Laptop bargains?

[Wookie]

I think the battery on my laptop has finally had it so it needs replacing, reasonably urgently. Anyone know any bargains available, new or secondhand? Laptops or batteries, don't mind which.

 

[wmrcomputers]

Please note that I accept NO LIABILITY in any way whatsoever if anyone chooses to follow these instructions....

Remove battery from laptop. Hold in the palm of your hand with the most flat surface of the battery facing away from the palm.
Now, slam it (yes really) into a solid flat surface (a nice flat wall works well).
Now replace battery into laptop and leave plugged into mains supply for at least 16 hours (as you would with a new battery).

THIS CAN REALLY WORK. The negative ions in the battery over a prolonged time start to gather together, preventing the positive ions from receiving the full charge - causing what is known as "memory effect" with rechanrgeable batteries. The process above is said to separate the ions and allow normal use again - at least for a while.
I've done this with success in 75% of cases, and 25% failure rate.

If the battery is buggered anyway, what have you to lose

 

[tek-monkey]

You got house insurance?

 

[Wookie]

* Sound of Wookie's BOFH alarm going off *
I'll try it when I get a moment. Does it have to be against a wall? I have visions of chunks of plaster falling off... Will the carpeted floor do?
Got any cheap secondhand laptops available if it buggers up?

 

[tek-monkey]

What sort of spec do you need? Whats it used for?

 

[wmrcomputers]

I havent got anything going sorry.

As for "incase it buggers up", remember the laptop will continue to work fine with just mains! I'm not suggesting you smack that up a wall lol
Carpet no good, it needs to be a sudden shock to the cells. It sounds crazy I know, but 75% of my customers thank me for the secret, and the other 25% don't lose anything in trying.

 

[Wookie]

What sort of spec do you need? Whats it used for?

General web surfing and emailing, a bit of light gaming and shifting files around the network and on/off USB sticks and discs; nothing very strenuous. The current laptop is a 2.4Ghz / 256Mb / 40Gb / CDRW without wifi and is beginning to struggle a bit, so I'd be looking for anything that could beat that. Maybe I'll go and have a look round the tip later.

 

[shoes]

These are superb, we have a fleet of them at work for the engineers, very very good for the money.

 

[Wookie]

Funnily enough, I was just about to post that this would be the sort of thing I'm after...

BTW, what's the deal with Windows7 and memory? AIUI, XP can't see more than 3Gb, so given that I intend to install some flavour of XP with a view to (possibly) upgrading to W7 at some point in the future, can W7 see more than 3Gb of RAM? Seems a bit pointless to pay for a gig that the OS can't see...

 

[shoes]

No its nothing to do with the OS, if you run a machine in 32 bit you cannot see more than 3328 MB of RAM.

If you're running it as a 64 bit system then you're laughing.

Re the xplora - for the sake of £30 you get a dual core T6400 instead of a netbook processor.... no brainer really.

 

[Wookie]

No its nothing to do with the OS, if you run a machine in 32 bit you cannot see more than 3328 MB of RAM.

If you're running it as a 64 bit system then you're laughing.

Sound. Given that the Axses only seems to come with 2Gb, it isn't a dealbreaker in this case, but when I eventually (Ha! 2 years and counting! ) get round to upgrading my aging desktop (2.4Ghz, 512Mb, 80Gb, WD 500Gb external drive, GeForce 4800, Soundblaster 128, spec fans), I shall take it into consideration.

Re the xplora - for the sake of £30 you get a dual core T6400 instead of a netbook processor.... no brainer really.

Yeah, it steals it at the line with the processor and the larger harddrive, I think. Shame about the 2Gb RAM rather than 4, though. But considering that's nearly twice as much as the total of nearly almost every piece of computing kit I currently own, I don't think it necessarily matters.

 

[shoes]

Laptop memory isn't expensive these days anyway mate, you can get 2 x 2GB sticks for around £40, probably less if you shop around.

This for example.

 

[Wookie]

Axses only has 1 slot though? From the Axses spec sheet: Memory Slots 1x DDR2 SO-DIMM, Memory Capacity 2GB
So it seems to be stuck at 2 :S

 

[tek-monkey]

I believe that the RAM you see is entirely dependant on the hardware in your PC, there is no set limit below the actual 4Gb. The PC will always address hardware as memory, its just how they work. To get around any issues, they address backwards from the highest address available (32 binary places, or 4Gb). This was never an issue, when 32 bit operating systems were designed this sort of memory just didn't exist. Even so, most devices don't need much addressing, although they seem to be getting worse. The killer is things like graphics cards, your 512Mb card needs to take that for addressing from the available address space - now your expensive new RAM.

At least thats how I always understood it!

 

[Wookie]

Gah; getting a bit techy for me now I know that on my current laptop (got it in 2004 2ndhand, museum piece anyone?) the video RAM is borrowed from the system RAM, but I was under the impression that they'd miniaturised everything enough so that even laptop GFX had their own RAM chip?

Axses is £348.44 all in, no OS so I shall have to find a WindowsXP disc from somewhere. Still... tempting...

 

[shoes]

Gah; getting a bit techy for me now I know that on my current laptop (got it in 2004 2ndhand, museum piece anyone?) the video RAM is borrowed from the system RAM, but I was under the impression that they'd miniaturised everything enough so that even laptop GFX had their own RAM chip?

Axses is £348.44 all in, no OS so I shall have to find a WindowsXP disc from somewhere. Still... tempting...

Or windows 7 RC

 

[tek-monkey]

Gah; getting a bit techy for me now I know that on my current laptop (got it in 2004 2ndhand, museum piece anyone?) the video RAM is borrowed from the system RAM, but I was under the impression that they'd miniaturised everything enough so that even laptop GFX had their own RAM chip?

Axses is £348.44 all in, no OS so I shall have to find a WindowsXP disc from somewhere. Still... tempting...

PM me if required, sure I have a license or 2 round here somewhere.

 

[Wookie]

It's not the license that's a problem, I have an XPHome key on a sticker on the current laptop. It's the install CD... :S
@Shoes: Or that.

 

[tek-monkey]

Got CD images too.

 

[db]

It's not the license that's a problem, I have an XPHome key on a sticker on the current laptop. It's the install CD... :S
@Shoes: Or that.

if you intend to do any kind of networking, installing xp home on your machine is the last thing you want to do..