this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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All I have is a 13 year old laptop, and I use it basically all day most days. It's plays music and movies etc with no issues. Cloud pc for gaming, which also works perfectly. It really doesn't like youtube, though, and it sounds like a jet engine every time system and app updates start to download. Can't afford to get anything better anyway. A friend gave it to me after it died on him and he got a new one, wasn't hard to fix. I cried when I got it because it improved my life a lot, just being able to do basic things.
Have a hug!
Thank you, I needed that!
My man, I am glad you have such a dependable machine and I hope that, in the future, it will be by choice and not need rhat you use old devices. Hold in there!
Have you tried blowing out the fan? After 13 years it might be all gunked up
Yeah, I try to keep it clean. I'm pretty sure the fan has been warped, so one of the blades drags against the housing a bit, and I don't have the tools to open it up that much to try to fix it. It only happens at high fan speeds, though, and that doesn't happen often enough to be truly annoying.
You really just need, like, a screwdriver set to get into most laptops. Maybe you can search online (e.g. on YouTube) for tutorials for your model. Then you can buy a replacement fan and also replace the thermal paste, because 13-year-old thermal paste surely isn’t doing you any favors in the performance department. Altogether it shouldn’t cost more than €50 (if you’re careful not to break any internals).
BTW, if you want to watch YouTube videos with less resources, you can also copy the video URL into VLC
Looks like your problem is Windows. Linux works much better on old hardware.
Yeah, I've been meaning to get rid of Windows for a while now. Haven't really used Linux since like 2010, so it feels like a lot to get into. Already saved some websites, articles, and lemmy posts with good info, though.
One reason I haven't done it yet is because I did manage to save up a bit of money (only like $300) after about a decade of never being able to feed myself at the end of each month. The plan was to get a steam deck, something I've deeply wished for ever since I heard about it, and keep the laptop only as a backup. But I got robbed... forgot my card at a grocery store self checkout, and someone took it and somehow managed to use it. Had just gotten money for that month, so no bills had been paid yet. Not only did I lose the saved money, but I had to take out a loan to pay my rent, etc. So any dream of a steam deck or anything else is dead, it will take years to pay off that loan.
Does Nvidia play better now with linux? I run a 14 yr old laptop (Asus k40in) but it's got Nvidia graphics, and it didn't work well last time I tried Linux on it. (several years ago now)
It's on 24/7, running win10 now and does ok, but I mainly use it for my yard cameras and light surfing when my main pc is busy doing other things.
Its a lot better than a couple years back afaik. But as the sysadmin always preaches: dont fix if not broken! If you‘re okay with maybe having to reinstall w10 then you could try. Lubuntu was my savior btw.
Ya it's not a huge concern as it runs rock solid for months at a time without even needing a reboot, but I would like to eventually toss windows in the virtual recyle bin at some point.
I have a few old hard drives kicking around, so I may swap one out one of these days and give it a shot just to try it and see how it goes.
Thats the most sane answer! I didnt even think of this. Give lubuntu a try. Its super light weights and lxqt even revived my presumed dead granddad laptop.
The current official Nvidia drivers seem to be pretty solid. AFAIK, they're not great at supporting older product generations, though. The open source drivers might work better, but that's definitely something you should find out before doing the installation.
I think that if you use the open source NVIDIA (Nouveau) drivers it works out of the box with no performance drawbacks in the context of old GPUs
Idk if invidious would be lighter that normal youtube, but maybe that would work?
can you say more about that pls?
I use GeForce Now. It fits my needs and the games I like to play. Why pay for my own gaming rig when I can rent it and let others cover the upgrading cost?
There are a few services that allow you to play with the actual game being rendered on remote computers, while your pc only shows the image and sends the input commands. I think the more popular ones are xcloud and geforce now. There are also a few smaller services that allow you to run anything you'd like, without limitations.
I use Shadow, you literally get a high-end PC you stream to any device in real time and can do whatever you want with. Other cloud gaming services only streams the games, so you can't use mods, emulators, etc. Currently playing Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora on max settings, and it's buttery smooth. I also use it for anything else that my laptop can't handle like image and video editing, 3d modelling and rendering.
Incredible that a laptop as old as me is still usable
There are multiple clients to browse and play Youtube without jet engine tho.
I hope you get to get a fancy new one soon and your old laptop friend keeps chugging along as before! 🙏