I Restored My FIRST Laptop!

This is a trip down memory lane. My FIRST laptop was a Dell XPS from 10 years ago and I wanted to give this old laptop an upgrade to see if its still usable in 2021. But the bigger question is can I first bring it back to life!? This old laptop might need some repairs and troubleshooting before its even useable though....

This video is sponsored by Corsair. As per Hardware Canucks guidelines, no review direction was received from manufacturer. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

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#laptopupgrade #laptoprepair #hardwarecanucks

[PaulHojda]

In 2011, a laptop from 2001 would be unusable. In 2021, a laptop from 2011 is perfectly usable.

[GigawattGarage]

10:11 OK, so, you still have the button that says "view optional updates". That's going to install all the drivers you thought u had to manually look for. I'm always refurbishing 1st-4th gen intel laptops and desktops and with at least 6GB of ram and a quality SSD, these machines are more than enough for an average user to browse the web, do school work or run simple windows apps. I usually can get the fingerprint readers to work as well with Windows 10. Windows 10 is really good about finding drivers by itself.

[shadowfox]

I repair laptops for a living and you did a great job on this. If anyone has an old laptop laying around that they want to breathe some new life into, if you add a ssd and as much ram as the motherboard supports, then it is a relatively cheap way to extend its life.

[lnk]

Honestly this laptop still looks super stylish on the outside even though it's a heccing chonker

[animeXL]

Hey, my L502X is still going to this day. Upgraded the RAM, put in an SSD and a new battery. Might get another 10 years out of it. Still some of the best audio ever in a laptop.

[whalemonstre]

Interesting video - love seeing older machines being restored. Only thing missing was repasting the CPU/GPU with new paste!

[lucasarndt]

For this video I just pulled my dell xps17 of the same era out too. It's definitely a wild ride down the memory road and I didn't touch it in over 3 years. Definitely a very reliable laptop which served me for 7 years very well.
Thanks for this video today. 😊

[GabrielFerreira-dkot]

this era of dell laptop keyboards is, in my opinion, the best ever

[DickTangoTV]

I like the idea of this video, but not a fan of the execution. Would have loved to see an upgraded GPU and/or RAM, maybe a deeper dive into the trackpad issue, a time lapsed physical deep clean or something similar. This was really just reinstalling an SSD and windows onto an old laptop across 13 minutes.

Before I realized there wasn't gonna be more to the vid, I even thought to myself that the pacing of some of the lines and edits felt sluggish.

Honesty a fine video, just thought there is some room for feedback, you guys put out so much great content, keep it up!

[henriquemartins]

I would suggest installing a lightweight linux distro, see how it compares in performance against windows 10

[sauloleao]

Dude, I have the same laptop. I used it for 10 years. I bought a new laptop this year. Now I use it as a HTPC in my living room

[dracon]

Good video, i think for old devices like that you should give a try for linux Distro, maybe have better compatibility of components and drivers, SSD and RAM is a way to upgrade laptops.

[jeyendeoso]

Any chance of doing a repaste video too? :-)
Also as people already commented, give linux a try.
I personally reccomend Linux Mint or Zorin OS, both are very good and easy to use, and ZorinOS looks really good!

[The_Unpunished]

I have (and still use) pretty much the same laptop specs wise, although I upgraded mine to 16GB of RAM, i7 2860qm and replaced DVD drive with 1TB 7200 Barracuda and installed 860 EVO 250GB. 540m is really slow, but at least I can still play retro games easily.
With some software tinkering, I was able to configure OBS to stream on Twitch and play older games. Didn't expect it to work that well (quality is still meh, but I expected it not to work at all).

[adityasinghal]

when his first laptop has better specs than my current laptop.

[ChandrabhanAhuja]

This content was just so refreshing! Thank you for this Eber!

[SoundFX]

I actually Restored and Upgraded my Lenovo B570 Laptop a Few Years Ago.

Original Specs were an Intel Pentium B950 Dual-Core CPU, 3GB of DDR3-1333 RAM, 320GB WD Blue HDD, and Integrated Intel HD Graphics, and I bought it back in 2011 for $300.

Upgraded it around 2016 to have an Intel Core i7-2820QM ($70), 16GB of CORSAIR Vengeance DDR3-1600 RAM ($100), a 250GB Samsung PM830 mSATA SSD ($30), a 750GB WD Blue HDD ($50), and Integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 (No Dedicated GPU could be Installed).

It's not good in terms of E-Sports Gaming (For Example, it can barely run TF2 at 1080p low at 30 FPS), but it can do Emulation and Light Gaming, as an Everyday Laptop, It's Phenomenal.

I've heard of a Mini-PCIe or Express Card to PCI-E X16 Graphics Card Dock Called the EXP GDC that allows you to hook up a Dedicated GPU to your Laptop using the Respective Slot on your Laptop. Might be worth a try on that.


Great Video Nonetheless. Keep up the Great Work!

[jakeeheredia]

Crazy. I took my old Toshiba (and HP a while ago..) and brought it back to life by putting a new battery in it, SSD, memory, and CPU. All in all it was pretty cheap "upgrade" It runs great now and the experience is very smooth. These old Sandy/Ivy bridge laptops still have some kick to them with a little TLC.

[diarx]

Making me feel old, 10 years doesn't feel that far away to me.. Was given a base spec l502x a colleague who had trouble with how slow it was and upgraded, it was only a few years old at the time. Slowly upgraded with both used ebay and handmedown parts from my other laptops, from i3 to i7, 2gb to 8gb ram, 720p to 1080p screen, mech drive to 250gb ssd, and N to AC wifi minicard. Taken it apart more times than I can remember!

Its never been one of my main desktops/laptops, but has served as a great reliable spare, something I'm never fussed over loaning out to family or friend in a pinch if their own hardware crapped out, or that I can leave in my parked car somewhere without being devastated if it ever got stolen compared to my other laptops.

[GallusYo]

This was my first laptop ever! I eventually changed to a Lenovo Y50, but despite the performance boost, it always felt like an inferior laptop because the XPS was just too premium in built quality and screen.