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delta-orionis · 5 days ago

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tell me abt your fucked up laptop

Oh god where do I even begin.

It looks normal at first glance, but this thing has been through hell.

I've easily had this laptop for over a decade at this point. I can't remember when I got it- 2014 or 2015 I think. When I first got it it was pretty beefy for the time but it's definitely showing its age now. It's pretty heavy and sturdy- I've definitely dropped it once or twice.

This thing got me through all of college. It worked well for a while, but in 2018 the hard drive died. To this day I'm convinced that a Windows update is what bricked it. Thankfully I was able to get the hard drive replaced on very short notice because I was literally leaving for an internship the next week. It behaved for the duration of the internship.

At some point the screen started to malfunction- it behaved for the picture I took, but it likes to randomly flicker and even cut out entirely. It eventually got so bad that I stopped taking it places with me, and I just hooked it up to an external monitor and keyboard on my desk.

I eventually had to replace both the power cable and battery because it was neither charging nor holding charge. That worked well for a while, but eventually that battery died as well. It currently has no battery, and is directly hooked up to wall power. If I unplug it, it instantly dies.

At some point during all this, Windows forced an update to Windows 10, which absolutely throttled this poor thing's performance. I think it might have actually shipped with Windows 7 but it's been ten years and I honestly cannot even remember. Either way, it was already chugging on Windows 8, and 10 wasn't much better. I think updating this laptop to Windows 11 will actually kill it.

At this point it permanently lives on my desk as a glorified desktop computer. I don't even keep the lid open anymore. The few times I've tried to lift or move it while it's turned on, it will decide to randomly freeze or shut down, so I try not to touch it.

I'm absolutely terrified that the hard drive will randomly die again, so I also have this laptop permanently hooked up to an external hard drive that backs up the entire computer on a regular basis.

Oh, and among all of these other issues, a few weeks ago it randomly started making some very loud and concerning noises upon startup. They eventually die down though so I'm ignoring it.

TL;DR, my laptop is actively dying and is basically hooked up to permanent life support. I refuse to let it die, at least until I can afford a new computer.

I have a second low-spec laptop that was given to me a while ago for free because it basically didn't work- it was trying to run Windows 10 and literally took more than 45 minutes to boot up. That's not an exaggeration. When it did boot up, it ran so slowly that it was basically unusable. I couldn't even use it to check my email. So basically I was allowed to keep it if I could even get it to work in the first place, it was going to be thrown out otherwise.

I was able to revive it by wiping it and installing Linux (Lubuntu, a lightweight version of Ubuntu, to be specific) on it, and now it works perfectly fine. When I actually need a portable laptop for something I just use my Linux laptop instead.

When I finally get a proper PC I fully intend to wipe my Windows laptop and install Linux on it the exact same way, just to squeeze a few more years out of it if possible. I will not allow this thing to die on my watch.

(P.S. Before anyone asks, I use Stylus for my custom tumblr dashboard theme. I use the Old Tumblr Dashboard and Custom Background themes.)

#this is the thing I play rain world on!#and draw with. and blog from #my laptop's life is a living hell #asks #personal

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diadraws · 6 months ago

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