I picked this little beauty up on eBay the other week and I think I was the only bidder as not only does it need a jolly good clean, but it was also listed as faulty.
In this short video I will see exactly how 'faulty' it is and if there is anything I can do about fixing it...
My collection has grown somewhat since my last post on the matter so thought it about time I posted an update so here are a couple of photos for you:
It's a bit difficult to find an angle where all the badges can be clearly seen hence why I've had to take 2 photos from different angles. My favourite new pin badge is the PC Virus one with the Police Constable's helmet on top of it!
Way back in January 2020 I picked up 8 different laptops for £1.90 each (click here if you want to take a quick look at all 8 and the Shuttle Desktop I got). I've been so busy doing other things that I have only recently gotten around to having a proper look at them and have produced a 4 part series of YouTube videos of me inspecting and testing them...
The first one I took out of the storage box was pretty beaten up, the lid is covered in very deep scratched - clearly the car booter had no idea what the real value of these laptops is and had not been storing them properly or looked after them at all.
Without giving too much of the game away, in Part 4 I also do a speeded up tutorial on how to install Windows 98 Second Edition! PART 1:
I don't know what people are doing with the original power supplies for some of the laptops I keep buying but more often than not, I'm either getting the wrong power supply (they seem to think it's OK to use any ol' power supply even if it's the wrong Voltage) or I'm not getting any power supply at all.
To begin with I would scour the likes of eBay and Amazon looking for the correct power supply that would have originally come with the laptops and pay between £7 and £25 without even knowing if the laptop(s) worked or not!
Then, it suddenly dawned on me, there must have been some Universal Laptop Power Adaptors 'back in the day' - I wonder if I can find some on eBay...
Just in case you want to try and get hold of some yourselves, here is a list of the part numbers of the Universal/Replacement Laptop Power Adapters that I have:
2-Power
72W DC (Car) Adapter - CUC0001B
75W AC (Mains) Adapter - CUA0002B
90W AC (Mains) Adapter - CUA0001B
LOGIK
90W AC Dell Laptop Power Adapter - LPDELL12
90W AC Lenovo Laptop Power Adapter - LPLENO17
(Despite its name, the Logik Lenovo Adapter works with other makes too).
Targus
150W AC Power Notebook Adapter - APA08EU
Although these model numbers are no longer manufactured, every now and again 'New Old Stock' seems to turn up on eBay and that's what all these are/were, new but old stock and were never used until I got them - in fact at the time of writing this I have two more 2-Power NOS power adapters on their way to me in the post! It's amazing what you can find if you look hard enough.
Here's another one of the sub-£2 laptops I picked up earlier on in the year, namely an IBM ThinkPad 380Z.
As you can see the lid is dirty and there's a great big scratch on the screen completely and utterly ruining it :(
On top of that theres a crack in the corner of the screens bezel and there's something nasty and disgusting on a couple of the keys.
There are also some very strange markings and dents on parts of the laptop but I have no idea what they are.
After gathering up my laptop cleaning gear, I got down to giving this latop a thorough cleaning...
One thing I have learnt from doing this video is that going forward, even if I'm not making a YouTube video, I shall start recording anyway as for those of you who have seen the video will know that whilst air dusting the laptop a spring shot off across the screen that basically stopped the power button working! Luckily I spotted this whilst I was editing the video and found the spring under my screwdriver set and it's now safely in a small plastic bag and Sellotaped to the laptop!
As you will see from the photos below, it's a hell of a lot cleaner than when I started but the weird and wonderfull markings and dents are still there - looks like something acidic has touched the laptop but no idea what.
Because it has no Hard Disk Drive or HDD Caddy, it's covered in scratches and strange dents and has a few cracks in the case I have labelled this one up as Spares and Repairs - you can't win them all, beside for £1.90 it's well worth it for the parts in case I get another one of these that requires a floppy disk drive or CD-ROM drive :)
As it cost me under £2 at a Car Boot Sale earlier on in the year, it's not surprising this little beauty did not come with a power adapter, not to worry though as I just so happen to have a box of geniune adapters 'just in case'...
First things first, time to check the voltage on the power adapter I have to ensure it doesnt damage the laptop:
It's the correct voltage so we're good to go!
As you can see not only did the laptop power on, but it has a working hard disk drive in it with what appears to be a relatively fresh installation of Windows 95 on it!
Overall the laptop is in very good condition, although there is some damage to the bottom right-hand corner:
I was pleasantly surprised to see Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (just about) runs on this laptop even if the playing back of videos was a but jerky it was still playable.
On the IBM ThinkPad 380D laptop the CMOS batter for the BIOS is located under the RAM cover on the bottom of the laptop so (after first removing the power cable and the main system battery) you then need to remove the RAM cover found underneath the laptop:
As you can see from the above photo, the CMOS battery is hiding next to the system RAM, it's held in place by some double-sided tape so to remove it all you have to do is unplug the lead and then carefully pull the battery away from the laptop.
You now have 2 options; Option 1: Look on eBay for a replacement or Option 2: Make your own replacement...
If you chose option 2 then read on...
Now you have removed the CMOS battery, you now need to use a knife or other sharp object to carefully remove the plastic surround of the battery to reveal the terminals connected to the battery:
Using some pliers, very carefully remove the terminals from the battery so you are left with this:
For the next part you will need some heat-shrink tubing, some conductive tape and a replacement CMOS battery.
Using the conductive tape, secure the red lead to the positive side of the replacement battery and the black lead to the negative side of the battery.
Next you need to cut a small piece of heat-shrink tubing to size and place over the battery.
Using a heat gun (or a soldering iron held very closely) shrink the heat-shrink around the battery - the reason for doing this is to prevent the battery from short-circuiting to any of the metal parts of the laptop.
Now all you need to do is insert the replacement CMOS battery back in to the laptop:
This morning (after not going for a few weeks) I woke up early and had an urge to visit my local (all year round) Car Boot Sale and I'm so pleased I did as I came back with this lot:
After haggling I got each laptop for £1.80 and the shuttle for £10 - there's no power supplies with any of the laptops and no hard disk drive in the Shuttle.
Initial tests of the Shuttle (now that I've added a hard disk drive and installed Windows XP Pro on it) show that it seems to be in good working order, although there looked like several decades of dust inside it before I took it outside and air dusted it! I've already swapped out the optical drive as this one didnt like to boot an OS install disc from it - all I need now is to find a suitable floppy disk drive for it.
Now all I need to do is to dig out the 16V IBM ThinkPad power supplies I got the other month so I can start testing the laptops...
