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Gossy's Vaio he got for 30 bucks.

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2.2K views 22 replies 13 participants last post by  46480  
#1 ·
Ok, let me go ahead and let this story loose; so many weird things.

First of all, the conversation between me and my cousin was thus... and only thus..::

Hey, man. How much would you sell me that old Pentium III Vaio of yours?
"Hm... how much you got?"
On me? I've got about 30 bucks. (I had 70)

Lets stop right here....
Weird ****:

1. THIS laptop, has Windows XP installed... on a Pentium III 400-odd mhz 192mb ram
2. THIS laptop has never... been reformatted. It's been the same piece of crap it always has been for ten years.
3. It doesn't have an X key
4. It has every part that came with it, including the external CD drive, Floppy drive, a wireless mini logitech mouse, and the AC adapter and the battery works.

...I've found something beautiful.

What I saw:

1. It's never been reformatted, the HDD is(in theory) in good condition. This is a good thing.
2. All of the parts are included
3. You can run any linux distro comfortably with an xfce desktop on a laptop of this caliber or even lower. (Debian anyone?)
4. I have an old linksys wireless card from a few years back I can use to get this thing mobile; he thinks it can't get online wirelessly because he's never tried and doesn't have the resources.

Well the conversation kept going::

"30 bucks... hmmm.. that's a carton of cigarettes"
It sure is, Michael, it sure is.
"Deal"


SCORE!
I'm running it right now posting with an Xfce Debian build, hobo-technology is so ace.
 
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#2 ·
Nice. I love how easy it is to rip off people who don't know their stuff =P
 
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#6 ·
That thing should have been five times that price. It's an antique, no less... and one that is of high value, as well. oO

Seriously, finding a Pentium III laptop, a Vaio, no less, in that kind of condition is almost like trying to find the right guy when he is standing with his quadruplet siblings! I've frequented Santa Clara for a while now and have not seen anything like that in any of the warehouses!
 
#8 ·
Ok important specs are right here::

Model :: PCG-Z505JE

Pentium III 500mhz
9GB HDD
192 SDRAM
i.LINK S400 interface


...8mb of video memory -_-;;

and for some odd reason, a Magnesium Alloy chassis. o_O

aside from some of the worse features; it's a trooper.

I'm running a WPC54G in it, after following a few tutorials I got wireless up and running. Everything is going great; you just can't push it that far even with xcfe. It runs great but sometimes it boggs down. It's well enough to be a good travel PC. The only problem I'm still having is getting the sound to work; in which case would be a minor setback but I'd really like to get it running. If it all comes down to it; I'll find an old copy of Windows 2000 and install it over Debian for compatability's sake.
 
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#10 ·
My Sony VAIO laptop was a Celeron 500Mhz :(

It could barely run Windows ME on it. It was a nice 10" model though, so carrying it around was quite pleasant. Battery was horrible though, didn't last long and it died within a year. Used it as my MP3 player in the house, hooked to my old sound system, when I got my Barton system :p
 
#11 ·
skoreanime said:
My Sony VAIO laptop was a Celeron 500Mhz :(

It could barely run Windows ME on it. It was a nice 10" model though, so carrying it around was quite pleasant. Battery was horrible though, didn't last long and it died within a year. Used it as my MP3 player in the house, hooked to my old sound system, when I got my Barton system :p
Click to expand...
Hm.. you do realize just how ****ty Windows ME is?
 
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#12 ·
I got a 400MHz Mac Powerbook for free. Worked for a day but it stopped working, seemingly because of a blown capacitor. Assuming it didn't take anything else with it I'm gonna try replacing the capacitor.

Mac OSX 10.4 worked great on it, too. I think if I can get it to work I'm gonna install Ubuntu on it. It seems the newest PPC version is 8.0.4 though. Oh well.
 
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#13 ·
BigIg said:
I got a 400MHz Mac Powerbook for free. Worked for a day but it stopped working, seemingly because of a blown capacitor. Assuming it didn't take anything else with it I'm gonna try replacing the capacitor.

Mac OSX 10.4 worked great on it, too. I think if I can get it to work I'm gonna install Ubuntu on it. It seems the newest PPC version is 8.0.4 though. Oh well.
Click to expand...
There is a PPC version of Fedora, which is just as good as Ubuntu is.
 
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#15 ·
Update::

Ok so I was about to throw the thing down and stomp it because of sound driver issues but eventually I found a post online where someone said that the OSS driver would do well with the card.

SPLENDID! It worked! The only downside to this driver is that I can't change my entire system's volume. I have to use the application's volume. It's always blaring if I don't lower the volume on whatever application I'm in. Oh, and I watched Fear and Loathing on it today. It's a decent .avi player as well :p
 
#18 ·
BigIg said:
I got a 400MHz Mac Powerbook for free. Worked for a day but it stopped working, seemingly because of a blown capacitor. Assuming it didn't take anything else with it I'm gonna try replacing the capacitor.

Mac OSX 10.4 worked great on it, too. I think if I can get it to work I'm gonna install Ubuntu on it. It seems the newest PPC version is 8.0.4 though. Oh well.
Click to expand...
LOL. I have a a 266 mhz G3. Still working fine :p
 
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