My hardware 5 years ago
At the time I owned a desktop computer and I bought a netbook (out on an impulse) and neither of them had good performance! The perk of the netbook was the size and the decent battery life -compared to my desktop of course -. But as I started to work on my graduation thesis (which was a video game by the way) I realized that non of these devices would do the trick, and that it was time to upgrade.
A word about my old netbook
My netbook was really good! I could fit it in my book bag easily, and typing on it was so much fun. Until now I still regret selling it -and might wind up buying another one eventually-. It was the device I used to write my first post on this blog and one of the highest read posts at the time was about the netbook, by the netbook!
Due to the recurring power issues my netbook battery was dead -Thanks GECOL-, and to me that was the last straw, and in a week I managed to sell both on Opensooq for pennies on the dollar! Then I took the rest of the money from dad and went shopping for a laptop.
Buying a new laptop
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| It looked this way once! |
And the modifications I made to it would make selling it a bit difficult to be honest!
If I’m to replace my laptop it has to be something with equal specifications or better, that’s a luxury in this economy (six months salary or something), so it’s better to keep it.
I stand corrected!
I’ve blogged before about the death of the laptop and that smartphones are taking over, in my case that’s far from the truth. And only when my laptop was broken that I learned how much I relied on it or how much I need a laptop in my life!
To me (at least) the laptop is far from dead! It’s okay to learn things in life.
Modifications I made to my laptop in order to keep it going
G570s are known for the hinge issue, it took me a while before figuring out how to fix it completely (I have serious trust issues with repair shops and my personal data), so it has a screw acting as the right hand hinge.
- Having this modification meant I needed to adjust the AC input a little to accommodate this change.
- And the keyboard support is broken so it’s glued to the base of the laptop.
- The power connector has a piece of plastic holding it in place.
- The touch pad had the same before giving up completely.#Update I fixed it, thanks Hani my good friend!
- Since the hinge repair the webcam didn’t work, and all my attempts went in vain, but after upgrading to kernel 4.14 it works again, it’s been years since I saw the small light on!
- The fan was broken as I cleaned it, so I got a replacement (full story in this post).
- The battery gave up a long time ago and I had to buy an after market battery with half life time (again thank you Hani!).
- I doubled the RAM from 4GB to 8GB and replaced the HDD with an SSD to boost the speed.
- And converting to Linux was the biggest upgrade in my opinion
Yea, my laptop is a zombie!!
Moving forward
I’m thinking of getting a light weight device with low end specs (netbook or chrome book) and dedicating it for writing, installing Linux on that device. While keep this laptop for work and install windows on it, since the college I’m working for are heavily investing in .NET applications, and VM is proving to be a hassle at times!
And dual booting Linux and Windows is as the same of having two laptops (a terrible idea in general).
Tips on keeping the laptop going
Like anything in life, the laptop needs proper cleaning and care to keep it running. Some of these tips are advanced and as I always say on this blog: Try on your own risk.
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Baby wipes for a stiff keyboard
wipe the keyboard with baby wipes to clean it, and it works like magic! It’s almost as getting a new keyboard.
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Dusting and cleaning
It may seem like common sense, but keeping the laptop clean helps keep it run longer (and improves your feeling towards it) so always remember to clean your laptop.
Pro tip: Distilled water works wonders, just remember to unplug your device and dry it properly before running it.
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Applying Thermal Grease
This is a bit of an advanced tip, it requires taking apart the laptop and reaching down the heat sink to apply new paste for the processor, it’s recommended to be done annually.
- Software wise I found that installing Linux on my laptop improved the overall performance and reduced the issues and virus infections, so if you can move to Linux!
I’m interested to see if this laptop with endure the test of time? Lenovo is known of making laptops with over 10 years of life time (with proper maintenance of course), will this laptop survive that long?
Final words
It’s good to keep your devices running and not to be tempted with the heavy consuming lifestyle companies enforce on customers. I can’t afford changing my laptop every two years (and won’t even if I could).
What do you think of this post? How long did you own your current laptop? Do you recommend any light weight device for writing?