Dell Latitude CPi

[iamdigitalman]

a friend of mine needs a computer for school, and after going through my newer macs, I decided to see what $50 could buy me. I found a nice Dell Latitude CPi A series on ebay. You would not believe the amount of used laptops there with no power adapters, or have serious issues.

It is a decent machine for internet and office, and some music. It has a Pentium II, 128mb of RAM, a 6gb hard drive, and integrated 10mbps LAN. no wireless, but it has 2 PC card slots, and I have a Linksys 802.11b card that has been looking for a home for the last 2 years. It also has all the legacy ports, a serial, and parallel, along with a single USB 1.1 port, which can be used with the MP3 player she has.

It will be enough for windows XP and office XP, though I might install windows 2000 and office 2000.

So, for $46 shipped, I get a decent machine with only one broken key (the V, but my iBook has a broken delete key and I make out alright), and a thin red virtical line on the screen, which I think I can make go away. I also think the battery holds a charge, but that is not important.

Plus, once she is done with it, I can use it as an ideal carputer. I was going to get a fujitsu stylistic, but this just might do.

-digital

 

[Christopher]

You should get a laptop stand like the apple genius' do and mount it in your car!

 

[madmax_2069]

A PII might be pushing it for XP depending on the speed, if its at least 333mhz or above then it should run it to be usable.

 

[iamdigitalman]

I said it is a 366mhz PII, well within the recommended range for XP. Hell, some germans got XP running on an 8mhz pentium!!

But I checked on dell's site, the drivers only go up to windows 2000. I hope there is no strange hardware that can't be used with XP's drivers, or won't work with the 2000 ones. I assume they will work, NT kernel and all. If not, I can always install Windows 2000 on it. I rather like 2000 better than XP. Clean, efficient, fast, and in my experience, stable. So far, the best windows ever.

-digital

 

[Metalchic]

any drivers compadible with 2k work on XP, they might not be digitaly signed (wtich XP will throw a fit about) but tehy still work. the special visual features acn be turned off so that it looks alot like 2k it helps with the speed as well.

 

[Temetka]

OK, first off there was no 8MHz Pentium CPU. Ever.

Secondly I have run XP Pro on a Thinkpad 765 that had a P233MMX CPU which is just prior to the launch of the Dechutes core PII. That core ran at 66MHz. The Klamath core ran at 100MHz and was introduced with the PII350, which I owned and loved dearly.

Nice little lappie you got there. Should work just fine for a users needs. Some interweb sites might bog it down a tiny bit. Slapping some decent ram in it would help. I would highly suggest 512MB as a minimum. That being said I ran it just fine in 256MB. Keep in mind this was XP prior to the service packs. SP2 runs like a dog on every 256MB or less machine that I have run it on.

 

[iamdigitalman]

there is if you downgrade a P75. These guys over here:

http://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm

did it by adjusting the jumpers. It works, it just throttles the CPU at 100% all the time, even idling.

oh, the machine tops out at a sad 256mb. it has 2 slots (another thing I miss about on my iBook), and 2x128mb PC100 sicks.

and would you not know it, I came across a listing on craigslist for an older gateway solo 2500 and thinkpad 755CD for $1.

I have actually been looking in to getting a thinkpad for myself, a T2x series.

-digital

 

[coius]

OK, first off there was no 8MHz Pentium CPU. Ever.

They Severely under-clocked the CPU. they modified the board FSB and changed a lot of things. IIRC, they used a Pentium OverDrive to do it too.

They have a site for it

XP Pro on a 7Mhz 20MB PC

 

[iamdigitalman]

thank you coius, I should hire you on as my personal reiterator. I promise, I will feed you, but you will have to live in my closet

all joking aside...

-digital

 

[coius]

yeah... sorry. It took me long enough to write it, i didn't even know you wrote yours

 

[Temetka]

Yeah, well whatever

I know my PC history. This is like those guys who overclocked a 486 to around 200MHz using beer as 'refrigerant'.

Downclocking heavily is neat, but still, a complete waste of time. Useful only for playing older games that run like a chihuaha on a frappacino binge on modern hardware.

Well, atleast those guys had fun doing so.

 

[Patrickool93]

thinkpad 755CD for $1.

Lucky. > I got a thinkpad dock that works with a 755CD, among others, and have been looking for one cheap. If you ever decide to get rid of it PM me.

 

[coius]

I recently traded a 64MB SoDIMM for a Compaq Armada m300 Sub-NoteBook. Best trade I have EVER done. Oh, that and a bit of service on machine, but it was nothing major. Installed Antivirus and Anti-Spyware. That was it. Other than that, it was pretty much free it even came with a dock XD

 

[gobabushka]

i love my cpi, only problem is tht i think the motherboard is dead

 

[iamdigitalman]

I did have a armada 4220T, with 3 batteries (one handle, 2 multibay), and the machine could use all three at once!! one in a handle that went on the back, one that went in a bay with the floppy drive, and another one that went in a bay in the expansion base, which also had a CD-ROM, 2 extra speakers, and a joystick port, as well as a dock connector for the back, which I also had. It was a sweet setup, until the motherboard fried out. I ended up donating it to charity, they said they could fix it.

oh, and this was a compact 12" machine. very nice.

-digital

 

[68Kollector]

That is freakin' awesome! I had an old Armada with Harman/Kardon sound in the palmrest. Best.Stereo.Ever.

 

[TheDoctor]

That is freakin' awesome! I had an old Armada with Harman/Kardon sound in the palmrest. Best.Stereo.Ever.

I thought the sound in the PowerBook 3400 was pretty good. And I was very surprised by the sound quality of the 12" PowerBook G4.

 

[iamdigitalman]

yeah, this thing had 2 built in speakers, IIRC they were harmons. I also think there was a amp in the CD-ROm base or something, because whenever I had it plugged in, it sounded better. Only problem with that dock, or even with just two batteries, it was a heavy beast for a 12".

The only other thing that bit, and the reason I never got a mobo replacment, is it had a 96mb RAM ceiling. Ouch. It did have a whole 32mb on the motherboard, but could only take a 64mb stick in it's lone slot. What an arcane limit. They should have at least allowed 128mb. I think I never did try running windows 2k on there. I only had 64mb of RAM anyways.

-digital

 

[iamdigitalman]

Alright, it is in my hands. I got a USPS missed delivery notice back on the 18th. I was home, never heard the doorbell ring, think they just filled it out and stick it in the slot. I had to go to the post office to get it.

It works, the little 6gb is a IBM travelstar, and it sounds like it's on it's last legs. Makes a nice scraping noise. It has Windows XP installed on it, the seller said no OS was included. It is pre SP2, because the boot splash says professional (my XP Pro SP2 just says Windows XP on the boot splash).

I was also told there is an integrated LAN port, but there is none. I think they confused the power jack, because it looks more like an RJ-45 from a distance. It has 3 audio jacks, serial, parallel, PS/2, USB, IR, and a dock connector. Also has VGA out and 2 PC card slots.

I am installing Windows 2000 on my spare 40gb, will slap that in there. Anyone think I should put XP on it? I can't install XP with my old system I am using, a P1 200mhz (overclocked from 166mhz) dell, it refuses to boot the CD. If I do install XP, I will have to copy the CD over my network from my B&W. Will be a PITA, but it's doable. From a family standpoint, I think XP will be better, because at least 2 people will be using this.

Oh, reason I need another machine to install an OS is the lappy only has a floppy drive, but it looks to be able to hold 2 batteries in it, the battery fits in the floppy bay, and runs. Battery hold a good charge.

Lastly, the V key is broken off worse than I thought. The keycap is gone, and so is the rubber membrane thing, all that remains is the plastic actuator.

All in all, I like this machine. It's pretty stylish, not an ugly boxen like my old LTE. It's about the same size and weight as my iBook, just a little wider. For something with so much expansion, that ain't bad.

-digital