Beloved 600E, where to from here?

[Chris Thorne]

I've got an owned-since-new 600E here which has been the best single laptop that I have ever owned. It's on its fourth hard drive, but even those have died in a relatively ceremonious and slow and well communicated manner, letting me migrate cleanly and save virtually all disk contents.

I think I'm going to have to look for a long time to find something equally well put together. However, this machine is getting long in the tooth in various ways. Main batt is long since conked. The Ultraslimbay batt is down to circa 20min runtime. After fraying or tearing six successive power adapter cords in between the inline filter and the barrel plug (one weak spot of this design) I finally repaired the last cord with giant wads of solder and tape, and that's holding okay, but looks awful. The keyboard bezel is multiply cracked. Several port covers are gone.

More to the point, one of the SODIMM slots has now gone eccentric. It'll BSOD the machine if any memory is placed in it whatsoever. I have cleaned and vacuumed the socket, looked for metallic debris or broken traces, all to naught. I have a 256MB unit in the one working socket, which is barely enough for Win2K or Ubuntu.

So I have two options here.

Option (a) is to upgrade the existing machine. Which I would think of as new battery(ies), new power adapter (I'll reinforce that bloody cord straight off this time), replacement mainboard with known good memory sockets, BIOS update to allow a Speedstep, buy and install a Speedstep from ebay, probably put in a new keyboard (this is the original, still working but you never know). New keyboard bezel. A second 256MB SODIMM. Just about the only thing I wouldn't need to replace would be the HD. It's got a relatively new 40GB Travelstar in it.

All told, I would guess that with (batteries+adapter+new mainboard+new CPU+new keyboard+new bezel+more memory), I'd be looking at circa $200 or $250. Is it worth it?

Option (b) is simply to buy a newer-generation Thinkpad. But I have absolutely no idea what would equate to this machine in terms of solidity, screen size, keyboard, et al. And if anyone has similarly been compelled to make that upgrade leap, I'd be pleased to hear their words of praise or of warning. What would you buy?

[tfflivemb2]

If you don't feel like tinkering with the upgrading of your system, there are people that would be willing to buy your 600E as is. Then you could use that money and the money that you might have used to upgrade the 600E and buy a nice T23 (with 1.0-1.2GHz processor).

You can't go that high with a 600E, or even a 600X.

[tonepaq]

If you don't feel like tinkering with the upgrading of your system, there are people that would be willing to buy your 600E as is. Then you could use that money and the money that you might have used to upgrade the 600E and buy a nice T23 (with 1.0-1.2GHz processor).

I will be the first to say I would be interested in buying your 600e and put it to very good use at my house.I now have several donor tp's that could revive yours and make it a nice machine

[DNA_DAN]

I can tell you right now almost anything new you buy is in no way going to compare to the durability of your TP. Sony, Campaq yada yada, they all feel like a piece of toast that is one slip from cracking in your hands.

On the other hand, your TP needs lots of work from the sound of it. I think what it boils down to is your philosophy of consumer products. Do you view them as being disposable (replace every so many years) or somewhat permanent (you continue to buy upgrades to get the most longevity). In tech circles and most other similar industries, the former seems to be the modus operandi, and sadly but true, our world is becoming a disposable reality.

Has anyone tried those new Toughbooks? I think Toshiba makes them?

Certainly if you bought a new piece of toast, it will have more features and you will definitely get more for your money. But that also depends on what you are going to use the laptop for. Playing solitaire? or simulating nuclear explosions? If you examine your need, both short and long term, it should provide a realistic approach to what you should buy.

[JHEM]

Congratulations on your long lived 600E.

The sad news is that there is no laptop made today with the build quality and form factor to match the 600 series.

Given your situation, I'd seriously consider getting a T40 to replace your pride and joy. They're widely available on eBay for ~$500.

If you didn't want to spend that much on a replacement, you might consider a clean T21. You can find them selling on eBay for less than you're considering spending on upgrading your 600E.

Regards,

James

[GomJabbar]

Back from your sabbatical James? I see you shed your few feathers for a full coat. ' been kinda shy in it though.

[JHEM]

Back from your sabbatical James? I see you shed your few feathers for a full coat. ' been kinda shy in it though.

Testing the waters again now that I'm out on bail!

Gonna' have to update the sig I guess......

Family-friendly suggestions are welcome.

Non family-friendly suggestions will actually be read and considered.

Regards,

James

[GomJabbar]

Welcome back James.

Out on bail? I was wondering how you quit cold turkey. Maybe I ought to pull an Otis Campbell to get me out of this forum for a while. Much too addicting. I don't have a life anymore. All my old hobbies are falling by the wayside. You can see how many posts I've made. Won't be long and I will catch up with you.

[farna]

Chris, you might start looking over e-bay for a good used 600E or preferably 600X then use your existing one as a donor for parts. Sounds like all you really need is two working memory slots and you'd be okay. My approach would be to get a 600X with Speed-Step so it can be upgraded, then swap the 40GB hard drive an memory from the existing 600E to it. Put the smaller HD from the "new" one and sell it to recoup some money.

With only one good memory slot and a small HD it's not going to bring much though. Might be a good backup machine though. Run a leaner version of Linux with just the essentials to keep it peppy, don't load it down with all applications -- just lean software that will get you by until you get a more robust machine.

All I keep on my 600E is Windows XP. It boots slow, but runs faster than 98 even with only 256K ram -- and I get rid of all the unneeded components possible -- stripped down XP! I can get by with Wordpad and IE. Then I install PageMaker (I print a newsletter and need it -- runs a bit slow but works), a simple graphics editing program, and a spreadsheet program that will read most Excell files. That's all I absolutely have to have to "keep in touch" and get my work done. What I can't do is have PM, graphics, and IE open all at the same time. THAT will bog it down. A lean Linux will probably run faster.

I used to run command line style OSs and preferred them. Didn't give up my highly modified Tandy Color Computer 3 (ran OS-9 half the time, which is similar to Linux) until the internet got so graphic that a text terminal was really useless. The little Coco couldn't keep up with the graphics -- CGA equivalent and no way to upgrade it. I still kept it as my main e-mail machine, and used it in a secondary capacity for things like my newsletter database and keeping my checkbook (with a program I partially wrote!).

Now I'm spoiled with Windows!! The idea of running Linux and doing all the patching and modifying just doesn't sound like fun. Thatwas required with OS-9, but with such a tight user group there was a "standard" set of patches that was installed with minimal customizing unless there were some special things you wanted. With Linux there are so many "flavors" and no standard at all. That's what holds it back, though there are some efforts to standardize a bit. I'm looking at Kunbuntu now. I'm probably going to try it on my older desktop -- I just built a new one. Old one is an Athlon 1200 w/1GB and a 40GB hard drive. Should be enough. I intend to try it on my 600E if I like the desktop. I'd love to wean myself from Microsoft, just to prove to myself that it's practical!