I got a Lenovo Yoga 300 a few weeks ago. My friend sent it to me in exchange for a broken 3D printer I gave him.
Despite the fact that the post office completely destroyed its plastics during shipping, I decided to make it work. Initially there were some problems with the battery and the drive. The drive looked OK when I got it, but the battery was .... tricky. It was caused by a broken connector. So I disassembled the connector from the motherboard, and carefully pinned all the wires from the battery directly to it.
After some tinkering it looked like it was working. So I moved on to installing the system. I decided to install Xubuntu. After a few tries I managed to get it to boot from USB and installed the system. After rebooting and unplugging the USB it said "no bootable devices detected". So another installation with different BIOS settings, another reboot and the same result...
It took me about three hours, but I finally found a solution to get it working.
But I was disappointed again. I wanted to use the notebook to take notes with a pen. I thought the touch screen was good enough, as ...
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I received some phones to expand my collection. I have already resurrected the Samsung Galaxy J1 (Android 4.4.4) and the Huawei Y6 SCL-L01 (Android 5.0). The Nokia 6230 is still waiting for charger to arrive, and then it will get some attention.
I loaded the J1 with a few games, such as Flow, Cut the Rope, Angry Birds, etc., tried them out, and charged it.
The Y6 is a little more interesting. I also installed a few apps, again using sideloading, as the lowest version of Android supported by Google Play is currently Android 8. I installed some more sophisticated games as it has a bit more power. Then I remembered my favourite game - Race of Champions, which I used to play many years ago. The game is no longer available on Play, and I don't sideload apps onto the phones I use for everyday use, so I put it on this phone and I really like it, even after all these years. I think I will spend many hours playing it on long winter evenings...
By the way - Finding the working copy of this game for sideloading is almost impossible, as you can download .apk files anywhere ...
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The replacement "W" key for my laptop has finally arrived and it is great.
I had very low expectations but it is indistinguishable from the original, I really like it and for about 6 Euros it is the best I could get.
The package included the keycap and spare "csiscors", which I did not need as this part was fine in the laptop. I just 'clicked' the new keyboard onto the keyboard and it works absolutely fine. If you need a spare keycap, feel free to contact me, I can give you the link for the seller on Aliexpress, I can really recommend him.
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My colleague gave me a small, almost unused LED projector. It can project from the HDMI port, USB or SD card.
I have just taken it home and have not tested it yet, but I am really looking forward to trying it out. I have never had one before, but it is really interesting for me. I am not expecting too much from it as it looks like it has been bought off the shelf, but I have just tried turning it on and it works.
I suspect the resolution will be low, but it would be good enough for some cartoons or some background entertainment at garden parties.
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I bought my first touchscreen laptop, the IdeaPad C340, many years ago. Then I found it useless and put it in a drawer.
In about a year ago, I found out that it is able to use an active pen, so I would use it to make notes. I ordered one, tried it out and it is just fantastic. I have been using it daily and I really used to do all my notes on notebook because I can then share them to any PC and Android phone.
Unfortunately one of the keycaps broke (the "W" one) and I really cannot have things messed up. So I was looking for a way to fix it, so I took the keycap off and found that one of the snaps was broken. I tried to glue it on or repair the snap, but it was impossible because it is really tiny and I cannot really understand how the rest of the keycaps are still holding their position.
The replacement keyboard cost more than the remaining value of the notebook, so that was out of the question. However, I have found a Chinese guy who should be able to make me ...
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Today I was thinking about React OS and how it is going. I remembered that about eight or ten years ago I tried this operating system in QUEMU and I really liked it and the idea behind it.
For those who do not know, React OS is a project started in 1996 that is trying to reimplement the entire Windows API from scratch to create an open source operating system that is able to run Windows applications and games natively.
The project is still "alive" but is still in alpha stage, and the public secret is that it will never get past that stage and would never get to beta stage at least.
The system is able to boot, is able to run the desktop and supports a lot of applications today. You can run almost anything, such as Blender, Age of Empires, Live for Speed... everything... but the system is unstable and not recommended for daily use, or for any use on real hardware, as it can corrupt the data on the HDD, so it is not recommended to run it even as a dual-boot.
And it is really sad, because I liked the project so much and hoped we would get a ...
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I have finished installing software and games to laprop from previous post, so I moved to another of the four pieces that have arrived.
This one is a Compaq Armada M700. It has a sticker with a Windows 98 licence, so I inserted my installer CD and set up the OS. Everything worked fine, the CD booted without a problem, but the cursor does not move (another faulty mouse). I tried both trackpoint and touchpad and nothing worked. I later discovered that the part that looks like a touchpad is just a piece of plastic that holds the buttons for the trackpoint.
The first thing I would do is try to get USB plug and play to detect and install USB disk drivers, so I would be able to try different drivers transferred via USB drive, as I have my PCMCIA card with CF reader packed somewhere in the basement after moving.
So I hope I would be able to make it work and not repeat the usuccessful attempt with the previous non-working touchpad. So..fingers crossed
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After the debacle with the previous laptop, I decided to tackle something that looked a bit easier, so I pulled out one of the four laptops that arrived a while ago. Specifically, the choice fell on the Compaq Evo N610c with 256 MB of DDR RAM (266 MHz) and an Intel Pentium 4 processor.
The laptop heats up like hell during any activity (thank you P4), so in the current cold weather the user is pleasantly warm.
Upon powering up it booted, presumably factory, windows XP Professional, still with the original COMPAQ wallpaper. Unfortunately, they were passworded, which could have been dealt with, but I have a habit of repainting collector's laptops anyway, to maintain the privacy of those who gave me these machines. Even the original label on the bottom of the laptop proclaimed Windows XP Pro, and provided a valid activation key. So the choice was clear.
So I prepared a bootable USB and started booting from it. The beginning was a bit difficult, because the BIOS is really exotic and didn't offer the option to enable boot from USB, but eventually I managed to activate the bootmenu display. This then admittedly only showed the option to ...
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I have received a Fujitsu Amilo PRO v2030. As I am waiting for a cable to connect notebook harddisks to USB to revive the notebooks from previous posts, I have tried to do something with this piece as it is capable of booting from USBs.
After many attempts, I managed to create a bootable USB with Windows XP setup. The installation went well, but the touchpad was dead. I was hoping that it was just a problem with the drivers, as it seems to detect "PS2 compatible mouse" in the BIOS during boot, but even after installing the drivers in fresh Windows XP, it does not seem to work.
The hardware manager in Windows Control Panel does not see it in the (un)detected devices, even when I have installed the drivers from the manufacturer's website. The previous owner told me that the touchpad worked after installing the drivers, but I am still unable to get it to work. I will see if I would be able to solve it, or it is completely gone...
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Some new hardware just arrived. Everything looks OK on first look
Some new hardware has just arrived. Everything looks fine at first glance. There are four notebooks, three PCMCIA LAN cards, one USB->LAN card, some floppies, a bag of RAM and some CDs with drivers for the notebooks.
I will look at each of the notebooks. I have tried booting them all. One of them has Windows XP password locked. I have not tried to hack the password as I am going to install the system that was originally on these laptops (based on the licence stickers on the bottom), one starts but Windows refuses to boot because of some "security issue". The other two boot, but one has no working touchpad/trackpoint. The second has Windows 98, which is locked by a password, but in Windows 98 you can easily log in to any account by pressing ESC or clicking Cancel on the login dialogue.
This one seems to have a problem with the hard drive, as it 'ticks' every X seconds, causing the system to lag for half a second. It may be necessary to replace the hard drive.
So I will check each of them and try to get ...
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