A very high percentage of households will have a laptop or two; possibly a spare desktop. The majority of those computers will be used for emails, web browsing, possibly creating a document, saving photos taken on the user’s camera or phone, maybe making a spreadsheet – showing, perhaps, where and how many tools are in the shed – and not much more.
However, there are those who really use their computers, and our Men’s Shed here in Rolleston has laptops being used for 2D laser etching, 3D engraving, and 3D printing.
This article is intended for those who use their computers for tasks such as finding out where to buy left-handed screwdrivers or ½-inch by 5-inch BSW screws. These laptops will probably have Windows 7, 8, 8.1, or, if more up to date, 10. They can often take up to eight minutes to boot up. The owners may have been told their system is ‘end of life’. It isn’t; it is ‘end of support’ – but ‘life’ sounds much more dramatic.
Does the job
A laptop with a near-dud battery or limited life can be run on mains power. We are presuming it will remain in one place and not be transported around the world.
Old? One laptop we refurbished was a 2008 model. Yes, there are limits, with many people saying 2GB of memory is too little – just don’t tell that to the ASUS T200 laptop with 2GB of RAM on which much of this article was
