Saved from the scrap heap

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Found this micro dell in the scrap bin... okay I found 3 but one was rough and the i7 one seems to have shorted out and destroyed the CPU, so I took its ram, gave myself a little project with this little i5-4590T.

$50 for a 120gb SSD and power supply, $40 for a keyboard+mouse and thermal paste, and $28 for a DVI to HDMI cable... okay so it's DisplayPort to DVI to HDMI, full send on the janky lol

I'll be installing Windows (eventually, maybe) for my wife to use, but at this current moment it's running Lubuntu Linux because I couldn't find a flash drive over 2Gb to install Mint.

There are a few minor problems however... it does this weird power cycle thing a few times before it boots, and the WiFi only works for ~1 minute after boot up. But hey... $110 invested, I'll likely buy a USB WiFi dongle, worst case I have a spare laptop charger with a million tips, SSD, and a nice wireless keyboard and mouse.

Seemed wrong to buy a whole new computer when I could save one from the shredder... plus I showed my boys how it worked, they loved it!
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If that's all you can afford, it's fine for you and the boys. You are fortunate to have the knowledge to rework / rebuild them. 98% of us don't.
Both my desktop and laptop are entering their 8th season. My knowledge is limited to good maintenance - for keeping them surfing the world-wide web quickly. That's it. Beyond that - I know little. I would have difficulty taking the covers apart....lol
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PM me a pic of the wifi adapter inside, I probably have some extra, I can just put one in an envelope and mail you one.
 
Good job teaching your kids how things work and how to repair them. This will serve them well even if they pay people to repair things for them, as well as teach them not to be wasteful.
 
And it's normal for it to power up for a second and then cut off again after power has been removed and reapplied. If set in BIOS to power on after power failure it will appear to start twice.
 
Originally Posted by MrMoody
And it's normal for it to power up for a second and then cut off again after power has been removed and reapplied. If set in BIOS to power on after power failure it will appear to start twice.

Yup, pretty much all Dells do this.
 
Originally Posted by dogememe
Originally Posted by MrMoody
And it's normal for it to power up for a second and then cut off again after power has been removed and reapplied. If set in BIOS to power on after power failure it will appear to start twice.

Yup, pretty much all Dells do this.


This is true.
 
Good for you, OP, to take the initiative. Not for everyone, but if you can get new to you gear working, for minimimal cost, and instill the value in fixing stuff to your kids, I think its great!
 
Thanks guys! I live tinkering and fixing things, even if I'm not always successful
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Originally Posted by Nick1994
PM me a pic of the wifi adapter inside, I probably have some extra, I can just put one in an envelope and mail you one.


I'm going to try see if the one in my old laptop will work, if it doesn't I'll send that PM. Thank you so much!

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
For the power cycling issue, make sure you have the latest BIOS installed.


I will check for a new one later this night
 
Originally Posted by joekingcorvette
I cannot even put a battery in my I-phone.

Very, very few people can (or will try).
 
Were the original HDDs pulled from them (for security/privacy) or did you just decide to "upgrade" ?
 
Originally Posted by hallstevenson
Were the original HDDs pulled from them (for security/privacy) or did you just decide to "upgrade" ?


They were pulled and destroyed, paid less than $25 for the SSD.
 
That thing looks a lot like a Lenovo ThinkCentre M92P Tiny I have on my hands. I need a wifi card for it. I threw in a Samsung 500GB SSD into it. If I can find a Intel Xeon E3-1265LV2 CPU for it to upgrade the stock Core i5-3470T that it has. I grabbed it from work along with a ThinkPad P40 Yoga.

I want to use it for a Ubuntu-based VM to play around with Kubernetes/minikube on it...
 
I got a similar system from work for $25. We had 6 of them back from 3 year lease and they are sold to employees dirt cheap since we've already made our money back on them and then some.
i5 4570t 8GB RAM 120GB SSD.

I'm running Batocera Linux on it and it's a retro gaming station right now using PS4 controllers.

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