-=> Quoting Dan Ceppa to Jean Parrot <=-

 DC> Did you get it new or used?  
 
 JP> I got it on eBay at a very nice price. Got lucky. Now I am
 JP> again lurking on eBay for another Thinkpad, much better and at
 JP> around $400.00. DVD-ROM, WL, NIC, can not go wrong. There are 48
 JP> left. I am going to wait until all wanting one are finished.

 DC> It appears that used laptops need to be at a very good price 
 DC> as they don't last.  Used ones have the bad habit of being dropped 
 DC> far too many times for their own good!  

Being 10 yrs old, my HandBook 486 is showing its' age. 

It hasn't been dropped any, but the proprietary batteries aren't 
available anymore, so I cycle through the 10 that I have to try 
to make them last, and essentially run it on the 120v AC adapter 
which has to plug into the back of the battery. 

I think the display backlight circuit has a cold solder joint 
somewhere, as it keeps wanting to go into a bright mode that is a 
little brighter then the controls adjust for. 
Some people might like the contrast, but to me it is too much. 
There is also the chance that it will speed up the burn-out of the 
backlight. 

The backlight problem could also be because the display capacitors 
require a charged battery to keep them charged when there is no AC. 

The biggest problem with dropping a laptop is crashing the hard drive 
heads into the platters while they are spinning. 

Changing the HD isn't that hard, _IF_ you know where all the screws 
and snaps are that hold the bottom half of the laptop together. 

Mine has a program to run to cut the power to RAM, then pop the 
battery out (taking the battery out doesn't power down RAM). 
Take the screws out, snap the two halves apart (being careful with 
ribbon wire), unscrew HD, pry off connector (1/2" ribbon wire). 
Reverse procedure with new HD. 

It came with a 256MB -=> 540MB -=> 1.2GB -=> 2.2GB

Even though it is only a 2.5" Toshiba HD, it still occupies 1/3 of 
the interior of the HandBook486. 


 
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