Posted on 08/11/2015 6:40:28 PM PDT by djf
OK I went to a couple garage sales last weekend. Didn't get off my duff on Saturday, so went on Sunday.
At one I saw a laptop - wasn't exactly sure what it was. It had a Windows XP sticker on it so I figured it must be at least marginal.
Asked the lady if the battery worked and she said "well it's old so it might only give you an hour or two..." Asked her if the machine actually works and she said "yeah, but it's old and slow..."
Anyways bought it and brought it home thinking I can part it out if worse comes to worse.
Surprise!
It's a Dell Inspiron 8500, with a Pentium 4 running at 2100 Mhz, has an 80GB hard drive, has USB 2.0, and just about everything else except a wireless which I have but haven't installed yet.
So all this and probably more for a grand total of: 5 bucks!
like I need more pc's... ;-)
A few weeks ago, someone posted a Toshiba L675 on Facebook for $80.
Said it wouldn’t boot.
I took a chance and bought it. When I got it, I looked it over and it was like new. No scratches or marks on it anywhere. Still had the labels on the bottom of the keyboard.
I tinkered around and found that the keyboard had been disconnected. Fixed that, but the HD was shot.
Pulled an old HD out of the drawer, put it in, and installed Linux Mint on it.
It purrs like a kitten. Wireless works, DVD/Blu Ray works, graphics work, card reader works. Monitor is nice and bright. Even the battery will hold an hour and a half charge. Its almost as good as the laptop I currently have.
Now, I have two laptops. Don’t know what I’m going to do with the spare, but it was too good to pass up.
Save the spare! You never know when your primary will die.
Just put it on the charger every two months or so to keep the battery ok.
I once bought a really nice 8X32 E. Leitz binocular fro $12. This was at a pawn shop in Savannah. They had no idea that it was same as Leica.
Despite that, most pawn shops are mostly overpriced junk but if you keep looking you will find some good buys. I also got a Mitutoyo digital caliper for $10. Almost new in it’s case.
Two things I will never buy. Used underwear and used computers.
I hate to say it, but you can kind of tell when the economy is going downhill.
Pawn shops, garage sales - you name it, stuff gets dirt cheap.
See if any of Hillary’s emails are on it. OTOH, never mind - just reading them might get you disappeared!
Did you found Hillary emails? May be it has a functioning 3.5” floppy drive. You lucky bastard, I can’t imagine what kind of programs you can now run. A great score indeed.
While getting brakes done I cruised a pawn shop. Saw a trunk scanner for $80. Went back a week later and it was gone.
But I saw some binocs for $49.95, green. Bought them. Swarovski SLC in 8x30. Only way I could have afforded binocs like these.
Not for sale.
And here is my quad core smartphone deciding to auto correct my spelling.
“I never had a Dell laptop, I’ve had a couple Dell desktops and was always impressed by how easily they come apart and go together.”
I can say that Dell laptops are very well made, easy (as laptops go) to disassemble and repair; parts are plentiful on eBay for anything more than a year or two old. Their service manuals are all on the Internet, and they are very well written. Any-module level repair, you can do if you have reasonable dexterity and small tools (and if you are over 40, a lighted magnifying visor, the best $20 I have spent in the last 10 years).
HP’s are just flat junky.
Apple stuff ranges from nightmarish to the seventh circle of Hell to deal with. My advice to the average skilled person is to buy two, because you will destroy one in the process of repairing it.
True story: The laptop I am typing this on I bought on eBay, about two or three years ago, a Dell D430, from a guy who won a government auction. On the laptop, which was password protected (I cracked it), was a sticker: “Property of the IRS”. The laptop came from the Cincinnati office.
The hard disk and the carrier for it were missing (as advertised in the auction) :(,
...which I replaced.
OK, if you say it’s good I say congrats, but I think hubby would appreciate your garage sale more than I do.
Hubby once bought a camera bag at a garage sale for $1.00, when we walked away he told me what a great deal it was, that those type bags go new for $75 and up.
But I still couldn’t get that excited about it!
I had one of those. Great laptop, but it finally died this year. Made it through multiple overseas deployments.
I think part of it is keeping the fan open and unobstructed.
I popped the fan out and believe me, there was almost no air going through it at all. Took about 15 minutes with a couple cotton swabs to get it cleared up!
I bought an eight year old Apple PowerBook 150 at a garage sale for $10 because the seller said it didn't work. Brought it home and found they were right. The HD was toast. Bought a used 40 MB SCSI HD, and a new battery to drop in it for $60, installed MacOS 7.5 and got it working. Total out of pocket $70. Several years later it was stolen in a burglary. i duly reported the above facts to my homeowners' insurance company with an estimated loss value of $50. After all, it was about 13 years old when it got stolen!
Three weeks later I got home from work to find a largish box in the entry way. I asked my wife what it was. She said it was from the insurance company. I opened it to find a box from Apple inside. My Insurance company had purchased a brand new, top-of-the-line $2500 Apple PowerBook G4 to replace my $10 garage sale junker. . .
I used that PowerBook G4 for five years, until one day I heard my car alarm going off. Someone had clouted my car. I had my PowerBook G4 in the trunk of my car and some @#*%$#@ had punched out my lock on the trunk and stolen a tool kit and my briefcase with my laptop in it. . . I called my auto insurance and they would cover the TOOL KIT, but not the laptop! They said try your homeowners. My homeowners' insurance agreed it was covered under my comprehensive theft insurance and after a $500 deductible, they paid for another top of the line Intel based Apple MacBook Pro. . . that junker Powerbook 100, with the inadvertent help of two crooks, was the best $10 I ever spent!
Fast forward four years, and my Macbook pro was languishing because I was using my iPad for everything during business travel. A fledgling business partner asked if she could borrow it for use in the house cleaning business she was getting off the ground, in which I was a silent minority partner (she'd been my housekeeper), after her PC died. Six months later, the business was gone, as was she. . . and my laptop, and all vestiges of my minor investment in her venture, not to be heard from again. Luckily it was a small investment. Alas, I could not make an insurance claim for a business loss. Too bad.
Or Bill’s porn................
Sometimes Lady Luck is with ya!
Other times, the cards won’t fall your way no matter what you do.
Hey, you got a lot of use out of your ten bucks! Good for you!
she said “yeah, but it’s old and slow..
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Describes me to a “T”.
Good shopping. I love a bargain.
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