*finds laptop that some family member abandoned years ago*
"ah, yes, you. i remember you. do you work still?"

this is gonna be the adventure of the day i guess. battery is dead, as to be expected. but for some reason, the laptop yells "use an official charger or im gonna explode angrily!" even though i am using the only charger it has ever known, the original, the one that came with it. that is weird.

following the charger warning, goes the rtc battery whining. that was to be expected as well, i guess.

then after that, comes the "hdd is dead lol" one. this one is easy but its gonna require me grabbing some hdd or ssd to try to see if it can boot, so a bit more annoying but eh

the poor thing, crying even before the bios logo showed up, asked me to run a self diagnostic check. in less than 2 minutes, it yelled (loudly) about like 5 things being bad. that was... faster than i expected. the ram at least seems to be fine, but it hasnt been fully tested yet

this poor laptop was in a corner, in a dusty place, just enjoying being dead. and then i bothered him. poor little thing, but i want to check if you can do certain stuff

-50 minipoints because its cover is broken and i cut my hand with it, and also because the whole carcass is metalic (i think it was a professional market laptop) and it weighs like four times what it should. it for sure weighs more than any "ultra gaming laptop" that i have ever touched (not many, but still) and is smaller (and more of a square rather than a rectangle). also i do remember how this thing overheated like hell, no matter what, and the fan made a lot of noise all the time

okay i have decided that the ram is in fact in working condition and doesnt need to be tested

i did get to the bios this time

"memory installed: 2048"
good
"memory available: 2045"
meh good enough

it is a dual core even, at a flaming 1.5ghz (if it werent for the overheating issues, i guess)

"video controller: quadro"
okay good

"battery 1: not installed
battery 2: not installed"
ok
"primary battery: the system cannoc communicate with this battery
module bay: not installed"
so... do you somewhat detect it then? even if just a little?

blah blah blah incorrect date, blah blah blah boot order sequence diskette drive (weird sinde this thing doesnt have that afaik) blah blah modem, 1394, serial and parallel port working mode, etc etc. i cant turn down the brightness while in the bios and it is stuck at max and its giving me a headache, so im gonna go the surprise route instead of reading what exactly this thing has

edit: okay the bios is lagging. that cant be good lmao

edit 2: okay at reboot it froze at post. welp, that was a good run, i expected it to last longer tho

i do wonder tho, why a laptop has a marked "strike zone"

in blue, the intended strike zone
in red, the zone where the laptop was stricken
in yellow, the approximate area of the hdd bay

strike zone spoilers:

It's also for

The strike zone is for the hard drive,if dropped(3 ft. ) or hit (too hard) it locks the drive so no damage is caused.

also digging more into the "strike zone"

What does strike zone mean on my laptop?
Strike Zone is a standard feature on most Dell mobile platforms that helps protect hard drives from everyday bumps and bounces. Customers who value a hard drive capable of withstanding more rigorous handling include the military, emergency services, government, law enforcement, energy exploration and education.

long story short it booted. i installed some os in it. it did an autoreboot after that. no wifi drivers. i look for an usb dongle with the most generic drivers ever that i have somewhere. i get distracted along the way. "would this count as torturing a computer? and, would it work?"

anyway it died again before i could test it, and for once, im gonna give the benefit of doubt to the hdd because i've seen many hdd deaths and this doesnt look like one

the laptop itself gives tickles when you touch it due to low intensity "something is not grounded properly" im guessing. not enough to be a risk for me, but i really should not be plugging good usbs on this thing lol

Mountain Bluebird

mmmm while the laptop skeleton is mostly metal, it has a single plastic cover for the ram. it is half melted. small things i forgot with the years, ones that can have a fun side to remember

i wanted to see better the "strike zone", from the inside and stuff, but for the life of me i cannot open this laptop. i know i opened it a few times in the past, but it was long ago and i forgot how

it looks like one of those where you have to remove the keyboard first, but said keyboard is in uhhh conditions and i dont want to break it trying to find hidden tabs. plus, i dont have the necessary tools at hand and im too lazy to go get them right now (yes, i did have 5 ps2-usb adapters at hand. no, there was no specific reason for it.)

the positive thing of this all is: if i am unable to unmount anything, that means that i dont need to put the screws again because they are 100% not necessary for the laptop to keep into one piece. and, if over the course of time, it disassembles because of not having any screw, hey, i will learn how it is on the inside then. no downsides.