Tweaked for your Pleasure

As you may have seen yesterday, I wrote up a blog article that compared the Ubisurfer 7 and the Dell Axim x30. Of course, these are not the only systems I have owned (although I never owned the Ubisurfer 7) over the years but sadly I have to say that the Dell Axim x30 is the only system that actually worked for me that is still active.

In the comments Adam Wright (Click here to see comment) said that I did not have any luck with technology of course he is wrong and below I am going to prove it by listing all the laptops (well, not all only the ones that have something “nice”I can say about it) I have/had and what happened to them. Some of the pictures below do notactually match the model I had, but they look just about the same so please do notmoan they do notmatch.

So is Adam right or not.

Toshiba Satellite C20

Back in it’s day, the Toshiba Satellites was one of the best model series of laptops that you could buy. While they may have not had such great hardware one thing about them was that they was nearly impossible to break. Really, you should could notbreak them. I still have mine that in perfect condition yet been thrown all about the place. Early models had no cd drives and while I did get a version that did, I have notlisted that model here.

Brief History of this laptop from personal experience

• This was a good laptop which worked well for it’s time.
• Had very little ram and very tiny HDD but then again, good back in it’s time
• Came with Windows 95
• Ran Doom but had to press ctrl and another key to switch weapons.
• Had to press ctrl to use the keys at the top row. This happened randomly.
• Battery power was very bad !!!
• First laptop I ever owned.
• “Died”after Windows 95 disappeared from it
• Just need to re-install Windows
• My model had NO CD-Drive regardless what the picture shows
• Actually one of my trusty laptop that I would still rely on !!!
• Status: Working (Installed OS: MS-DOS)
• Rating: 3/10 (Today) 7/10 (Back then)
• Price: Unknown

Toshiba Tecra 700CT

The Toshiba Tecra was notthe best of laptops but it was the original laptop used to program Ultima Wars on. These series of laptops was quite cheap but sadly being cheap meant it was notthat great.

Brief History of this laptop from personal experience

• Technically, the second laptop I owned.
• Was much better and ran very well.
• Could run Doom and other classic games.
• Personally, would still use it today.
• Died after the power connector came lose
• A friend was going to repair it but “disappeared”a few days later.
• Did finally get them back but location unknown (likely somewhere in this room).
• Status: Working (No HDD or Operating System)
• Rating: 8/10 (Today) 9/10 (Back then)
• Price: Given

Random Facts

• It was on this laptop that Ultima Wars was originally programmed on.
• Was the laptop that the original Snat.co.uk was created on.
• Was the laptop that Ellisfamily.TK was originally made on.

Dell Latitude C610

The latitude series is seen as one of the best models of laptops that money could buy then and even now. The Dell Latitude I had never originally came with internal wireless that I wrote below, but a network card was installed. This picture on the right is incorrect, but sadly I am to lazy to get a new picture.

Brief History of this laptop from personal experience

• My favourite laptop of all time.
• Worked very well and was the first with internal wireless that I owned.
• Had 1GB Ram installed and a 1GHz processor.
• Could run Doom and my other classic games.
• DVD Rewriter and a CD Drive (Swappable).
• Was the first laptop and still the only laptop that came with a bag !!!
• Like most of the others, this died by a power connector issue.
• Same as the laptop above, was repaired by a friend and location unknown (likely in this room).
• Most keys went missing. Had a replacement keyboard and most of those keys are now gone.
• Screen case started to fall apart.
• Mouse cursor would randomly fly into any corner of the screen and refuse to move at all and could notbe bargained with but hitting it worked.
• Status: Working (No HDD or Operating System).
• Rating: 9/10 (Today) 10/10 (Back then)
• Price: £160

Random Fact

• The laptop that Ultima Forums was created and updated on.

Advent (Unknown model)

I honestly do not know much about this one. I ca notremember the model as all I remember is this picture (exact model) and it was my first laptop that just never worked when I originally got it.

Brief History of this laptop from personal experience

• Was a very lovely looking laptop.
• The keys worked well, the mouse felt nice.
• The lid worked well and hooked correctly.
• Had a good hard drive installed.
• Good amount of ram for it’s age.
• DVD drive.
• Never ran Doom.
• Of course, I am delaying it never booted once when I owned it.
• Only known failure was the power connector on the motherboard.
• Was repaired though.
• Price: £5
• Status: Working (location unknown somewhere in this room)
• Rating: Ca notRate Never used

Compaq n610

This was a nice laptop but sadly the power connector was dodgy. However, it did come with Windows 2000 disk and I needed a new one.

Brief History of this laptop from personal experience

• Ran well for the amount of ram it had.
• Small HDD (however alot then).
• Had a CD drive that worked.
• Would refuse to run any Linux distro other then Ubuntu.
• Could run Doom.
• Could run Windows XP but Windows 2000 Professional was installed on it.
• Had no internal wifi but had a PCMIA port for external one.
• Power would refuse to work but did accept the HP Pavilion dv9000 power plug.
• Screen damage after an impact involving the screen, the wall and my hand.
• Hinges very loose came down on your hand randomly.
• Status: Working (Screen Damage)
• Rating: 7/10 (Now) 7/10 (Back then).

Toshiba Satellite 4600

This series of laptop was the first of the doomed models that I had. After seeing the one Richard has, I decided to get my own and lets be honest it was notthe best of choices.

This was the first laptop that started to give me problems and sadly, was notthe last.

Brief History of this laptop from personal experience

• Worked very well.
• Had a good amount of RAM, HDD and processor.
• Also had internal wifi.
• Had a DVD Drive built in.
• Had a few keys missing after a while of use.
• Could run Doom and my other old classic games I like.
• Was the first laptop to run Linux that I personally owned (Mandrake).
• First laptop to die by multiple failures in this order
  • Power Failure
  • Minor motherboard failure
  • Fan failure
  • USB failure
  • Hard driver failure
  • RAM failure
  • Internal Monitor connector
• Was able to be resurrected (booted) by a bang on the keyboard with the hand.
• Randomly corrupted the operating system.
• Kept crashing with USB.
• Crashed if you move the laptop.
• Screw driver had to be inserted into the ram slot to boot after the hand method stopped working.
• No chance in hell of re-installing operating systems regardless if it worked before.
• First laptop to be connected to an external monitor.
• Random booted if held to a certain degree angle (never did work out which angle).
• Could do morse code with the power light.
• Last thing that worked was the DVD Drive.
• Status: Murdered by me.
• Rating: 6/10 (Now) 10/10 (For pissing me off) 10/10 (Back then) and a few extra points for being a comedian.
• Legends goes that this was re-born into the HP Pavilion dv9000.

Random Facts

• It was on this laptop that Snat.co.uk was re-formed into Tweaked for your Pleasure.
• It was on this laptop that Ultima Wars Online was originally started to be programmed on.

And now at the last one in the list. Now, if you look at the Toshiba Satellite 4600 problems and look at the Compaq n610 problems, you will notice that it seems both of these fused together in the afterlife for one more chance to piss me off. I welcome to you the one and only HP Pavilion dv9000

HP Pavilion dv9000

The HP Pavilion dv9000 is a nice model but a flawed model. Regardless, I still like this laptop. This one below adds on from this page Netbook VS PDA so you might want to read that one first, them come back.

• Only good point is that it could run Doom and other games I liked when booted.
• Lovely duel core processors if both got picked up.
• Internal Wireless Card Never worked when there was an active wireless point and worked when you are in a “no wi-fi”zone.
• Graphic card problems MAJOR graphic problems which caused the next issue.
• Could talk to me via three beeps.
• Had a huge internal HDD and had space for another.
• Mouse would randomly go to one side of the screen. Rebooting used to fix this but …
• Would notboot unless it was happy and had four virgin sacrifices and even then, it refused.
• Could boot if wrapped around in a towel and after a way, would boot up. After a while, a duvet had to be used. After a while would just say no.
• The motherboard was able to cook the internal chips and refused to let you eat them.
• Power Connector had little chance in working unless holding it up at the must odd angle that stopped you using it.
• Screen & case started to melt really.
• Quick play keys stopped working randomly and would just mute the system when you did notwant it too and of course, un-mute it when you did notwant it too.
• Came with a remote control so you could cry over it while you kept hitting the buttons randomly in the vain hope the HP Pavilion dv9000 would pity me and boot up.
• Would NEVER boot up when a server went offline, client problems or anything when I actually needed it to work.
• When booted, often disabled the wireless and would refuse to work without rebooting it. Of course once it rebooted it beeped in your face.
• The only laptop that has not yet been hit !!!
• The only laptop to actually get professional help.
• Fan flew off after first repair.
• Was repaired via a 3rd party (link here) and repaired two times as of writing this blog article.
• Ran both Windows 7 and Mandriva Linux. It also ran Windows XP and Ubuntu on it but currently aren’t installed on it. Also ran Windows 2003 Server, Windows XP, Ubuntu, ReactOS in VirtualBox but refused to run Fedora.
• Status: Under Re-Re Repair (Confirmed working as on 12 Jan, 2010)
• Rating: 10/10 (Current System) – -1000/10 for pissing me off – -100000000/10 for reliability.

Random Facts

• When not working, can take up to eight hours to boot.
• All of my websites backups are currently on this laptop, you can see where this is going ca notyou ?
• All design & video editing is done on here. This is the reason why the Tweaked for your Viewing Pleasure videos are currently delayed.

And there we have it folks. Was Adam right or not ?

Publish on January 12th, 2010