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Thread: Looking for old laptops

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    Email problem vieome's Avatar
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    Looking for old laptops

    Where would be the best place to find old laptops ?

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    Diamond Member AndyD's Avatar
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    Universe direct sell second hand stuff. Why do you want old laptops?
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    Email problem vieome's Avatar
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    Hi thanks for the reply. I use them to build old arcade game consoles. Will check them out and see if I can get them from there. What I find strange is companies like cash crusaders or the many pawn shops price second computers so high when new models are coming out all the time, and the price keeps getting cheaper and cheaper/

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    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by vieome View Post
    Hi thanks for the reply. I use them to build old arcade game consoles. Will check them out and see if I can get them from there. What I find strange is companies like cash crusaders or the many pawn shops price second computers so high when new models are coming out all the time, and the price keeps getting cheaper and cheaper/
    Are laptops the way to go then I wonder? I would recommend old desktop computers as they are more robust cheaper to maintain and more powerful for gaming then laptops. Secondly if this is business orientated you can register at the suppliers and get new components cheaper then what you pay for a second hand "unreliable" notebooks.
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    Gold Member irneb's Avatar
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    And if it's arcade games - your graphics is probably not that high-maintenance

    If you still want the innards of a laptop (due to size constraints), but want it as cheap as possible, then look for pre-packaged mini ITX motherboards. That way you can get a new thing for under R2000. E.g. http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=53

    Most of those would come with HDMI out so you can link them to most newer TV screens. A lot of them would even have many more features like LAN/WiFi and such - i.e. Lan Gaming possibilities. These things are usually placed inside stuff like NAS boxes, Media Servers, mini-PC's, etc. A lot of them come pre-packaged with built-in CPU & GPU, in which case they sell for under R1000.
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    Email problem vieome's Avatar
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    The plan is to use really old computers like HP OmniBook xe2-dc which original came loaded with win 98. I have build a couple of old arcade game systems for my daughter and her friends using these old laptops. And the games are really old but the kids seem to enjoy them more then the latest games. At R2000 I am sure people would rather buy a games console.
    So I was wondering really where do the very old laptops go to die.

    Thanks for the help though, I will look into the ITX boards.

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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by vieome View Post
    So I was wondering really where do the very old laptops go to die.
    Got some dead ones in a pile in my office - already been heavily pillaged for anything useful though to keep the dying ones going for as long as possible.

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    I'm with irneb on this one. You just end up wasting so much time on technicalities, getting parts, running old software, incomparable hardware and unreliability only to mention a few. Wouldn't it be more effective to buy cheap Android tablets? There are thousands of applications available and if a machine fails it is extremely easy to replace.

    I don't know, you save a bit of money in the short term by using old machines but its going to bite you in the long run if you develop a large clientbase. If there is one thing I learned from the IT industry it is to keep your systems as consistent as possible over your entire clientbase. You don't want to have different versions of Windows, screen sizes, keyboard layouts etc.

    Anyway, think about it...

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    Email problem vieome's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by adrianh View Post
    I'm with irneb on this one. You just end up wasting so much time on technicalities, getting parts, running old software, incomparable hardware and unreliability only to mention a few. Wouldn't it be more effective to buy cheap Android tablets? There are thousands of applications available and if a machine fails it is extremely easy to replace.

    I don't know, you save a bit of money in the short term by using old machines but its going to bite you in the long run if you develop a large clientbase. If there is one thing I learned from the IT industry it is to keep your systems as consistent as possible over your entire clientbase. You don't want to have different versions of Windows, screen sizes, keyboard layouts etc.

    Anyway, think about it...
    I understand where you coming from on this, but old laptops are ideal for the purpose I am using them for. The arcade system is linux based. The OS size is less then 500MB and needs only 250MB RAM, and the Arcade OS can run totally in RAM.

    Dave do you have any old towers/monitors and how much will you be willling to sell them for please PM details

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    Junior Member cagenuts's Avatar
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    Where are you?

    I may have some here at my office.

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