old laptops

[mohamed adeni]

Guss what I did two weeks ago. I been wondering how to get a old laptop so that I can rip apart and see inside. I never had one nor used. I learned hardway (I lied!! I am still learning) how to take care of desktop, managed to assemble four so far. To cut story short, recently there was a computer show (looks like junk yard sale)at Rosement Convention center in Chicago,for three days, $9 for admission fee, parking costing $11. I end up buying (don't laugh!!): (1)Toshiba Satellete 110CS-1.2GB HD,16RAM,WIN 98 with internal floppy drive and no cd-rom for $100.00. (2) Toshiba Sat 115CD -2 GB HD,16RAM,WIN 98 with floppy and no cd.for $100 (3)Toshiba Sat Pro 410 CDT-WIN 95,24 RAM,1GB HD, inter-changable floppy and cd-rom (got both) for $200.00 and finally (4)Panasonic CD-41 WIN 95, 8RAM, 2 GB HD,floppy drive and cd-rom under the keyboard for $150. Bought 1.2 GB HD spare one for $20. Mind you I am not going to touch/open 3 and 4 (for now) but I want to experiment with 1 & 2. All of them are working so far.

Now my question is: what are "dos and don't" I should follow before I mess them up. (well that is how we learn ) This how I keep my self busy.

[Budfred]

If you are just going to play and experiment and learn, the only don't I can think of is.... don't put any vital files on the hard drive.

The only do.... do have fun.

Budfred

[Steve]

Heh heh, another good man going down the road to geekdom.

[mohamed adeni]

Thanks for the encouragement, yes! these two are for learning purpose only, about having fun part, I don't know yet let me open the sys and then I will know. First I need more memory. Where can I get memory for such old sys if so what they are called? I mean for desktop, I know them as SIMMS, DIMMS, etc. You see with this you know about my knowledge on laptops. Where in the sys that would tell me how fast is the cpu? And how to get into BIOS in all 4 laptops? Sorry to pull you guys into this mess

[Budfred]

Notebook RAM is a little tricky in that it has to be more specific. You can probably look up the specs on each of the laptops online and find out what you need. Getting into BIOS Setup should be about the same as with desktops, you press Delete or F10 or Ctrl as the computer is booting; it usually says which on the opening screen.

If the RAM you need is not commonly available, I would check eBay or some of the online vendors who specialize in old stuff.

Budfred

[Steve]

Here are some links to get you going.

Toshiba Satellite 110cs

110 and 115

Happy playing...

[mohamed adeni]

Thanks for the responses. I did printed out the specs from the site steve recommended for future use. After reading your replies, I did took out EDO memory from the back, battery pack, and HDs from both the sys. It was easy. I did enter change HDs between them and it did work. The spare HD which was s/b 3.1GB per writing on the static bag which I paid $20 for it, end up to be 1.1 GB when I took it out, my mistake I should have checked when I paid, well it is a history now. Anyway, when I inserted on the sys, it install all other devices and rebooted and stopped at logo : on the logo I noticed: NEC corportation - Windows 95, and never went further, took it out used on another sys, same thing. How to get it work, past this logo I mean?