In other news my poor 6 year old laptop's keyboard is now so busted I have to plug my external keyboard in to type, and the trackpad is going too- that plus bad battery and cracked screen its had for 4 years mean I need to replace it soon but I've been trying to get as much life out of it as I can! - ThreadSky

gogglebeast.bsky.social • 191 days ago

In other news my poor 6 year old laptop's keyboard is now so busted I have to plug my external keyboard in to type, and the trackpad is going too- that plus bad battery and cracked screen its had for 4 years mean I need to replace it soon but I've been trying to get as much life out of it as I can!

Comments

ulutoh.bsky.social•190 days ago

Open the laptop.
Remove the screen and lid. Toss it.
Disconnect the trackpad from the motherboard
Put the lidless, display-less laptop under a keyboard stand
Put external keyboard on keyboard stand
Connect laptop to a monitor.

You now have a keyboard PC.

gogglebeast.bsky.social•191 days ago

(My desktop is um.. from 2011 and it's a miracle it still works, so my laptop is what I play games on and do almost everything else except for most art, so I can't just get the cheapest option, my laptop is essentially my main computer!)

gogglebeast.bsky.social•191 days ago

My keyboard has only Mostly worked for the past.. ages.. if I run enough programs to make my laptop Hot Enough (I have No idea why, maybe heat is making some connections connect better?) but that coupled with everything else mean I doubt the other working components are in great shape, either.

gogglebeast.bsky.social•191 days ago

I really wish I could repair it, I don't want Win11 and I like this laptop a lot, but so much is busted I think a replacement is the best option both costwise and longevity in the future- I just have no idea what to go with yet! This one's an ASUS i7 (8th gen I think?) so maybe something comparable?

vovilliacorp.bsky.social•191 days ago

There's always the Linux route

armaina.com•183 days ago

If your only complaint is the keyboard that's not an especially difficult repair. I'd look around to see if you can find the keyboard part on ebay, and then look to see if anyone has made a video on youtube (I've repaired my own that way). If not you can always check local repair shops.

armaina.com•183 days ago

But if other parts of the hardware are failing, you may want to grab the Windows 10 key from your computer, and then just... Install Win 10 on any new laptop you get using the key from the old one. OR you could check out local repair places for refurbished laptops with win 10

gogglebeast.bsky.social•183 days ago

I wish it was! It's also a cracked touchscreen, bad battery, screwy trackpad and runs intensely hot (and have gotten some concerning file corruption on very rare occasion, whoops)- I'm worried I might be out of my league repairing everything myself, especially if there's any heat damage ;;

platinumsnowfox.bsky.social•190 days ago

Honestly anything you buy will be better, as long as you take screen quality into consideration. The actual hardware of laptops has increased in performance so significantly since 8th gen intel that even value buys will leap it. If you need help finding something let me know, happy to assist

gogglebeast.bsky.social•183 days ago

I was honestly thinking about that!! I'd love to upgrade if I can (maybe spend about what this was at the time since surely it'll be way better? most games run on low/lowest graphics on this for me) but don't have the budget yet- but I may very well take you up on that and appreciate, thank you!!

wolfwings.us•183 days ago

Honestly on that age of laptop a whole replacement keyboard is like $40 and takes maybe 5 minutes to install generally, it was the 'golden age' of repairability usually!

But at the same time, yeah, you can get a modern art-tablet 2-on-1 laptop with ~30GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $350. XD

gogglebeast.bsky.social•183 days ago

I wish it was just the keyboard! Looking up replacement touchscreens, battery, and also worrying about heat damage to components (it runs Intensely hot) definitely may cost more than just replacing sadly. XD I definitely want to learn how to repair in general though!

That sounds like a good deal! 👀

wolfwings.us•182 days ago

Gotta watch for sales, but yeah I picked up an ASUS Vivobook S14 Flip for ~$300, got a 32GB stick of RAM for it for $50 more, killer value. Not sure what's on sale "today" so I'd need to rummage.

kvroii.bsky.social•190 days ago

Which model is it under System Model in the Windows 10 System Information panel?

I personally love the ASUS ROG Strix GL502VMK, but it's an Intel gen below yours, and 8th made huge improvements to speed; I'd love to know your model so I can check out the specs!!

gogglebeast.bsky.social•183 days ago

Mine's an ASUS Q535UD!! It's honestly been really solid all these years, and if it hadn't been damaged so much through use and heat problems I imagine it'd still be going strong- if it was just one or two things wrong I'd way rather fix it! Also OHH, I'll definitely have to check that one out!

lupusastartis.bsky.social•191 days ago

There's ways to nerf the most annoying bits of Windows 11.

gogglebeast.bsky.social•191 days ago

That's good to know, I'll have to look into it! (I'd still be using Win7 if I could, honestly, it's on my art desktop- I still can't figure out how to make the file search work nearly as well as it does on that, even in Win10, and I badly need it to search 13 years of files!)

lupusastartis.bsky.social•191 days ago

And I hear ya about 7. Every OS since then it seems Microsoft has been making change for the sake of it.

lupusastartis.bsky.social•191 days ago

How are your files stored? External hard drive? Network drive? Local disk on your computer?

Spouse uses this program for their file work. I've tried it a few times and it does a pretty decent job.
https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/everything-portable

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply