What to do with old Laptops?

honest1

honest1

Adept
Hi,
I have 3-4 laptop at home and equal number of them in my office as well. These are old laptop with some issue or another. Some are in working condition and some are dead. I am really not sure what to do with these!
Can you guys tell what you do with old laptops and if there is any value in it?
 
Core 2 duo or dual core ... Not much use for f more than 5 years old . If. I3 or I 5 upto 8 to 10 years back then can support win 11 unofficially and if Ram can be upgraded to 8 gb and SSD added . If Linux to be installed then the same can be done and will work with SSD and 4gb ram .
 
I am still using my laptops from 2010 era.
All office applications run fine on them, in fact I can also play games from previous era.
And then previously I was using them as media server.

If nothing else then you can donate to institutions like orphanage etc - where they surely will have ideas to put the computers to use.
 
ibose said:
If they are working or if you can get them repaired, then many NGOs need functional laptops -
sadsindia.org

Share At Door Step - Donate old Laptop at your doorstep!

Schedule a donation pickup. Donate reusable clothes, shoes, toys, stationery, furniture, electronics to trusted NGOs. Easy, transparent, hassle-free service to give away old items.
sadsindia.org sadsindia.org
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I am happy to donate but would like to avoid the hassle of getting them repaired. Dont have bandwidth to do that and due to this aspect only, the laptops are lying idle.
 
Yeah. I want to know this too. I too have one such laptop and many phones. It's not worth the money to spend time and money on them anymore. These things are beyond repair.

I should have exchanged or sold them off when these were in working condition. In the future, I won't keep the devices for so long that I practically become a hoarder of e-waste.
 
Use them as home servers tbh, ya know install linux and docker, an selfhost a bunch of useful stuff
like Nextcloud or Valutwarden or maybe even a Plex/Jellyfin Instance. Pihole can be really good and it's a good learning experience
 
honest1 said:
I am happy to donate but would like to avoid the hassle of getting them repaired. Dont have bandwidth to do that and due to this aspect only, the laptops are lying idle.
Click to expand...
Donate the ones which are working or need a change of battery. The ones which are totally dead will go as ewaste; if in a city check for local companies managing ewaste. The other option is to sell as scrap to the local raddiwala but that is risky since they usually don't know how to handle or dispose ewaste.
 
These laptop are having issues like keys (2-3 keys) are not working, hinge not working and laptop is not closing, etc. Due to all these issues, getting them repaired gets tricky as well.
 
honest1 said:
These laptop are having issues like keys (2-3 keys) are not working, hinge not working and laptop is not closing, etc. Due to all these issues, getting them repaired gets tricky as well.
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Hinge is not a big issue for donation. Just fix the panel on a wooden or acrylic sheet and turn it into a desktop PC-like system and give it a local NGO. Keypad problem can be bypassed by using external keyboard or replacing them with a used one from your local PC scrap dealer. There are lots of them in the cities.
Rural kids can make use of any computer as long as it's not faulty. Buying brand new PC's are very costly for their use imo.
 
lockhrt999 said:
Installed Atlas OS on an old laptop. It's not an entirely different operating system. It's windows 10 but debloated. C drive used space went to just 10 GBs. More than half of the processes are removed. RAM usage is reduced.

The installation is actually very easy.
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Nice. Although more appropriate for offline use. LTSC is another good option.
 
lockhrt999 said:
Installed Atlas OS on an old laptop. It's not an entirely different operating system. It's windows 10 but debloated. C drive used space went to just 10 GBs. More than half of the processes are removed. RAM usage is reduced.

The installation is actually very easy.
Click to expand...
I also saw Linus' video.
Cos are no windows updates, potential software incompatibilities and maybe in future possibly broken driver installs.
It's just too risky for a stable system.

As suggested, better to use LTSC for non-gaming machines. Even for gaming LTSC is good but no Xbox store games at least out of the box.
 
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enthusiast29 said:
As suggested, better to use LTSC for non-gaming machines. Even for gaming LTSC is good but no Xbox store games at least out of the box.
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Just checked what the heck is LTSC. It seems to be a better version of the windows 10. I might install it on my main system one day. Looks cool.
 
For laptops that you dont wish to repair and is just about switching on and off.

Try to buy something from Croma or Reliance digital and ask for old laptop to be exchanged for discount price on it.

they exchange it not just for another laptop. they will take it for most expensive stuff like - Airfryer, Microwave, Washing Machine etc.
They just need to see if it switches on and off.

Sometime back I got Air Fryer Philips worth Rs 8000 above ...for Rs 4000 in exchange of a old laptop that had issues but was switching on and off. Very slow though they checked it still think got a good price......you could probably switch it on and then go make your self boil egg/butter bread and tea and when you come back the windows Logo will finally show up.
 
solo_wing said:
For laptops that you dont wish to repair and is just about switching on and off.

Try to buy something from Croma or Reliance digital and ask for old laptop to be exchanged for discount price on it.

they exchange it not just for another laptop. they will take it for most expensive stuff like - Airfryer, Microwave, Washing Machine etc.
They just need to see if it switches on and off.

Sometime back I got Air Fryer Philips worth Rs 8000 above ...for Rs 4000 in exchange of a old laptop that had issues but was switching on and off. Very slow though they checked it still think got a good price......you could probably switch it on and then go make your self boil egg/butter bread and tea and when you come back the windows Logo will finally show up.
Click to expand...
I did not know you could exchange for other things. I will keep this in mind.
 
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