculator repair person. (No good deed goes unpunished.)
Click to expand...

True about the price difference. But, by the time I bought my HP-41CV (and the HP-34C before it) I was past the point of being too concerned about the price. Now, I was concerned in college and that's why I bought the TI SR-10 rather than the HP-35 back then. :)
 
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