by "Nibby" (nibby68)
Published 05/09/2017 at 10:04
by "Nibby" (nibby68)
Published 05/09/2017 at 10:04
Tags: laptops
STARS: 1
Picked up these two machines... sold my 8470p for a 8570p and just swapped out the drives. Wanted 1080p screen but still a well built laptop with good keyboard, touchpad, and plenty of ports. Let’s start with the HP Compaq 8510w
This machine is from 2008, picked it up for less than $60 shipped as a complete system via eBay! Added in more RAM and awaiting an SSD for it. T8300 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM, 320GB 7200RPM HD, 15.4" 1920x1200 (!!!) screen, NVIDIA Quadro FX570M 256MB.
The bottom... going to rid of my retro boxes and just replace them with this.
Indicator lights
VGA, power
Kensington lock, ethernet, Firewire 400, HDMI, 2xUSB 2.0, SD card reader, PCMCIA slot, SmartCard reader.
Audio in/out jacks, 2xUSB 2.0, DVD/RW drive, modem jack
Decent keyboard and touchpad... fingerprint reader is a nice bonus.
You can still use XP very well in 2017 provided you do an unofficial hack to get updates and stay protected. Honestly, if you surf smartly you’ll be fine. Also Vista+newer don’t support the Yamaha softsynth I use for MIDI.
speccy
Here’s the 8570p, a bit scratched and banged up but for under $300 total you can’t go wrong... especially considering the hardware. i7 3740QM quad core, 8GB RAM, 256GB Samsung 850 Evo SSD + 320GB 7200RPM HD in 2nd bay (replaced DVD drive with SATA caddy), 15.6" 1920x1080, AMD RADEON HD7570M 1GB
The metal plate slides off by unlatching those two latches and it reveals...
Pretty much anything you’d need to replace. Simple, easy maintenance. Redid the thermal paste for the GPU + CPU on both machines.
I have a docking station from my last 8470p so it works fine with this one.
Unusual selection of ports... modem jack, serial port ??? in a 2013 laptop? displayport
2x USB 2.0, Firewire 400, eSATA/USB 2.0 combo, VGA, expresscard, SD card reader, smartcard reader
Audio in/out jacks, 2x USB 3.0, 2nd bay HD caddy with 320GB 7200RPM HD in it, ethernet, Kensington lock
Decent keyboard but the arrow buttons are too small. Touchpad is glass and glorious
Matte FHD with webcam + reading light
speccy
The EliteBook is going to be my laptop for editing on the go and Unity stuff... the other one is a high quality netbook of sorts minus the portability but also serves as a retrobox. Wrote this on the 8510w and it’s great. Thanks for reading!
"facw" (facw)
05/09/2017 at 10:15, STARS: 0
I don’t think I could stand using a laptop as big as those. Haven’t dealt with a non-ultraportable that I liked since the early 2000s (and there I was just carrying it around the office.) Still sounds like bargains on those machines, I’d definitely want to update from XP though. Are you using the XP POSReady trick to get updates?
"TheTurbochargedSquirrel" (thatsquirrel)
05/09/2017 at 10:17, STARS: 0
My dad has the slightly newer (it has a 4th or 5th gen core processor) 13 or 14 inch version of the all silver one from his work. He finds is ridiculous that his work can load down a ssd equipped laptop with good specs with software to the point my old 2310m junker with a 5200rpm hdd is faster and more usable.
"Nibby" (nibby68)
05/09/2017 at 10:18, STARS: 0
Exactly what I’m using, that POS trick is amazing. I know I can run 7 or 10 on it but I already have 7 on my EliteBook and 10 on ym desktop, plus they don’t really work well with some of my retro games and Yamaha MIDI driver, and a few other small things.
"Nibby" (nibby68)
05/09/2017 at 10:18, STARS: 0
That machine probably has full disk encryption
"facw" (facw)
05/09/2017 at 10:23, STARS: 0
True, I’m just not sure how much I trust MS to actually keep updating there (and of course the things that get prioritized for a POS system are probably different than for a consumer machine). And of course there’s getting to be lots of software that won’t run on XP. Still, obviously you have your use cases, which are no doubt different than mine.
"TheTurbochargedSquirrel" (thatsquirrel)
05/09/2017 at 10:26, STARS: 0
Yup, along with the worlds slowest VPN software that requires him to connect into the work network before anything can be done and a bunch of other security stuff. Needless to say he just uses his older (2010) Macbook Pro he got from work before they started giving out the HPs.
"BvdV - The Dutch Engineer" (dutchengineer)
05/09/2017 at 10:33, STARS: 1
Nice Elitebook! Both of them are actually quite common on my university, as well as the 8570w I’ve got, which is pretty similar to your 8570p, however adds a finger print scanner and a slightly different screen latch, and it’s a darker gray. I really like how solid and easy to fix they are.
"Sweet Trav" (thespunbearing)
05/09/2017 at 10:57, STARS: 0
I have an 8470P its a great laptop.
"R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet" (r-saldana)
05/09/2017 at 11:14, STARS: 0
Good as any reason to post a speccy snapshot of my DD since I haven’t in a awhile and I upgraded something yesterday.
Also, footage from the install of new components and appropriate disposal of “literally unusable” parts.
"Nibby" (nibby68)
05/09/2017 at 11:31, STARS: 0
Wow Dem SSDs high end
"Nibby" (nibby68)
05/09/2017 at 11:31, STARS: 0
Agreed they’re solid
"Nibby" (nibby68)
05/09/2017 at 11:33, STARS: 0
Thanks! The w is actually thicker and heavier but they’re tanks. They have better GPU options
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
05/09/2017 at 12:32, STARS: 0
I have a Dell Latitude E6510 from 2010 that I’ve been meaning to unload. I keep thinking I should get you to buy it because that would be easier than putting it on eBay.
Specs:
Core i7-720M Quad 1.60GHz
8 GB DDR3-1333 SDRAM
512MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 3100M
500 GB 7200 RPM HD
15.6" 1920x1080 matte
8X DVD+/-RW
Windows 7 Pro 64
Very nice backlit keyboard (no number pad)
The battery life kinda sucks, and it’s running an aftermarket replacement battery. And by “running” I mean “sitting in my garage since summer 2014 when I got a Macbook Pro.”
"BvdV - The Dutch Engineer" (dutchengineer)
05/09/2017 at 12:48, STARS: 1
It’s a tank indeed, probably the least elegant laptop available in 2013, but I love it for what it is. Sadly I’m not really blessed with a much better GPU, it has the AMD RADEON HD7770M 1GB. Not that I’m complaining for what I paid for it. I only paid €750,- for it almost 4 years ago, including a heavily padded backpack and 5 years of full software/hardware support, which was a special deal at my university under the condition that I would complete my bachelors degree.
"Nibby" (nibby68)
05/09/2017 at 13:05, STARS: 1
That’s a sick deal! Good you get a lot of use out of it
"Nibby" (nibby68)
05/09/2017 at 13:06, STARS: 0
You can get $200 easily on eBay for it
"R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet" (r-saldana)
05/09/2017 at 13:17, STARS: 0
love that my 1080TI is showing 3800mb of mem k lol
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
05/09/2017 at 14:05, STARS: 0
Yeah I just need to get around to actually posting it on ebay.
"The Powershift in Steve's '12 Ford Focus killed it's TCM (under warranty!)" (steve-still-hasnt-wrecked-the-powershift-in-his-12-ford-focus)
05/09/2017 at 14:41, STARS: 1
Dat 8510W. That was my college laptop (the advantage of going to a dedicated engineering school is they issue you a brand new mobile workstation) and I adored it. Super easy to work on, tough, fairly rigid chassis for holding with one hand, and good performance for the era. My biggest complaint with them was the limited airflow from the single fan, though the captive screws in the bottom panel and fan made popping it out to clean a 5 minute affair.
I played *a lot* of Battlefield 2 and Rome: Total War on that thing. Last I heard mine was still running - I gave it to my friend’s mother after the hinge ripped out of the frame. About 6 months earlier I dropped it, bending the frame near the hinge. Repeatedly opening and closing it even lead to a fatigue crack in the aluminum frame. My wife never dropped hers, and it ticks along just fine despite being 10+ years old, though Windows 7 has slowed it down. Its unofficially mine since she has a newer laptop to use, which makes me immensely happy.
"Nibby" (nibby68)
05/09/2017 at 14:58, STARS: 1
Bump up the ram to 4GB and toss in an SSD... Surely it’ll fly. A good secondary browsing machine
"The Powershift in Steve's '12 Ford Focus killed it's TCM (under warranty!)" (steve-still-hasnt-wrecked-the-powershift-in-his-12-ford-focus)
05/09/2017 at 16:57, STARS: 1
When we first started dating, an extra 2GB of RAM was one of the first gifts I bought her (along with a new OEM battery). The perks of dating a nerd? If anything happens to the current hard drive, an SSD will go in it. I like that laptop way too much to let it die.
"audicatt" (audicatt)
05/09/2017 at 20:48, STARS: 0
I almost bought an EliteBook, they’re very nice laptops. The only thing that stopped me was my friend selling me his mint 2012 MacBook Pro for $220.
"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
05/13/2017 at 09:42, STARS: 0
Pretty much my idea of a laptop, except I generally stick with Dell. I have a gi-normous Dell Precision with some kind of dual-core proc and a 1600x1200 screen that I like very much. I think of it as a portable desktop, rather than as a laptop, per se . SSD and maxed out at 4 GB RAM, it works just fine, though I needed to disable hardware acceleration in Photoshop because the display would get sketchy sometimes. And running Windows 7, the Nvidia driver is a minor hack. But it works great!
I have a nice Latitude Core-i7, but I do not like the aspect ratio of 1080p (or 720p) for a computer display. My home desktop is 16:10 and a Dell monitor recommended by an Oppo.
"Nibby" (nibby68)
05/13/2017 at 09:57, STARS: 1
Yeah I wish they’d fucking go back to 16:10 and 4:3 cause those are infinitely more useful than these stupid 16:9 designed for media consumption screens. They’re annoying for browsing and doing video editing, photo and audio work, game dev, etc. I have a Dell 2560x1440 and an older 1600x1200 Dell LCD as well