In other news, today (besides getting a cool bevel gear cutter) I also received a used Intel i5 2450M processor from an ebay seller for $19. Destined for my tank of a Laptop, an eight year old Acer Aspire 5349-2635 with an equally modest Celeron B815 running two whole cores at the unremarkable speed of 1.6 ghz.
Now this laptop has been running for me an estimated 10,000 hours since I bought it new in 2012. It was a modest performer even by those standards then, and cost me a whopping $275, new, from WalMart. As you can see I'm into power computing
![:zap:](https://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/electricf.gif)
Why would I use such pathetic hardware for 8 years. Well I'll tell you. I run Puppy Linux. And that makes it fast. Like maybe 4 times faster than whatever other operating system I could have run on it. In fact I bought it knowing that it was going to run Puppy all its life, and I didn't need more. I have done everything on that computer since, and since it's a very well built 2.5 kg tank, it has held up extremely well. I've replaced one keyboard (completely worn out) One optical drive, and one hard drive (not because it failed, just because it seemed 7 years was asking a lot of a hd.)
Everything I've ever posted here on this forum, done here, at work, and in a lot of other places of interest to me, for the better part of a decade was done with this computer. Word processing, image editing, spreadsheet calculators, 3D CAD, CNC coding, web work, TV, everything.
But it has finally met its match while editing complex videos. Like 100 clip videos. It struggles with those in a 32 bit Puppy with an old video editor program. Using a 64 bit Puppy with newer progs., it does worse. (btw there are different versions of Puppy, I have 4 Puppy OS's onboard this computer, as well as being able to boot into Win 7 -- which I've never bothered upgrading)
So I was considering getting a newer laptop, etc. Then the thought, "Can I upgrade the proc in this thing?" Well, the answer is, yes I can. And so a slight trek down the online CPU rabbit hole netted me archived threads discussing upgrades to my proc in 2012. A search of ebay for the best candidate netted me the i5-2450M at the somewhat reduced price of $19, formerly $225.
True it was still only 2 cores, but twice as many threads, better graphics support, more features and ran at 2.5Ghz vs my former 1.6. A site online allowed me to have a detailed performance comparison report calculated for the two procs. Here it is:
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/896/Intel_Core_i5_Mobile_i5-2540M_%28PGA%29_vs_Intel_Mobile_Celeron_Dual-Core_B815.htmlThat showed at least double the performance. So I took the plunge. Not often you can double the performance of your laptop for $19. And it got here today!
I'd like to say I simply popped it in and ran, but it really is a tank. I had to take out maybe 20+ screws from both sides of the case just to crack it open. Had to undo half a dozen cables. This thing is on the inside very ruggedly and well built. I remember reading that on Tom's Hardware before I bought it. It's true.
Anyway, got it apart, got the fan and heatpipe assembly out (3 screws), cleaned off the heat compound on the old CPU and the cooler. Released the CPU (one screw) and removed it to a antistatic bag. Replaced it with the new CPU, and locked it in. I took the fan and cleaned it with compressed air (holding the fan still so as not to over rev it). 8 years of dust but it didn't actually look too bad. Then I put new heat compound on the CPU, and reversed all the steps. Crossed fingers and.....
It booted! Yay!
As a test I went into Bionicpup (a 64 bit Puppy) and tried out both Openshot and Kdenlive editors on a video project both had choked on. Both ran smoothly! Woohoo!
I also rebooted into Tahrpup (a 32 bit Puppy) and as expected Openshot 1.4.3 worked well, as it had in that OS, but actually, better, definitely faster rendering, and no stuttering on a complicated (100+ clip) project, which it used to do occasionally.
So, best nineteen bucks I ever spent on a computer!
![:thumbup:](https://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/happy0034.gif)
And I haven't yet received an additional 4 gigs of RAM ($24) I sent for, which will double my also modest memory.
I know all this sounds pathetic to current computer afficionados, but at least it'll provide a chuckle. To me.....:
Happy day!
![:ddb:](https://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/dancenana.gif)